Where to Stream: Glitch Techs

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Animated series Glitch Techs arrives on Netflix as part of the streamer’s relatively recent partnership with Nickelodeon, which produced Invader Zim and Rocko’s Modern Life feature-length movies last year, and promises future The Loud House and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles specials. Glitch Techs is an all-new concept, long in development from creators Dan Milano (Greg the Bunny) and Eric Robles (Fanboy). Four years have passed since Nick announced the series, and production has been bumpy, so maybe Netflix is just a dumping ground for a lost cause with no prevalent merchandising tie-ins, which means, of course, this being a kid’s show, mayhaps the bell tolls for thee. Then again, perhaps it’s an underappreciated gem?

GLITCH TECHS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A gigantic full moon hovers over a valley; the camera tilts down towards a quiet American Anytown.

The Gist: Mitch (voice of Luke Youngblood) is garbed up in some type of warrior-gamer gear — goggles, touchscreen wristband, kneepads, etc. His hair swoops dramatically like a ski-flying ramp, a metaphor for his ego. He tracks a blip on a screen: It’s a very large digital monster, escaped from a video game into real life, which is what happens here and there in this reality, I guess. Before the “glitch” can wreak too much havoc on the poor nuclear family in whose living room it has materialized, Mitch zaps it into a containment vessel like a Ghosbuster, then brain-zaps the memory out of any witnesses like one of the Men in Black, because this stuff is secret — secret as hell.

Daytime. Five (Ricardo Hurtado) expertly slaps together tacos in his grandparents’ food truck. In his possession is a wristband allowing him participation in a gaming tournament sponsored by game-tech corp Hinobi. Elsewhere, Miko (Monica Ray) sneakily ditches Family Togetherness Day or whatever to join the virtual fray with Five and Mitch, who has a superstar-gamer day job fronting for his secret-agent crapola.

Five (username Hi Five) and Miko (a.k.a. Me_KO) team up to topple preening butthead Mitch in a Ready Player One-style environment, but a glitch escapes and there’s a big to-do and lots of people have their memories wiped, except it doesn’t affect Miko, and what with one thing and another, Miko and Five end up meeting a cute Hinobi robot and faking their way into some Glitch Tech gear and saving Mitch’s finely groomed hind end. Meet the new recruits! The new recruits, who have to front as part-time employees at the Hinobi store, which seems like a right crappy retail gig, but they’re teens, so they’re fine with it. Further adventures await, et cetera!

Our Take: Glitch Techs is colorful, funny, upbeat and expeditiously paced without being an overstimulatory barrage. The primary characters are witty and crisply rendered, never obnoxious, and the plot is taut, not corpulent. I keep chasing observations with things the show is not, because so many animated kids’ shows are those things, things that give parental units virtual hives and real headaches.

The double-long introductory pilot quite servicably establishes the premise, and caters nicely to its potentially zillions-large gamer audience without any obvious pandering. A plus: it’s not a blatant commercial for 175 other products ranging from apps to action figures to baby wipes. It also didn’t alienate me — whose pop-cultural identity is roughly 0.01 percent a gamer — into an Excedrin oblivion. That’s a win, baby.

None.

Parting Shot: A wide shot of Hinobi’s fancy Glitch Tech HQ.

Sleeper Star: Miko’s younger sister Lexi (Haley Tju) is an amusingly casual opportunist who extorts the living heck out of her sibling — and is the only one who knows Miko’s secret.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I am Me_KO! JOIN ME OR DIE in my chipmunk boy band!”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Glitch Techs boasts a nifty premise and vibrant presentation. Here’s hoping it doesn’t die quietly in a quiet corner of the vast Netflix warehouse.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Glitch Techs on Netflix