Summer Camp Island Review: Jeremiah / Tomorrow's Bananas

"I'm gonna need you to go back to your corner real quick."

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Today's Summer Camp Island episodes are "Jeremiah" and "Tomorrow's Bananas." Let's dive on in!

By nature of the creative process, not every episode to emerge from a TV show is a winner, and I think it's unreasonable to expect anything less from even the best of shows. It's not like "Jeremiah" is a particularly bad episode, either; it just feels a bit undetailed for a show that excels with its eye for nuance, and while it presents interesting character work for both Oscar and Hedgehog, the narrative ensures that they've realistically accomplished very little by the episode's end.

That's also not to say that I'm not a fan of seeing Oscar's parental instincts crystallize in another episode—I'm always unabashedly down for that. If it isn't teeming with inspiration, there's guaranteed cuteness to come from Oscar's sudden bout of fatherhood over a young tree being he finds outside of Susie's house named Jeremiah. Oscar, as always, is the beating heart of the show, and it's fun to see how his sense of care combines with his naivete as he tirelessly plugs away at his new son to the detriment of his own health. The issue is that the joy of seeing Oscar inhibit a fatherly role for Jeremiah can't really carry the episode, and SCI's only way to expand upon its premise is to take it into another direction entirely, and a direction that ends up feeling particularly labored.

Summer Camp Island Review: Oscar & His Demon / The Emily Ghost Institute for Manners and Magical Etiquette

"Shh!"

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It's been too long since I've written a review of this show! Let's jump right into it with two more Oscar-centric offerings: "Oscar & His Demon" and "The Emily Ghost Institute for Manners and Magical Etiquette.

"Oscar & His Demon" is, to put it plain and simple, the season's first big home run. That's not a strike against the season at all; there's been an appreciably experimental vibe, with SCI trying out different ideas and shifting its priorities around in curious, thoughtful ways. This feels like the first time that curiosity has crystallized into something truly solid, though, and despite the fact that it frames itself in such a unique way, it manages to highlight the show's greatest qualities, fully unhindered by its theoretical sense of restraint.

What's immediately striking about the episode is that it takes place, almost entirely, in silence. It's a risk that a lot of shows have taken, and it makes sense for SCI to take an interest to that concept; for as integral as its dialogue usually is, I've always felt that it was a show that had an astute ear for sound design and low-key visual humor. We've seen drips and drabs of what magic the show can do when it holds its tongue—both "Time Traveling Quick Pants" and "Radio Silence" establish a strong precedent for the success of an episode like this—so I was naturally excited to hear that the show would be, in "Oscar & His Demon," fully committed to the concept. But what makes the episode so great isn't just that it succeeds at that challenge; it uses the opportunity to tell a compelling, meaningful story about Oscar's character.