The Venture Bros Pilot: The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay Review

The Venture Bros Pilot: The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay Review

Medium: Television

Release date: 2/16/2003

Review date: 7/28/2024

Score: 3/10

Ah yes, there's the early “The Venture Bros” episode I remember always seeing on Adult Swim late at night! It was the pilot episode! Unusual that the network would choose that episode of all the available to repeatedly broadcast, as it's definitely the weakest episode of Season One so far (maybe they own more of the rights to it since it's the pilot?). The ninja stuff seems generically racist, the Monarch concept seems not ready to come out of the oven yet at this point, and there’s just a cruder feel to the whole production. Apologies for sounding like a broken record, but it's still remarkable to see how many series elements were set up so early on, like Doc Venture is introduced to the UN as being “the famous Doc Venture Senior who we all loved's son,” so the series theme of Freudian insecurity was there from the start. A weak episode overall, and the series only improves from here.