TV Review: Infinity Train (2019). Hop aboard this clever cartoon for some charming scifi fun.

Image courtesy of Cartoon Network

 Tv Review: Infinity Train (2019) by Ben Jeffries (4/9/2019)

Season 1 (5-9/8/2019)

10 Episodes, 11 minutes each

Animation, Scifi, Adventure

Originally aired on Cartoon Network, Available to stream on cartoonnetwork.com

Infinity Train is a charming animated scifi series with a fun take on a familiar premise and an emotionally resonant story.

Created by Regular Show writer Owen Dennis, Infinity Train follows a headstrong 12 year old named Tulip Olsen (Ashley Johnson), her robot companion One-One (Jeremy Crutchley and Owen Dennis), and the talking corgi Atticus (Ernie Hudson), as they journey through a seemingly infinite train of limitless possibility, searching for a way home. Each new train car they enter is a world unto itself, where a new set of dangers, rules, and surprises awaits Tulip and her friends.

It’s a fun twist on the old Sliders premise of being trapped in a never ending series of alternate universes, but here the story has literally been put on rails, giving the plot a defined sense of direction and progression that is often missing from similar tales. With a clever premise, a bright, brave, young hero in Tulip, and a tightly managed plot, Infinity Train is a rewarding watch and lots of fun.

At the top of Infinity Trains “fun things” list is it’s creative setting. The constantly shifting backdrop of the Infinity Train itself is a wild and changeable place that not only keeps the show visually fresh but also continually redefines the rules of the world.

Tulip's first experience of the train is when she wakes up in a snowy field. It seems like a regular, everyday, snowy field, except for a lone red doorway standing nearby. Opening the door lets Tulip leave the field and step out of one reality and onto the gangway between two cars of the impossible train. As Tulip gets her first glimpse of the trains exterior it’s a real eye opening moment, for both her and the audience. Instead of the winter landscape of Tulip’s home town, a barren wasteland stretches out toward the horizon under an ominous, slowly rotating, portal in the sky. Train cars five stories tall extend as far as Tulip’s eyes can see in either direction, forward and back. Things are weird. As Tulip watches, a flaming cyclone reaches out of the sky portal to connect with a car further down the train and we see the silhouette of a person sucked up into the sky and disappear. Things are really weird.

The scene is an effective warning label for the rest of the show: The rules are different here. Every time Tulip steps into a new train car there’s no telling what she, and the audience, are about to find. Will it be a pleasant seaside landscape where genial puddles named Randall try to sell Tulip plumbing supplies? Will it be an endless expanse of cross eyed ducks? Will it be a small, empty, room that smells of farts? There’s simply no way of telling, and it’s great fun to watch.

Some of the world's within the train can be dangerous.
Image: Cartoon Network

There seems to be zero rules governing the nature of the cars. They’re often bigger inside than out, containing entire cities, oceans, hills, and skies, while other times they’re smaller, only single rooms, or they could be anything in between. Some cars are happy to let passengers come and go as they please, but others require Tulip and her friends to solve puzzles like giant three dimensional crosswords, or perform heartfelt songs before they can unlock the exit. It just so happens that Tulip, with her methodical, logical mind is the perfect counter to the wild, unpredictable, nature of the train. On the flip side, the strange train seems to be just the thing Tulip needed in her life.

Tulip is a cool kid. She likes raw onions, books, and designs her own video games. Tulip wears wire rimmed glasses, a bulky green coat, and keeps her bright red hair tied into one simple ponytail. She’s funny, and clever, and while she’s still a little childish she sees the world through a filter of logic. She’s methodical, keeping track of her progress and planning her next steps in a notebook that she carries in her backpack. Unfortunately, Tulip’s intellectual gifts and logical approach to life haven’t equipped her to deal with the emotional fallout of her parents recent divorce, and she’s struggling to cope with the sudden massive changes in her life. She feels neglected at home, and her lack of control over the situation makes her angry.

Ashley Johnson voices Tulip, and she’s wonderful in the role, truly the heart of the show. Johnson’s intelligence and agility as a performer are a perfect match for the clever and dynamic Tulip, and the texture of her voice really enhances the character’s expressive personality.

It’s a simple scheduling mix up between her parents that sees an angry Tulip sneak out one night to catch a train the 300 miles to Oshkosh Wisconsin, determined not to miss a game-design camp she’s been looking forward to. Turns out the train which shows up at the lonely little station isn’t going to Oshkosh but, surprisingly, the weird, challenging journey Tulip finds herself on allows her to discover the self confidence and strength to deal with her own scary and changeable world.

Almost immediately after waking up on the train Tulip meets the odd little two-in-one robot, One-One, who’s looking for his mother. He becomes Tulip’s first companion on her fantastic voyage. One-One is a little white ball made up of two hemispheres separated by a single black line, and each hemisphere is actually a separate robot with it’s own personality, listed in the credits as Glad-One and Sad-One. Each half of One-One is voiced by a different actor, with Jeremy Crutchley as the Glad half while the Sad half is voiced by series creator Owen Dennis. The two halves of One-One’s personality are often at odds, with Crutchley’s Glad-One offering an aggressively positive outlook reminiscent of Invader Zim’s own manic robot, Gir. On the other hand, Dennis’ depressive monologue as Sad-One brings to mind Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Combined, they form a bipolar joke machine that allows the show to make jokes about any situation from both perspectives at once.

His Royal Highness, Atticus of Corginia.
Image: Cartoon Network

After a few short adventures as a duo Tulip and One-One meet Atticus the talking Corgi, the king of Corginia, a whole nation of talking Corgis that exists in one of the train cars. Voiced by Ernie Hudson, Atticus is a proper little gentleman with a silver and red crown and a refined sense of etiquette, and Hudson’s smooth baritone and dignified delivery are a great addition to the show, adding a mature note to the proceedings as Atticus agrees to travel with Tulip and One-One.

During their travels our three heroes meet a parade of interesting characters, voiced by a cast of recognisable voices. There’s the previously mentioned Randall, voiced by Rhys Darby, who is a thoroughly gullible being made entirely of water. We meet a shifty, unscrupulous, talking cat who goes by the name The Cat, voiced by Kate Mulgrew. Ben Mendelsohn is the voice of Special Agent Mace, a cop from the mirror world. The mysterious Conductor who controls the train is voiced by Lena Headey. The stream of interesting characters matches the ever shifting realities of the trains cars.

Our three heroes stop to admire the new
crystalline world they've discovered.
Image: Cartoon Network

The conceptual implications of the train are pretty massive. Is it even a real place, or just a figment of Tulip’s imagination? If it is real, then where did it come from? Who built it? Why? Is it some kind of purgatory or is it just a game? Is each separate car a type of snow globe, or zoo enclosure, or are they discrete alternate realities? Is there a final destination for the train and, if there is, what happens when it gets there? The questions you could ask are as endless as the train itself, but no substantive answer the show could give to any of them would be anywhere near as fun or satisfying as it is to ask them, and it wisely doesn’t try.

Each of the shows ten episodes is only eleven minutes long, and that compressed run time demands a certain economy of storytelling. Rather than letting the big ideas of the premise run away with the story, the show remains self contained and focused, as we see the train from Tulip’s perspective. In the vein of the best short stories, Infinity Train combines it’s wild setting and interesting characters to tell a story on a human scale as it charts Tulip’s literal and emotional progress on her mission to get home.

Everything about Infinity Train seems geared towards producing an accessible and engaging story. The art style strikes a careful balance between detail and simplicity. A certain lack of fine detail gives the show a visual flexibility which allows it to move between familiar and fantastic settings without breaking the overall feel, while still being specific enough to handle complicated action scenes and various camera angles. The characters are all well written, driven by understandable motivations. Tulip wants to get home, One-One is looking for his mother, and Atticus is trying to protect his kingdom. The supporting cast are all equally grounded. The ever changing world of the setting provides a steady stream of new aesthetics and changing rules which keep the story moving in interesting new ways. The core narrative of Tulip’s story has serious stakes and an emotional resonance, but the show isn’t afraid to have laugh along the way as it cracks jokes and plays around with fun, creative, ideas.

The bite-sized nature of each episode leaves you wanting more every time the credits roll all the way up to the final episode. The season has a well defined story arc with a definite conclusion, but the nature of the Infinity Trains endlessly inventive reality means there will always be something new to see should we get the opportunity to take another trip. Which is a good thing, because I can see audiences being eager to take a long journey with the Infinity Train.

7.5/10

Infinity Train stars: Ashley Johnson, Jeremy Crutchley, Owen Dennis, Ernie Hudson, Kate Mulgrew, Lena Headey, Audrey Wasilewski, Mark Fite,

Created by: Owen Dennis

Written by: Owen Dennis, Alex Horab, Lindsey Katai, Justin Michael, Madeline Queripel, Cole Sanchez

a Production from: Cartoon Network Studios

Distributed by: Cartoon Network