Teen Titans S03E03 Review: Starfire's Tentacle Hentai Fiance

Teen Titans, Season 3, Episode 3: Betrothed

This episode isn't by any means bad, it's just... not good. Rather, it could be so much better. Other than the brief hints to Robin's past with Batman and Cyborg yearning for a time when he was human (which are honestly a bit too subtle than they could've been), we never really got any mention of origin stories. Here we get a bit of Starfire, whose whole deal is that she's an alien princess. Which the show never mentions, and Starfire's all like, 'wait, you guys didn't know?'

We get to go to Tamaran, Starfire's homeland, and the plot is pretty standard, really. We learn that the (obviously evil) Blackfire has arranged for Starfire to be married to a blob of green ooze and tentacly-lips which crawled out of some creepy hentai. We go through a token 'it's a cultural difference, we must respect it' plot where Robin's so obviously jealous of everything and is trying to prevent Starfire from getting, y'know, married. They discover that, of course, Blackfire is evil, Starfire does a trial by combat, and ends up giving a big fuck you to the whole Tamaranean culture of marrying. Because it's a Saturday morning cartoon aimed at kids, no one protests. I mean, it ain't Game of Thrones, after all, otherwise everyone here will probably be murdered in a wedding if Starfire chooses to marry out of love. 

The thing is... Teen Titans usually don't have much problem with turning simple plotlines entertaining. Just look at the last episode, which is more or less a plotline you can find in any action cartoon. But this episode is just so boring! Tamaran, despite being an alien planet, is boring -- Starfire, Blackfire and their adoptive father are the only people there, and it doesn't really feel like an alien culture if not for the visuals. The action scene between Starfire and Blackfire are some of the most boring in the series, and Blackfire still fails to impress as a villain. Robin and Starfire's romance is utterly obvious, and while it's not bad by any sense it's still rather boring.

I dunno. I just really felt bored watching this episode, and it really offered very little in lieu of entertainment value. And that's a shame, because even the most fillery of Teen Titans episodes generally have some fun entertainment factor.