My not-so-guilty Saturday morning cartoon guility pleasure has been Cartoon Network's "Ben 10" for a while now. It is the story of a kid who finds an alien watch, called the "Omnitrix", that allows him to shift his DNA to a variety of different alien forms, each with distinct abilities, in order to fight intergalactic n'er do wells. He travels around the country with his grandfather, Max, and his cousin, Gwen in a motor home solving crimes and keeping order in an alien-infested world. This weekend I watched the debut episode of the new season: "Ben 10 Alien Force".
I forget at which precise point I stumbled across this show two years ago, but it struck me a well-written and fun adventure series. Recently, the studio decided to relaunch the show. In a brilliant move rarely seen in american animation, the creators felt that the time was right to get away from the "villain of the week" cycle and take the chance on exploring what would happen to the characters and their adventures once they got older.
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