Hello all! You may or may not recognize me from when I’ve popped up in random threads, but I am a relatively recent addition to the Avocado community. Since joining in February 2023, I’ve had the vague idea in the back of my mind of posting episodic reviews of some of my favorite animated series. I have never written a review longer than a couple of sentences before, which has been a source of anxiety whenever the idea has come up. After spending four months on the site and becoming familiar with the commentariat and the welcoming culture, I have finally found the confidence to move ahead. First up (and hopefully not last!) we have…Infinity Train!
For those unfamiliar with Infinity Train, the show was created by Owen Dennis, a former writer and storyboard artist on Regular Show, with the initial pilot being released in 2016. After being picked up for a series order, the show ran for four critically acclaimed seasons from 2019 to 2021 (first on Cartoon Network, then on HBO Max) before being unceremoniously cancelled. Although this run was nothing to sneeze at, Dennis’s original plan was for eight seasons (or seven seasons and a movie, it’s been kind of unclear). To add insult to injury, the show was swept up in Warner Bros.-Discovery’s purge of content from HBO Max in 2022 despite being an HBO Max Original for its final two seasons, resulting in its disappearance from streaming platforms. To this day the only way to legally watch the show is to purchase the seasons through Amazon, Apple TV, or Google TV. Thanks, Zaslav.
Infinity Train is an anthology show, with each ten-episode season following a different set of core characters and having a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Despite this, certain characters and overarching storylines do pop up in multiple seasons, creating a sense of continuity. The show became known for its unique blend of humor and darkness, and for its mature handling of complex themes. The setting, as can likely be gleamed from the name, is an infinitely long train made up of massive cars, each containing their own unique environment and citizens. People from our world will sometimes find themselves waking up on this mysterious train with a glowing number etched on their hand – a number that can change based on some unknown criteria. What does the number mean? Why does it change? Are the passengers truly selected at random? And what is the train’s purpose? Let’s find out!
My plan, after today, is to review two episodes each week – which should theoretically bring the total length of this review series to twenty weeks. The reviews, at least for now, will drop at 12:00 PM CST/1:00 PM EST on each Wednesday. I would like to split the reviews for each episode into sections – Synopsis, My Thoughts, Episode MVP (the character who I believe most shined in the episode), My Totally Arbitrary Car Ranking, My Totally Arbitrary Episode Ranking, Cast Additions, and Trivia/Stray Observations. I’ll try this out for the first few reviews and see if the format needs any tweaking. I will try my best to avoid including any spoilers for future episodes within the reviews themselves. Additionally, since the show can be difficult to find outside of purchasing it, I will try to incorporate YouTube clips from the show when possible.
Without further ado, let’s get started with the pilot!
“Pilot”, Season –, Episode —
As part of its purge of HBO Max, Warner Bros.-Discovery also removed a number of Infinity Train-related videos from the Cartoon Network YouTube channel – including the pilot. Fortunately, a number of other channels have re-posted the episode. I will link to one here for your convenience:
Synopsis – The episode opens in media res, with middle-schooler Tulip stuck aboard a mysterious train barreling its way through what appears to be some kind of wasteland. While a spherical robot named One-One (which appears to have dueling happy and sad personalities) bounces around trying to solve a balance puzzle, Tulip muses about the mysterious glowing number on her hand (currently at 53) that she can’t seem to get rid of. After One-One manages to snap her out of her reverie, she is quickly able to solve the puzzle, revealing in the process that One-One can split into two separate robots (Sad One and Glad One). They move on to the next car together.
Some hijinx ensue involving a particularly flatulent car, and then Tulip and One-One find themselves at another door. Tulip wonders hopefully that it could be her way home, but to her disappointment (and our delight) discovers that it leads to a car filled with talking corgis. The duo is immediately introduced to the regal king of the corgis, Atticus, who proceeds to lead her on a tour of the car and its elegant Roman-themed architecture. Tulip, anxious to find her way home, tries to speed things along but the tour is cut short when the river that passes through the territory suddenly and inexplicably floods. Tulip, One-One, and the corgis run for shelter, where Atticus reveals that the river has been acting unusual ever since a shadowy monster began to pop up in the distance beyond the water a week earlier.
Once the floodwaters recede, Tulip reluctantly agrees to help Atticus deal with the monster on the theory that its appearance could be connected to her number. After a false alarm involving a spider, the trio encounters a monstrous, many tentacled robot (named The Steward in the credits) that seems to be messing with some machinery beneath the car’s scenery. It confronts Tulip and Atticus but then mysteriously leaves through a gap in the car wall shortly after One-One shows up. Tulip’s number suddenly decreases to 49, giving her hope that she may finally be on the right track.
My Thoughts – This is pretty much an ideal pilot. It gives us a good sense of our main characters’ personalities right off the bat, deftly introduces the setting both by giving us an exterior shot of the train and the wasteland and by showing us three very different car interiors in quick succession, and it sets up the core mysteries of the show without giving too much away. I honestly had forgotten how good the episode is at accomplishing all that. The art style and character design is pretty great too – expressive but not too simplistic – although still rough around the edges at this point. The use of color is also interesting as well, with the drab exterior of the train and wasteland contrasting nicely with the stark white of the second car and the brighter colors of the Corgi Car.
The humor is quite well-balanced for me, as well. As a former dog owner, the corgi jokes in particular landed well with me – from Atticus waffling about going outside to being terrified of shallow water to being confounded by a simple door. One-One’s whiplashing between over-the-top jubilance and morbid dryness feels like it could easily tip over the line from hilarious to obnoxious, but Tulip’s presence as the more serious foil helps to keep it in check. In general the pilot is a pretty spot-on encapsulation of the series’ style of humor moving forward.
And, of course, we are left with more questions at the end of the episode than we had when we started – which is kind of the point of a pilot, really. We still don’t know what the number means, how Tulip got on the train in the first place, what the purpose of the train is, what the Steward was doing, or how Tulip can get home. Don’t worry, though – all those questions and more will be answered in time!
Episode MVP – Atticus, of course. Because corgi.
My Totally Arbitrary Car Ranking – Corgi Car (definite A), Balance Car (C), Fart Car (F, for more than one reason)
My Totally Arbitrary Episode Ranking – A strong B+
Cast Additions – A relatively small voice cast in this episode, but with some notable members. Tulip is voiced by Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us game series, Growing Pains, and Critical Role among many other roles). Atticus is voiced by Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, in addition to a long career in film and television). And finally Sad One is voiced by Jeremy Crutchley (a British stage actor who has guest starred in a number of television series) and Glad One is voiced by Owen Dennis himself.
Trivia/Stray Observations –
- As we will see next week, the main series actually picks up before the start of this episode. In fact, the third episode is pretty much a revised and expanded version of the pilot.
- I could have sworn that the corgi who runs up to Atticus to warn about the flood sounded like Mordecai from Regular Show, but apparently it was just voiced by Owen Dennis. Maybe my hearing just isn’t as good as I thought it was.
- The official pilot video ended up with 5.2 million views, the most ever for a pilot on Cartoon Network’s YouTube channel.
- Owen Dennis has listed an eclectic selection of influences for the show, including Myst, The Adventures of Mark Twain, Star Trek Voyager, Sliders, Philip K. Dick, Doctor Who, and The Never-Ending Story. He has also referred to the show as ‘Saw for kids’, which I find kind of funny.
- If you look closely, you can see a frog eraser on the end of Tulip’s pencil. This is apparently a reference to Jason Funderburker (the frog, not the human – you’ll understand if you’ve seen it) from Over the Garden Wall, as one of the art directors worked on both series.
- The music for the show was composed by electronic artist Chrome Canyon. You will likely see me highlight specific songs from the show in coming weeks – as a huge fan of synth music, the soundtrack is right up my alley.
And there we have it! Next week we’ll get started on the series proper with The Grid Car and The Beach Car. Please share any thoughts about the pilot – or the series in general – below. Make sure to spoiler tag any references to future events in the series in case anybody is stumbling across the show for the first time, and follow all of the Avocado’s rules and guidelines.
Additionally, if you have any feedback you could provide regarding the format/style of these reviews and my writing, I would greatly appreciate it. I am also considering reviewing another show at some point in the future if everything goes well with this series – whether I review it simultaneously on a different day of the week or wait until I am finished with Infinity Train first, I haven’t decided yet. The other shows I am considering are Gravity Falls, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Hilda, Over the Garden Wall, and Amphibia. I wouldn’t be opposed to Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Regular Show, or Glitch Techs either. If you have a particular preference, or even one not listed here, sound off in the comments below!
Thanks so much for reading!