1x01 Stray Dog Strut

[7.1/10] Pretty fun. This is more a humor-focused episode, and it’s pretty slapstick-y and broad. But an innocent little corgi causing a bunch of chaos for a pair of bounty hunters is an amusing premise, so I can get behind it.

Granted, some of the gags wore thin. The pet shop woman freaking out about “My babies!” is pretty over-the-top. I don’t really get the wild west bounty hunting show, which seems like it’s supposed to be humorous, or at least lighthearted. And the scientist guy who can apparently only say, “I can see that” got a bit tiresome. But the visual gags of target-of-the-week Hakeem having his getaway screwed up by the “data dog” jumping on the steering wheel, and Spike’s dive being interrupted by a pup to the face keeps the chuckles flowing.

This one’s a little less visually interesting than the last one, but there’s a certain Looney Tunes-like quality to the chases here that help make up for it. Seeing Mars after folks waxed rhapsodic about it in the last episode is a bit interesting, but it doesn’t seem like much in the early going. And I’d note the theme that magic is real apparently, as the fortune-teller Hakeem consults in this one is as accurate as the one Spike spoke with in the first episode.

Overall, I’d be lying if I said I got what the fuss was about in these early episode, but there’s a certain “getting the band together” feel that I can appreciate, and introducing a friendly dog of some mysterious significance as plot element is a sucker’s game, but one that worked on me. Perfectly nice lighthearted fun.