'Superjail'

Superjail looks like a poor man's Metalocalypse. It uses lots of disturbing Satanic imagery, blood and gore. But the premise is more interesting: The world's worst criminals locked away in the world's craziest prison. Seemingly, this setting would allow for a lot of great storytelling. But Superjail, sadly, isn't about story but about trying to be cool and shocking. Sorry, guys, without a good plot to back that up, it gets boring.

Superjail is about horrible criminals being tracked down by a robot who then whisks them away to an isolated prison, where much of the imprisonment is mental, as they're forced to drink crazy drugs and stuff.

Superjail is disturbing. The opening scene, though action-packed, depicts an escaped convict stealing someone's car, running them over (with lots of blood) and then realizing there's a small girl in the back. He drives to a pet store to buy her a bunny, but the prison's robot gets to him first. The girl is left on the sidewalk, crying, no bunny, no parents. Okay, maybe teenage guys won't find it disturbing, but I did.

Then Superjail picked up. The theme song is really good, fast-paced and clever. Then the trip to prison is interesting as the location becomes more and more remote. Finally, the prison is dropped in and forced to drink something funky, giving him fun hallucinations. Trippy! Fun!

The fun ended there for me. Superjail devolves into old territory. There's lots of violence, blood, questionable sexuality and attempts at shocking "adult" jokes. I suppose all that may appeal to Adult Swim's key demographic, young males, but how long can it last?

The best part of Superjail is the warden, who is more Willy Wonka than Shawshank. He controls his prisoners with a lot of drugs. He's happy and up, while calously dealing out justice.

There are seemingly endless possibilities in Superjail with the warden character, and this setting, but there was no story to be found. Moreover, the colors are washed-out, as dull as the plotless show.