Well, this took awhile to get out, but I finally I did. I'm going to share my issues with the Beyond era as I promised in my last discussion where I talked about my thoughts on the new Eddsworld Patreon tiers. 

To be honest, I had plans on doing this topic for awhile, but I never got around to it until now. Beyond has been interesting to say the least, so let's go over my issues with it shall we. 

Oh and before we start, I would to say that this isn't a "Beyond sucks" type of discussion. I want to see the era succeed, but there are just some things holding it back. 

Without any further delay, let's begin. 

My issues with the new Episodes 

You think I was going to rant on the quality of the episodes? Nah, I'm not. This topic is actually the least problematic thing about the era. Shocking I know. 

Beyond started off pretty strong with the release of Fan Service 2 and Casting Call. It was so strong that I gave both of these reviews positive scores and gave the top spot of where I ranked them at. Well, my thoughts changed abut Fan Service 2 overtime but that's basic human nature. It's not a terrible episode, it's just okay.

After these two episodes, the quality kinda shifted downwards. We would get episodes that are good and sometimes we would get episodes are, well to put it lightly, mediocre. I'm not counting the Youtooz figure promotional video and Zombeh Picnic since they're not really episodes. They're just filler.

I'm not saying that Beyond is the only the era that has a lot of mixed episodes. Both Legacy and Classic era also had their far share of stickers. Remember not every single Eddsworld episode out there is a 10 out of 10 episode. Some people have their favorites and some people have their least favorites. So don't get too bummed out when someone tells you that they hate an episode that you like. It's called an opinion after all. 

Anyway back on topic, the episodes that Beyond has can vary in quality. It mostly depends on the person. 

Next is the jokes and I was going to make this into its own section but decided not to because they fit into the quality of the episodes so let's talk about it.

I'm going to be very honest, the jokes in later Beyond episodes so far have been a mixed bag for me. Some of the jokes are alright and sometimes they can come out as flat. Sometimes there's no joke at all and sometimes the joke that being told just drags on. 

I do want bring up two episodes to use as examples.  

Let's start off The Chronicles of Santa. At the first glance at the episode started off strong. We got we got to see Santa again and it gave us a look at the first Christmas which took place during the Stone Age. My only problem with the episode is how brief it was. I expected to be a bit longer considering that Santa didn't have a proper translation for the stone cravings, but no, it just ended there. It didn't feel like an episode and there was nothing funny to remember it by. ....Okay, that last part was a lie. I've laughed a bit when Caveman Santa threw two heavy boulders at Caveman Edd and Caveman Tom, but it was more of a snort than a funny haha type of laugh. Is there anything else that was funny about this episode? Hmmm, let me check....*flips several pages*..... Sadly no. 

Surf n Turf Pt. 1 was an improvement over Beaster Bunny considering that it had a lot more time in the oven and it wasn't rushed to be released before a holiday. It's not a perfect episode, but it's a step in the right direction. However, when I had to write my review on this episode I would often skip one scene. It's the scene with the scientist guy who had a cure to everything. The joke was that he was avoiding different objects that could easily kill him and make him drop the cure to everything. It sure was a joke alright, but did it really have to drag on to the point where it just slows the pacing down to a crawl? Look, I get what you trying to do, you don't have to spell it out for me, Matt. 

Like I know you said that you took inspiration from Edd's older episodes along with the artsyle and said that you're improving them, but Edd didn't drag any of the jokes that were in his episodes. That's not improvement, you're basically taking a step back. Also, what do you mean by improving Edd's older episodes? Are you talking about the animation? The way how jokes are delivered? The atmosphere? Like seriously, what are you improving? You didn't really go into detail about it. 

I'm kinda stuck here not gonna lie. Anyway, let's move along before I get a brain freeze.

The new background characters aren't interesting

Before we get into this section, I would like to say that I don't hate any of the new characters that got introduced in Beyond. It's just that there's nothing really interesting about them. They just exist to fill in the backgrounds and nothing else. Half the time, their the original characters of the current animators who are working on the series so there's really nothing going for them.

I know that Matt said that he didn't want to keep reusing the old characters which is totally understandable, but at the same time, it feels like he's simply ignoring their existence sometimes. Actually scratch that, they have been appearing in illustrations on Instagram and Twitter, comic strips, and in videos on TikTok which is fine, but I want them to appear in actual episodes.  

Instead of having the Evil Director (aka Bing) doing evil schemes, we have some generic evil scientist guy that only appears in one episode and is just there.

Hey kids, do you want Eduardo to appear in another episode? Well, if you said yes then it's your lucky day. There's a new episode takes place at a beach, let's see if Eduardo makes an appearance. Oh? He doesn't? Well, there's a beach bulky that acts exactly like how Eduardo use to be. I hope you like him, because he's replacing Eduardo for this episode.

Surf n Turf Wars Pt. 1 wasted the perfect opportunity to put Eduardo and Mark in it. Instead, we get an Eduardo wannabe that has two friends that literally act like Mark and Jon. Like I said in my review on the episode, Eduardo and Mark should've been in it and I still stand by that opinion to this day.

Again, I don't hate any of the new characters. I'm just so use to the already existing background characters since they had a lot more development to the point where they made cameos in later episodes. Hell, not every single character needed to appear again considering that the fandom grew an attachment towards them and pretty much expanded on their lore. Take a look at Patryck for example, he only appeared in one episode for a few minutes while having only one line of dialogue and he instantly became a fan favorite all because of it. 

Maybe as time goes by, the background characters in Beyond will probably get a lot more development and we will see more of them in future episodes. 

And for the love god, can we please get Kim and Katya content. It's been a good hot minute since we've last saw them. It's literally June, you know Pride Month, right now. You would think that they would appear in a pride month post, but no.

They're completely absent even though they were the first characters in canon to be lesbians. God damn it, Matt, give me my Kim and Katya wedding already. Also, please add to Mark to the pride month posts as well. He's confirmed to be gay. Like c'mon on man.

( We interrupt to this program with some breaking news.

Hey there guys, this is editing Lbat coming to you live in the future. While I was editing this, a new Pride Month illustration dropped showcasing the characters that I've mentioned that have been absent in previous Pride Month posts. Also Laurel was there in case if you were wondering. 

Guess the ew crew will remember these characters whenever they feel like it; however, my point still stands, they need to make more appearances in Beyond. 

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming )  

The lack of hype surrounding new episodes 

Soooooo, we finally got to point as to why I wanted to make this in the first place. I was actually inspired by mxtellion's post on the topic of there not being any hype surrounding the new episodes and I wanted to give my two cents on the subject.

Beyond has a habit of dropping new episodes randomly without any announcement beforehand which I have nothing against. It's nice to be surprised every once in awhile, but there's just one problem, we don't get any previews yet alone sneak peeks whenever an episode is being worked on or is close to being released. 

It's just straight up radio silence. During the Legacy era days, we would get a small preview along with an update whenever there's an episode coming. If the episode was delayed, there would be an update saying that it was being pushed back and tomska would put something out on one of his two channels to keep us occupied while he worked on the delayed episode in question. 

In all honestly, it was a nice system. He respected the patience of the fans and he kept to his promise when it came to putting out an episode in the highest quality. 

Meanwhile in current day Eddsworld, we sit in limbo hoping that a new episode drops and are supposed to be hype the moment when get a YouTube notification from the Eddsworld channel. Like, what can you do to keep yourself entertained while waiting for new episodes especially if you don't interact with the fandom? I can't even imagine what it would look like if I was an Eddsworld fan who only consumes the episodes and not what the fandom does. 

It would be very dull and boring. Sure, there's the comics and merch, but those are small crumbs of content. 

I bet you guys are sitting there thinking: "Yeah, waiting a longtime for a new episode to drop takes forever. But Lbat, there's the Eddsworld Patreon. Surely there's updates on what's going to happen in the near future and the ew crew constantly updates it" 

Well yeah, you do have a point, but you've missed the part where it's behind a paywall and I actually do have experience with it. So, do they update the Patreon on constant schedule? 

Well, they do, just barely. During my time of being apart of the Patreon, it would take the crew weeks to more than two months to post an update. I know they're busy and all, but it wouldn't hurt them to at least post a text post. Like, they don't have to post every week, but once a month would've been fine. 

But no, instead of posting every once in awhile they rather give the people literally paying them every month dead silence. It's not fun and it's a waste of time to the point where it gets boring. 

I can't even recommend it to someone who wants to join the Patreon. It's not worth it. 

The usage of Tord's character

We're finally at the closing stretch and to end this discussion off, I'll be talking about the treatment of Tord's character. I've been saving this for last and trust me on this, I have a lot to say. 

Remember the whole ew crew drama that happened back in 2021? If you don't, well, Bing posted a video where he talked about Tom's arse and said some pretty mean things to people who ship tomtord mostly calling them terrorists. Yeah, it was... uh.. not good and it lead to a whole summer of callouts of Bing having sexual assume allegations. Also, two people on the team got called out as being groomers. Jamie Spicer Lewis (the voice actor of Tord in The End) got called out for being one and got kicked off the team. 

Also Matt got called out for saying something ableist towards people with DID. Man, the summer of 2021 sure was insane. A lot of that drama died down once Bing apologize for his comments on tomtord shippers.

I do recall talking about my thoughts on the subject and even made a follow up to it which you can check out.

But back on topic, I've brought up my distaste on how the crew responded to all those questions about Tord's character on their FAQ section on the Eddsworld website. The tone that they used to answer had to be most uncalled for thing ever and I still stand by what I said about it to this day. I had some people telling me that Bing and Matt got sick and tired of being asked where Tord's at and yeah, I understand why, but they could've worded it differently. 

Sure, if I was in their shoes, I would've gotten annoyed about if Tord will make an appearance in future episodes, but I wouldn't tell all the Tord fans out there to eff off after saying that he's not coming back. 

Well, I did get some insider information saying that there was a point where Bing wanted to put Tord in Beyond but Matt said no. So, Tord was suppose to come back at some point in Beyond's lifespan, but Matt shot that idea down. 

Well, it doesn't matter anyway since Tord made an appearance in limited time merch for Red October. Huh, that FAQ question didn't exactly age well. Yeah, the whole Red October came out of nowhere and it raised several red flags. 

Sorry, I had to do it. 

Matt knew for a fact that the event wouldn't do well if it was any other character. He knew that Tord was a fan favorite and nobody could say no to Tord merch and wouldn't dare to say anything against it. Yeah, that FAQ question was a goddamn lie. 

Sure, it was for charity but I'm going to be real here. I think some of that money went directly into Matt's pocket and to be honest, the whole Red October event just rubbed me the wrong. It just didn't feel right. ...Or.. it could be the tin foil hat that I'm wearing. Hmm... maybe.

Also, uh, Tord made an appearance in the latest episode, the Chronicles of Santa, only to die in seconds and I still question as to why they did this. Did they think it was funny or something? Well, you already know the answer, it wasn't funny. It was just plain out cruel. 

Matt literally jingled Tord keys in front of our faces for us to grab only to crush our fingers with a heavy weighted dumbbell. It's either you put Tord back in the show or you don't. You can't pick both, Matt. Like, make up your mind. Don't just put him back in one episode only to kill him off in mere seconds. Nobody asked for this. 

And there you have it, folks. Those are all of my issues with Beyond. It took awhile for me to get out my thoughts because I wasn't sure how people would react. 

Hopefully, what I said opened your eyes and made you think about how you feel about this era. Like I said at beginning p, I didn't make this to say that Beyond is bad. It has potential to be something great. It's just having growing pains as of right now.

Anyway, I'm going to go now just so I can let my editor, you know, edit this and get this out at the beginning of June. 

(Editor's Note: Yeah right. It's past June. We're in July now. You literally took a longtime to send me a draft of this to edit. Don't be like Lbat, kids. Procrastination isn't fun).

Anyway, that's I all got for today. Also, feel free to share your thoughts on Beyond. Remember to be nice to each other 

Alright, see ya'll later. Bye.