>>116727399Feels comparable to a meal made with the most prime ingredients but prepared by an amateur chef. The premise of the show is easily it's main appeal, being one of the most unique of the past decade and pretty engaging if Gemsonas are anything to go by. A majority of the characters have a surprising amount of depth to them with side characters being more three dimensional than the main characters of other shows. And, on paper, the plot had all the traits of an epic story that leaves its audience wanting more with every episode.
However everything falls apart with execution. The world and premise of Gems is woefully unexplored and the more we learned, the more obvious it became Rebecca and co were just making shit up about them as they went along (like how weapons stopped being a thing after season 1 or how corrupted gems were all but absent from the later seasons). The characters are a mixed bag with some being used more than they needed to be (Steven and the townies), but most being used far too little (essentially every Gem). That we never left Steven's POV while Lapis never talked to any of the original Crystal Gems, or how the Homeworld trio didn't interact with anyone but Steven and new characters in Future are choice examples of that.
Then the plot just drags. Anything it had going for it on paper is ruined by how long it takes for anything to happen, and how quickly they get resolved when they do. It's not helped by how passive the protagonists are; we're often times just waiting for the next Homeworld invasion because Steven and the gems never try to bring the fight to them. See how, on top of White only being introduced in the last 8 episodes of season 5, the main characters don't actually interact with the other Diamonds until the episode before.
It ends up being a show that's less than the sum of it's parts. Which is actually a pretty impressive feat, but leaves us with an ultimately disappointing show.
