I have to admit, this is a terrible show. I know the first season of any show is not going to be its best, but the characters outside the Sonic ensemble are about as deep as a plate. Within the ensemble, well, there are plenty of reasons why this show should have just been about Sonic and his crew (and adversaries like Eggman and Shadow) and had nothing to do with Chris or the world he lives in.
Chris is seriously the most shallow character I've ever seen. It seems every anthropomorphic character franchise hits this point eventually, where the main protagonist is paired-up with a human buddy, but Chris is just horribly written. He's honest-to-goodness a Marty Stu. I'm no hardcore Sonic fan by any means, in fact the time when I could have come even remotely close to being one was years ago and Sonic is just something I play if it happens to be around, but speaking as a casual viewer, Chris Thorndike is probably the absolute worst sidekick ever.
He comes from privilege even exceeding Bruce Wayne. His mother is an actress whose career is as big as that of Tom Cruise, his father is the CEO of what is probably this world's analogue to Microsoft, and both are workaholics and never home. Not that Chris seems to mind. After all, he has his super-speedy uncle (whose speed probably enchants everyone but his wife) who also has an ego problem because there is indeed one creature who can run faster than his specialty car (take a guess) and an Einstein-smart grandfather who acts as the real father figure and has a secret lab beneath the vast estate and mansion where Chris lives. Throw in a stereotypical Hispanic maid and an Asian butler with all the personality of a chopstick and you have probably the blandest Marty Stu fanfic ever written. There's nothing engaging about any of these characters on a personal level; their chemistry is just horrible.
Chris has everything a kid could possibly want and no evident problems relating with other people, so it's not as if he needed Sonic to enter his life at all. He's already the "cool kid", now made even cooler by association with Sonic. It's not evident that he has any personality flaws, at least any that he has to apologize for and let it stick (the one time he'd ever been berated in the first seven episodes was followed by an apology to him along with a gift!)
As far as the show's formula, well, every episode is a new plot by Dr. Eggman. Here's what happens: He comes up with a new plot this week and gets foiled. He vows to come back next week with something else. Again, he fails.
Knuckles apparently traded half his gray matter for sheer strength and was duped into thinking everything was Sonic's fault. I know the two were rivals back in the early days, but you'd swear Knuckles lost about 100 IQ points between then and now with how gullible he is. It takes very little from a very notoriously untrustworthy source to make him think the worst of Sonic and therefore become a (temporary) ally to Eggman.
Everything wrong with this show can be traced to what was added in comparison to the games: a new world of humans and a human sidekick with one of the most enviable family trees ever. Sound like a Mary Sue fanfic to you? It should!
Really rich kids are difficult characters to work with. But here's some examples of fiction that made it work: The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Richie Rich, you could conceivably count the Batman series, etc. But Sonic X makes no use of any of what these works did to make Chris or his family work at all.
Admittedly, I've seen only seven episodes but does it EVER CHANGE? It's the same thing every episode and the cast outside of the original Sonic franchise characters is just completely unlikable. I wouldn't miss any of them if they were all blown-up in an atomic bomb blast in the next episode, and that's not something I could say for any other show.
Chris is seriously the most shallow character I've ever seen. It seems every anthropomorphic character franchise hits this point eventually, where the main protagonist is paired-up with a human buddy, but Chris is just horribly written. He's honest-to-goodness a Marty Stu. I'm no hardcore Sonic fan by any means, in fact the time when I could have come even remotely close to being one was years ago and Sonic is just something I play if it happens to be around, but speaking as a casual viewer, Chris Thorndike is probably the absolute worst sidekick ever.
He comes from privilege even exceeding Bruce Wayne. His mother is an actress whose career is as big as that of Tom Cruise, his father is the CEO of what is probably this world's analogue to Microsoft, and both are workaholics and never home. Not that Chris seems to mind. After all, he has his super-speedy uncle (whose speed probably enchants everyone but his wife) who also has an ego problem because there is indeed one creature who can run faster than his specialty car (take a guess) and an Einstein-smart grandfather who acts as the real father figure and has a secret lab beneath the vast estate and mansion where Chris lives. Throw in a stereotypical Hispanic maid and an Asian butler with all the personality of a chopstick and you have probably the blandest Marty Stu fanfic ever written. There's nothing engaging about any of these characters on a personal level; their chemistry is just horrible.
Chris has everything a kid could possibly want and no evident problems relating with other people, so it's not as if he needed Sonic to enter his life at all. He's already the "cool kid", now made even cooler by association with Sonic. It's not evident that he has any personality flaws, at least any that he has to apologize for and let it stick (the one time he'd ever been berated in the first seven episodes was followed by an apology to him along with a gift!)
As far as the show's formula, well, every episode is a new plot by Dr. Eggman. Here's what happens: He comes up with a new plot this week and gets foiled. He vows to come back next week with something else. Again, he fails.
Knuckles apparently traded half his gray matter for sheer strength and was duped into thinking everything was Sonic's fault. I know the two were rivals back in the early days, but you'd swear Knuckles lost about 100 IQ points between then and now with how gullible he is. It takes very little from a very notoriously untrustworthy source to make him think the worst of Sonic and therefore become a (temporary) ally to Eggman.
Everything wrong with this show can be traced to what was added in comparison to the games: a new world of humans and a human sidekick with one of the most enviable family trees ever. Sound like a Mary Sue fanfic to you? It should!
Really rich kids are difficult characters to work with. But here's some examples of fiction that made it work: The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Richie Rich, you could conceivably count the Batman series, etc. But Sonic X makes no use of any of what these works did to make Chris or his family work at all.
Admittedly, I've seen only seven episodes but does it EVER CHANGE? It's the same thing every episode and the cast outside of the original Sonic franchise characters is just completely unlikable. I wouldn't miss any of them if they were all blown-up in an atomic bomb blast in the next episode, and that's not something I could say for any other show.