The biggest question for me is...has this dethroned my beloved SATAM as my pick for the best Sonic cartoon? And the answer is....maybe. I'm going to hold off full judgement until later, but...this was REALLY GOOD. The action is well done, and they're getting fancy with all the camera angles and tracking shots they have in the show. The characters and voice acting work. Knuckles' voice is probably the weakest, to me, but even then he's still fine. The plot's really interesting and it has me speculating, even though I'm not sure it's going to stick the landing or not. It even has a touch of SATAM's dystopia, even though I don't think the Chaos Council is as threatening as SATAM Robotnik...yet, anyway.
Onward to speculation!
Nine: He's going to be the big bad by season's end. That smile at the end of Episode 6 lets us know he PLANNED on being captured. And all that talk about creating a utopia on Grim...He's playing everyone. Sonic's best friend is going to be his biggest threat by season's end.
The Palm Trees: Yes, it's a symbol of their friendship and their memories, but I wonder if they're setting it up to be more than that down the line. I could see them merging all these Palm Trees with the completed Paradox Prism down the line to create some sort of Yggdrasil/World Tree thing to allow everyone to visit everyone else's world. Because while all these different variants are clearly facets (like a crystal's facet's, I see what they did there) of their personalities, I'm not sure if the writers want to get rid of all these worlds once the season ends. They'll probably want to keep the Shatteredverse around, somehow, for a potential Season 2. And having a Rainbow-Colored Crystal Palm Tree that allows access to other worlds seems like a decent way to do that.
Knuckles' little fangs: For some reason, I just find them distracting. Maybe I'm just not used to Knuckles with fangs, but they seem REALLY prominent. I don't know, just a random observation.
Amy's variants: I kind of thought it was odd that Amy seemed the most changed on most of these worlds. She's Rusty Rose on Metalworld. She's Thorn Rose on Forestworld. For the first half of this binge, I thought maybe the writers were using Amy's connection to magic and fortune telling to maybe make her more attuned to these worlds. But...Black Rose on Waterworld seems to be just a regular pirate, so that theory's probably wrong. Mind, Waterworld is the only universe where she doesn't seem to have her Pink Flicky...and I'm not sure if that means anything or not.
A fake-out that got written out?: I kind of have to wonder if, at some point in the scripting process, they planned to have Sonic THINK he was in the future, but then have a twist reveal that he was in a different dimension. Because, there's just certain plot points in the first 3 episodes that would probably make a little more sense if Sonic thought he was in the future and Eggman had taken over. It just...feels that way to me. Probably completely baseless, but I'm bringing it up. But, if that was the case, it would mean Sonic ISN'T dumb for not picking up on what's going on...he's just "Wrong Genre Savvy". Even though...this show makes it clear Sonic isn't the sharpest tool in the shed early on (Sonic: "Okay, but....how DID you get in here?" Rouge: "....You left the door open.")
The theme of isolation: So far, all the different worlds have revolved around all Sonic's friends wanting to be left alone, but Sonic bringing them all together anyway. Metalworld has Nine hiding away in the subway system. Forestworld has Briar Rose trying to block out the very sun to keep her old friends out. And Waterworld has Knuckles the Dread trying to abandon his pirate crew after his failure. It's just...interesting. I wonder where they're going with this.
Shadow: So far, my read on this version of the character is...he just REALLY dislikes Sonic. Something about Sonic just rubs him the wrong way and gets under his skin. Also, it's...weird how he found a Chaos Emerald by breaking random rocks.
How many other Shatterverse worlds are there?: Maybe this has been brought up in a interview, somewhere, but I'm wondering how many of these worlds we're going to get. So far, each world is focused on one of Sonic's friends. So, Metalworld is for Tails, Forestworld is for Amy, Waterworld is for Knuckles....that leaves Rouge, Big, and probably Eggman. Unless Orbot and Cubot get their own world, too. So...somewhere between 5 and 8 worlds total? Probably 7, for the seven colors of the rainbow/Chaos Emeralds?
Big's World: Just a prediction. It would be REALLY easy to make Big a horror-movie villain, like some sort of tip of the hat to Sonic creepypastas and broken weird fan games. "Froggy went away...". Maybe a Alice in Wonderland thing? If we hadn't done water already with Knuckles, I would have predicted a Moby Dick world with Froggy as the whale. Hmm...we haven't gotten a "fire" or "volcano" world, yet...
Froggy's World: Does Froggy count as one of Sonic's friends? I don't think Sonic has ANY feelings about Froggy one way or another, despite him being around just as much as Big. It could be a ice world, or a Dungeons and Dragons styled High Fantasy world, or...oooh, how about a Ninja World? Froggy could be one of the Ninja-summoned frogs.
Rouge's World: Just a prediction, but I'm expecting a black and white hard-boiled crime noir world. Femme fatales, detectives, the whole nine yards. Maybe set in a "windy city" that has constant tornados? It feels like that might be her style. Of course, when I think of Knuckles, I really don't think "pirates", so who knows where we'll end up. Or if they want to keep the post-apocalypse vibe going....they could always go with a world that's being peppered by gem-meteors from outer space constantly. Random note: "Batten Rouge" is just a great name for pirate-Rouge.
What is the Chaos Council?: These are the only Eggman variants we see in the series. And...I'm not sure what they are exactly. A "family" that Eggman made? Are they clones of himself? Robots? Why is Eggman only involved in this world? Why only 5 of them? Does that mean there's only going to be 5 worlds? With "Chaos" in the title, I thought there'd be 7 of them for the 7 Chaos Emeralds. There's just a lot we don't know about these guys. I like Doctor Deep's Samurai-Mech Armor.
Where's Eggman?: I find it strange that, so far, Eggman or variants thereof have only appeared on ONE of these Shatterverse worlds. And....Metalworld doesn't seem to be focused around Eggman, Metalworld seems to be "Tails' World". And the Chaos Council doesn't seem to be themed around the other worlds we've seen so far, so they don't "belong" to those other worlds. Did...Eggman not get split in the same way as Sonic's friends? But, if he did ..if Eggman DOES have another world all to himself, what does that look like? Is that going to be a world with a REALLY scary Eggman Nega or Robo-Robotnik type? (That'd be a really good hook for Season 2, just sayin') Or will it be a world where Eggman's a superhero...or the world of El Gran Gordo, his luchador self from the Archie Sonic X comics?