(Insert stupid Blog name here)

Oh, thanks for the reminder, I need to watch the first season!!

 

..Al

It's a good show. The character design still looks weird though. Their legs are so long it looks like everyone is walking around with a glow-in-the-dark atomic wedgie.

I don't have television at home, so I've missed out on this series so far, but I definitely need to check it out when (or if?) it's released on DVD because it sounds very interesting. Tron Legacy was a promising beginning, so I'm optimistic about the new direction Disney is taking with Tron. Hopefully this will include another feature film someday!

This episode is part of season 1, they took a 3 month break between the first and second half of the season. It'll probably be a while before a DVD is released. You can get it streaming via Amazon or iTunes. If you have iTunes you can check out the first episode for free - TRON: Uprising, Vol. 1

Didn't know this was still the first season. So technically, the blog title should be Tron 1.5.1.5.

 

But I'm entirely too lazy to change it.

Two week update: Scars pt. 1 and pt. 2.

 

This was one of the best storylines of Tron: Uprising so far. Tron gets really, really angry at a guy named Dyson (probably no relation to the vacuum cleaner dude), and sets off to kill him. Of course Beck sees this as a bit of a problem, and heads off to stop him.

 

This episode ties in most directly with events we saw in Tron: Legacy, and in fact recaps and expands on them, explaining how Tron got where he is, and we even get to see Flynn and Clu in this episode (both excellently voiced by Fred Tatasciore). Very cool! I hope they can do more of this, filling in pieces of that puzzle.

 

We still don't know how Tron eventually becomes Rinzler (and probably won't until the series comes to an end at some point), but it's nice to have more backstory in place, and see more of Clu used in the show. He makes for a very powerful, sinister presence.

Episodes are coming in fits and starts, but last week brought Grounded, which you would think would be a good thing for a series based on computers, since you know... you generally want to plug them into a grounded outlet.

 

But what really happened, was Beck got grounded by his boss for always skipping work. Tesler, meanwhile, decided to publicly use hostages to draw Beck out into the open, and slap him upside the head with his upgraded arm-thingys. It was a pretty good episode, as another character now knows who the Renegade is, so that adds some more potential complications to the story. Also, we're starting to see Paige become a little less enamored with Tesler. Or maybe more enamored with the Renegade?

 

The next episode has a really compelling title: We Both Know How This Ends.

 

Looking forward to it!

So, do we both now know how this ends?

 

Well, no.

 

But Able (who runs the garage where Beck works) and Tron apparently do. But they aren't telling us. I'm guessing though, that it would be "bad". Or "badly". One of the two. It may be Tron has gone down this whole apprentice road before and it didn't work out.

 

We finally got to see Grid Bugs in action. They're tiny. About the size of, well, bugs. I always thought they were bigger. They looked pretty big in the movie and arcade game. Anyway, they also qualify as "bad", as in you probably don't want to find yourself in the middle of a swarm of them.

 

Meanwhile, with Able off talking to Tron, the garage is left in the hands of Mara, just when they get a whole bunch of tanks that they have to fix by the end of the day. Tanks that Beck broke in the first place. That's what you get for being a rebel.

Well, I had six episodes on the DVR to catch up on, which I did this afternoon. Unfortunately, it appears these could be among the last. Rumors have it that Tron: Uprising has been canceled. Certainly Disney XD has buried the show in a midnight time slot, making it unlikely for people to find it. It's really too bad, since these were some excellent episodes - nicely propelling the series forward.

 

So... minor spoiler alert. If you haven't caught up, do so.

 

First - The Stranger. Beck stumbles across a mysterious character, trapped in compressed space. Turns out, he was Tron's first Renegade protege, which didn't exactly work out. Now, the guy wants out of what turns out was a prison, and Beck is his key. It brings up some interesting points, about whether or not the programs actually have any free will, or if everything they do is merely the inevitable result of their programming. Meanwhile, Tron and Able (who knew Beck was the renegade) are out to try and stop some big machine from being built. Apparently they didn't succeed.

 

Tagged follows three rebellious programs who have begun tagging "Tron Lives" throughout the grid (digital graffiti looks really cool, by the way), so Beck decides to recruit them to help him out. Imagine his surprise when one turns out to be his friend Mara, who he ends up putting in grave danger.

 

In State of Mind the occupation has developed a mind control pathogen, designed to turn everyone against the Renegade, and become blindly loyal to Clu. One of those affected is Mara, who had been one of the Renegade's biggest supporters. So Beck has to team up with a reluctant Zed to find a cure and turn the tables.

 

Welcome Home was about the program who had been forced to develop the pathogen, who is now on the run. Beck and Paige are both after her, when Pavel steps in to cause a ruckus. The runaway train cliché gets some fresh life breathed into it, and Beck (not in his Renegade guise) manages to actually connect on some level with Paige. We also find out more about Paige, and why she's more concerned with this runaway program than she is about merely apprehending her.

 

Rendevous had Beck and Paige hooking up for a date. Beck was hoping that he could recruit her for the uprising, but some shenanigans by Pavel ended up landing both Paige and Beck in jail, in danger of being executed. There was a lot of double-dealing in this episode, and made for a really good exploration of Paige's character.

 

Finally, No Bounds brought back the original Renegade from The Stranger (now named Cyrus), who was out to free the grid - by destroying it. The episode ended with a "choose between which of your friends I blow up" cliché, where Zed and Mara are tied to one set of explosives, and Tron to another. And while the series has at times shown programs de-rezzed (and tortured), this one ups the ante with some truly tragic consequences. In the end, things are worse than ever for Beck.

 

Hopefully the series won't come to an end abruptly. They've got some good story and character arcs going. But with the series being unceremoniously bounced around their schedule, maybe Disney's already made the call. I guess there's always the soundtrack CD.

And so Tron: Uprising comes to an end.

 

The final episode - Terminal - aired the other week. The title refers to a terminal program. Not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that Tron's condition has worsened, and he's now terminal. To fix him, Beck and Tron have to risk everything, by turning Tron in to be repurposed by Clu's henchmen. If they can interrupt the process, it will conveniently cure Tron. If they don't, well, Tron will become (spoiler!!) Rinzler. Which, you know, he eventually does anyway.

 

Meanwhile, Mara and her friends have to make some tough choices about whether or not they even trust the Renegade anymore, even as Pavel's forces take over the garage where they work.

 

The episode ends with Tron kicking someone's butt, and Clu heading into town with his entire army.

 

Just when things are really getting going... the series stops dead in its tracks. Thanks for that, Disney.

 

But we can extrapolate on what may happen, based on what we know from Tron: Legacy.

 

First, at some point, Tron does become Rinzler.

 

Beck and all of his friends are probably taken prisoner and repurposed by Clu, and, as part of his army of mindless drones, die in the massive cataclysm at the end of Tron: Legacy when Flynn re-integrates Clu and everything blows up.

 

So, uh... the end. I guess.

 

(Maybe they'll continue it in a comic book or something.)

 

Too bad, especially since the show just won two Annie Awards. Award-wise this is about as significant as winning a free small order of french fries during McDonald's Monopoly giveaway, but hey - free fries, right?

 

Anyway, the aforementioned Tron: Uprising soundtrack is pretty good. Very much in keeping with the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, as many of the synth setups from that were used for the TV show. Unfortunately, it's download only, unless you want Amazon to burn a CD-R for you. Physical media collectors need not apply.

 

Meanwhile... there's always Tron 3 to look forward to...

 

...maybe.