Islands (miniseries)

Plot

Told in eight parts, Islands tells the story of Finn, Jake, BMO (voiced by Niki Yang) and Susan Strong (voiced by Jackie Buscarino) leaving Ooo and traveling across the ocean to solve the mystery of Finn's past. During their trip, they unlock secrets, encounter various creatures, make new friends, and explore a variety of mysterious islands. The trip culminates with a visit to Founder's Island, where Finn meets his mother, Minerva (voiced by Sharon Horgan), and discovers what happened to the remainder of the human race.

Production

In February 2015 at an upfront regarding Cartoon Network's programming for the 2015 to 2016 television season, the network announced that Adventure Time would air a special miniseries entitled Stakes during the show's seventh season. Comprising 8 episodes and airing in November 2015, this miniseries was a "phenomenal success, ranking as the #1 program in its time period with all key kids and boys audiences." Prior to the airing of Stakes, head story writer Kent Osborne revealed that the show would likely produce several more miniseries, and when it was announced that the series would end in 2018, the network's official press release stated that prior to the show's conclusion there would be "new episodes, mini-series, specials and more".

According to TheSlanted, Cartoon Network took to "teas[ing]" information about the Islands miniseries immediately prior to its release. For instance, in early November 2016, ComiXology announced that the graphic novel Islands would tie "into the huge Adventure Time: Islands television event, the mini-series airing on Cartoon Network this winter where Finn meets other humans and an important member of his family for the first time", and later that month, an Amazon.com page for a pre-order of the Islands DVD was made available. Similarly, on December 9, Cartoon Network revealed that the miniseries would have a unique title sequence. The announcements concerning the intro sequence, however, did not specifically explain what Islands was or when it would air. Official announcements detailing the miniseries were finally released on December 12, 2016 via a press release distributed to various media outlets.

Much like Stakes, Islands has a unique title sequence that was designed just for the miniseries. The new intro was storyboarded by Sam Alden and, much like the Stakes intro, was animated by Masaaki Yuasa's company Science SARU. The sequence was previewed via Cartoon Network's Facebook page and the official Adventure Time Tumblr on December 12; at this time, the latter noted: "We were incredibly fortunate to have the fantastic staff of Science SARU animate [the] intro for [the] Islands miniseries. [Science SARU is] so good it's breathtaking."

The miniseries' story was developed by head writer Kent Osborne, series showrunner Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, and Ashly Burch. Storyboard artists who worked on this miniseries include Sam Alden, Polly Guo, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Tom Herpich, Steve Wolfhard, Graham Falk, Pendleton Ward, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, Kent Osborne, and Adam Muto. Cole Sanchez and Elizabeth Ito served as the miniseries' supervising directors, and Sandra Lee served as art director.

Cast

The miniseries features vocal performances courtesy of the show's regular crew: Jeremy Shada (who voices Finn the Human), John DiMaggio (who portrays Jake the Dog), Olivia Olson (who portrays Marceline), Tom Kenny (who lends his voice to the Ice King), and Hynden Walch (who voices Princess Bubblegum). Niki Yang (who voices the sentient video game console BMO) and Jackie Buscarino (who lends her voice to the recurring character Susan Strong) also play an integral part in the miniseries. The Adventure Time cast records their lines together in group recordings as opposed to different recording sessions with each voice actor. This is to record more natural sounding dialogue among the characters. Hynden Walch has described these group recordings as akin to "doing a play reading—a really, really out there play."

The miniseries also features several guest actors lending their voices to various characters. Josh Fadem voices Whipple the sea-dragon, Helena Mattsson plays Alva, Reggie Watts voices Vinny, Jasika Nicole voices Freida, Livvy Stubenrauch plays young Kara/Susan, Sharon Horgan voices Finn's mother Minerva, Laraine Newman lends her voice to the Widow. Likewise, Lennon Parham and Stephen Root reprise their roles as Dr. Gross and Finn's father Martin, respectively. Root had previously appeared in a string of sixth-season episodes, beginning with "Escape from the Citadel", and Parham and last voiced her character in the seventh-season finale "Preboot".

Broadcast

Islands aired as part of the show's eighth season on Cartoon Network from January 30, 2017, to February 2, 2017. The miniseries will make its international debut on Cartoon Network Australia on March 13, 2017.

Ratings

The premiere episodes, "The Invitation"/"Whipple the Happy Dragon", were collectively watched by 1.20 million viewers and they both scored a 0.3 in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic according to Nielsen (Nielsen ratings are audience measurement systems that determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States); this means that 0.3 percent of all households with viewers aged 18 to 49 years old were watching television at the time of the episodes' airing. This made the two episodes the most-watched installments of the series, in terms of viewers, since the seventh-season episode "Five Short Tables", which was viewed by 1.36 million viewers. The miniseries' final two episodes, "Helpers" and "The Light Cloud", were collectively viewed by 1 million viewers, and scored a 0.27 in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic.

Critical reception

Pre-release reviews of the miniseries were largely positive. Zack Smith of Newsarama gave the miniseries a largely positive review and called it "fan service writ large, one that will prove immensely satisfying for long-term fans of the series". He applauded the way the string of episodes managed to start out with self-contained stories and move into a dense and emotional backstory. Tonally, Smith described the miniseries as possessing "the feel of an old-school post-apocalyptic SF saga—a journey through a devastated-but-wondrous world, with a sense of danger and mystery detached from the Land of Ooo." Smith's only complaint was that "there's enough rich emotional material once the voyagers reach their destination that it feels like more time could be spent there". Matthew Jacobson of The Spectrum wrote that "the story is masterful and imaginative" and that "if Islands is a litmus test, then the final season should be one heck of an adventure."

Post-release reviews were also positive. Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club awarded the miniseries an "A" and wrote that it "can be seen as a summary of Adventure Time's growth over seven seasons, beginning with smaller, sillier tales that build to something much deeper." He applauded how Islands "does fantastic work fleshing out supporting characters", specifically highlighting the show's nuanced and multidimensional portrayal of Martin, Dr. Gross, and Susan Strong. He wrote that the miniseries' main story is "a powerful thesis statement cementing the show's overall message that adventure is at the core of personal discovery and fulfillment", and that this same story is "extremely relevant to the United States' current socio-political climate". Dave Trumbore of Collider.com wrote that the string of episodes were "packed full of emotional resonance and deeply complex character relationships" and "dip[ped] into some emotionally difficult territory". Trumbore was particularly complimentary towards the way the show managed to explicate Susan's character by giving her a compelling backstory. Ultimately, Trumbore wrote that while "Adventure Time: Islands succeeds in every aspect the series has become known for," it also "comes up short in familiar ways ... Unfortunately, the style (and the duration) of Adventure Time episodes works against ... delving into [the show's] mythology ... so we'll just have to obsess over whatever glimpses we get and settle for watching this series again and again."

In a highly complimentary review for The New Republic, Juliet Kleber wrote that "Islands does a dizzying amount of plot development in 80-something minutes." Furthermore, she argued that "Finn's coming-of-age story and the exploration of the post-apocalyptic plotline" as featured in the miniseries "are handled just as deftly as any other subject—with fun and a tinge of sorrow." Zach Blumenfeld of Paste Magazine gave Islands a slightly more mixed, albeit still positive, review. He complimented the philosophical musing of the miniseries, which he argued "takes on shades of Black Mirror and existentialism to cast a critical eye on technology and the human spirit." Blumenfeld wrote:

Post-apocalyptic worlds typically treat technology in one of two ways: extreme development (e.g. The Hunger Games) or none at all (e.g. Hawaii in Cloud Atlas). Islands adopts the former standpoint, giving us a world in which incredibly advanced bioengineering and cybernetics have kept humans alive and ensconced in relative comfort. But the twist is that the very scientific drive to innovate and develop these technologies is precisely what damned our species in the first place. The weapons that blew apart a quarter of the planet were human-made; even in the peace and security of the Islands, Dr. Gross (Lennon Parham)—a chilling villain who I hope we'll meet again—succumbed to ambition, and she ended up killing 62% of the surviving human population with a supervirus. What Islands ends up delivering, therefore, is the most harrowing answer to Fermi's famous paradox: Intelligent life will inevitably destroy itself.

With this being said, he felt that episodes such as "Whipple the Happy Dragon" and "Mysterious Island" took time away from the main story, compacting Finn's emotional reaction to Founder's Island, which resulted in "relative emotional emptiness".

Home media

Warner Home Video released the entire miniseries digitally and on DVD on January 24, 2017. This release was notable because it marked the second time that Adventure Time episodes had been released on home media before officially airing on Cartoon Network (the first instance being the release of the episode "Princess Day" on the DVD of the same name on July 29, 2014).

Comic book

In October 2016, it was announced that the stand-alone comic book, Islands, written by series' storyline writer Ashly Burch would function as a prequel to the miniseries. The book was released on December 6, 2016.