If you enjoy magical alien ladies, good moral lessons, spontaneous singing, and gender nonconformity, then "Steven Universe" is the show for you. It’s a beautifully animated television show that got its start on Cartoon Network in 2013, and the show’s creator, Rebecca Sugar, has done a fantastic job of making her audience laugh, cry, and worship her (or maybe that’s just me).
The show centers around its young namesake, Steven Universe, who is a half-gem, half-human. His mother was Rose Quartz, a member of the alien gem species and a warrior who fought to keep the Earth safe from her kind over 5,000 years ago. She eventually fell in love with Steven’s father, Greg Universe, a one-man band with a heart of gold. She gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven, who now proudly bears his mother’s gem…in his belly-button. Now Steven and the other three remaining Crystal Gems, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, go on missions together to hunt down corrupted gem monsters in order to keep their home of Beach City (and the world) safe. The characters all grow together, with Steven learning how to live up to his mother’s legacy and the gems learning how to raise a human child. It’s adorable.
It also hasn’t aired a new episode since the beginning of January. And everybody knows it because I scream about it on the daily.
I blame the StevenBomb. The concept sounds fun (if not a bit hazardous), and it was at first. But I’m pretty darn sure that these masses of content are the source of our current hiatus, which is the longest in the show’s history. We still don’t know when it’s going to end, although there are whispers around the internet that SU will be returning sometime in April (hopefully before finals, amirite? Jk, that wouldn’t stop me).
Here’s what most shows do: they have a new episode each week for a couple of months, then some sort of large event for the season finale. Maybe they throw in a mid-season break. They’re gone for a few months until, viola, they’re back on track with new content for everybody to oogle over. That’s what "SU" did for a while, until the end of Season 1. The first StevenBomb blew up our airwaves over the week of March 9th-13th in 2015, and boy was it great. It was actually around that time when I finally hopped on the ol’ feels-train. The last set of episodes, "The Return and Jailbreak" (aka square mom is actually two tiny lesbians squished together to make a bigger, squarer lesbian) should have been the season finale and, therefore, the last couple of episodes we saw for a while, until it was time for Season 2.
But Season 2 walked right in, sat right down, and let its hair hang down. It got a few episodes in and then it stopped. Then, on June 15th we were blessed with "StevenBomb 2: The Second One." While we were all very excited about the abundance of new content, we were really just being introduced to a vicious cycle: five new episodes followed by anywhere from one to three months of radio silence. It’s been rough, and while getting a week straight of episodes is the cartoon equivalent of a sugar-high, you’re ultimately left feeling pretty crappy when it’s over.
What I’m trying to say is, let’s stop all this StevenBomb nonsense. The show needs to go back to moderation; one new episode, once a week. It’ll make the fans happy and it’ll probably help the creators feel less stressed, since they won’t have to pour all their effort into giant chunks, only to realize they’ve gone too far and need a few months to recover. Speaking of which, "Too Far" was a great episode.
So, for the veterans, hang in there. Read all of the fanfiction and look at all of the fanart. For those who are curious about the show, now’s the perfect time to start watching! By the time you’re caught up, we’ll be back to normal and you’ll be able to scream about the beautiful new content with the rest of us.
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