Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today I’m thrilled to return to Big O, a turn-of-the-millennium classic that combines noir storytelling tropes, art deco and gothic architecture, and lumbering super robots to arrive at something totally unique, yet roughly reducible to “giant robot Batman.” Using his titular robot companion, negotiator Roger Smith managed to save the android Dorothy from a gang that wanted to make use of her much larger sister, thus ending the show’s two-part introduction on the formation of Roger’s full negotiation team.
Though the narrative parallels and stylistic similarities between The Big O and the much-loved Batman: The Animated Series make comparisons inevitable, The Big O’s first two episodes emphatically demonstrated this is a show with its own wide array of formative influences. The Big O’s action setpieces embrace a style of slow, impactful movements that feels heavily reminiscent of classic kaiju battles, with shots cast through windows or upwards from the city streets, vividly emphasizing the unimaginable scale of giant robot battles. Its music calls back to the early 20th century film styles it’s emulating, while its robot designs combine playful super robot anthropomorphism with imposing gothic arches and buttresses. And even though they weren’t actually spearheaded by the same Sunrise substudios, it’s hard to shake the sense of Cowboy Bebop’s ghost in Paradigm’s dirty streets and huddled passerby (particularly when combined with Steve Blum’s iconic leading voice). But influences aside, The Big O’s first two episodes were plain and simply excellent television, and I’ve wasted more than enough breath getting us all caught back up. Let’s explore The Big O’s third episode!
Episode 3
We get what seems to be the show’s OP for the first time, a retro rock tune that falls somewhere between Queen and early Kinks. Out of step with standard song openings, but exactly what you’d expect from a consistently ‘60s-riffing show like The Big O
Most of the footage behind it is just cuts from the first few episodes, though
God, this opening pan is wonderful. Ornate gargoyles in the foreground, imposing steeples and endless rectangular windows in the distance. The city of Paradigm is a terrific venue for this story
Dorothy is an excellent pianist, but Roger just wants to sleep
His bedroom shifts us from the gothic arches of the city’s exteriors to the smoky art deco of its interior furnishing
Unsurprisingly, Dorothy is deliberately trying to wake him up. Norman’s eggs have gotten cold!
Roger gets nasty in response to the wakeup, and begins discussing how because Dorothy’s actions are based on mimicry, her music can create no emotional reaction. But as Dorothy rightly points out, she certainly got an emotional reaction out of him this morning
They share a familiar and always engaging dynamic. Roger possesses an easy confidence and snark that Dorothy is able to puncture through unflinching deadpan; she’s the classic “your tricks won’t work on me” professional to his flirtatious cad
And then the power goes out. Roger seems outright angered by Dorothy’s inhuman features, as she demonstrates she can use her forehead disk slot to project light. Between this and his persistent needling of her unnatural nature, it seems like Roger has a genuine grudge against androids, or perhaps things “pretending to be human” more generally. I wonder how he considers The Big O, then – perhaps less as a partner than simply an extension of his own human power. There’s grounds for backstory and character growth there, though that may not be where the show is taking him
Roger is briefly angry to learn Norman led a guest in, but then collects himself. That seems like Roger in a nutshell – far more emotional and less impartial than he lets on, perpetually putting on a face of neutrality and calm charisma
The many hourglasses on Roger’s desk are echoed by the overlapping diamonds of his rug design
His guest is the amusingly over-spelled Casseey Jenkins
Casey (I’m not spelling it Casseey) represents the Paradigm group, and is specifically involved in power management
Roger refers to her as “with the Paradigm group,” which seems like an odd way to refer to the city’s government. I wonder how governing actually works here
The layouts of these shots echo the arches and sharp angles of the city itself, with Casey being presented almost as a living extension of the city – arched knees pointed straight at Roger, eyes hidden by a shadowed lamp. If the city’s electricity is her “power,” it makes emotional sense that she can hide within its absence
Incidentally, I’m not at all implying that Casey is supernatural – simply that it’s dramatically useful to visually align characters with the powers or concepts they represent, which connects them together intuitively and emotionally from the audience’s perspective. Much of our initial emotional read on a character will be based on their visual framing, and while initial impressions can be altered over time, they’re still a crucial element in storytelling
The power turns back on after she states her piece, as if on command
Roger is hired to negotiate with the inhabitants of “Electric City,” the site of a currently abandoned hydroelectric power plant
Some nice minimalist shots of rolling slopes and power lines as Roger drives. Even the scenery outside the domes is reduced to curves and angles in black and white
God, this show’s backgrounds are a feast, and really make me miss the unique texture of painted cells
The bright “Welcome to Electric City” signs make for a brutal contrast with this world’s current disarray. It’s the same ironic disconnect between mid-century American idealism and an apocalyptic future mined by properties like Fallout
The inhabitants of this city are also composed of sharp angles and shapes; eyes reduced to long angled lines, or hidden behind opaque glasses
Eyes aren’t necessarily the window to the soul, but they are the clearest indicator of our common humanity. Hiding eyes in shadow is one of the most reliable ways to create a sense of menace in a person’s appearance
Strange transition here – we move from Roger being confronted by a circle of locals, to him muttering about how they described a “god of electricity” who rules this land. Kinda deflates the tension of the prior scene
Roger sees a shadow in the lit power plant, before the lights go out. Echoes of ghost stories
“It’s connected underground?” It’s interesting how this story is almost summarizing the actual narrative beats and “discoveries,” because it’s more interested in creating a specific slow-burning tone. The mysteries aren’t important, it’s the aesthetic experience of going on an adventure with Roger that’s prioritized
The disconnect between how highly audiences value plot versus plot’s actual significance to art’s effectiveness has to be one of the widest gulfs between artists and audiences. Particularly in a story like this, which is largely riffing on detective fiction staples – plot provides structure, but that’s about it
This synth track for the sequence of Roger being snuck up on is an interesting choice. Feels a bit like Forbidden Planet-era scifi
And here we are, arriving at another staple narrative sequence: an imposing figure corners and captures the protagonist from behind, before a scene transition reveals we’ve actually arrived at a safe corner in an inhospitable world, and that seemingly ominous figure is actually someone who can explain things and even potentially protect the protagonist. Common in fantasy, horror, mystery… the tools of narrative are well-established, it’s really just how you use them, and how you elevate them through art design, cinematography, dialogue, and all of television’s other key artistic tools, that matters
At a guess, I’d say this man lives alone on this mountain because he’s a heretic relative to the lightning god-focused society of the city proper
The old man’s suspicious look as he pokes at Roger’s eggs is adorable. The combination of his hunched shoulders, squinting eyes, and drooping facial hair basically tells us everything we need to know about his character; jaded and defensive, but it’s clearly a front he’s had to adopt in a distrustful world
You might consider it “lazy” or “obvious” when a character’s design tells us their personality, but it’s actually a key dramatic tool; shorthand like that allows the story to get where it actually wants to go much faster
More incidental characterization – pride and obstinance conveyed through his determined salting of the eggs, and his deliberate yet clearly painful woodcutting
A trapdoor reveals a strange laboratory of some kind, and then suddenly electricity starts arcing through the room
It’s Casey herself, who was following Roger, and is now sporting a fancy bodysuit
She reintroduces herself as “Angel.” Not with the civic power agency, then
I guess every hardboiled detective needs a dangerous dame who’s happy to use them and eternally two steps ahead of them. I can’t believe I’m only now realizing that Catwoman was designed to be the superhero version of Batman’s femme fatale
Activating the turbines seems to have awakened the “lightning god”
Holy hell, this monster has quite an imposing design. Nice shots in silhouette here, contrasting the shadow of the creature against its halo of lightning
This episode is really reducing its mystery narrative variables down to their most base essences, since it’s also working to both convey a strong sense of slow-burning atmosphere, and also slot in an entire giant robot battle. Thus characters like Angel get exactly as many lines as is necessary to establish their narrative role – the dangerous dame intro, the reveal of betrayal, the comeuppance via arrogance, and the ultimate re-assertment of power through her flippant escape. The Big O is able to capitalize on our immediate recognition and understanding of these tropes to tell its story as efficiently as humanly possible
Welp, guess she gets to play the damsel one last time, just in time for The Big O to arrive
Noir isn’t lacking for sexist tropes, but I appreciate that it’s a genre where women regularly get to be powerful, morally messy, and dangerous
Big O excels at punching, but it’s kinda hard to punch a writhing sea serpent
I appreciate that this episode’s climax centers on an old man laboriously turning a bunch of switches
Dear lord, the introduction of the Big O’s forehead cannon is absolutely stunning. It feels like this creature was specifically designed to convey the terror and majesty of this power, as its body is split apart at the seams by a spear of energy
And Roger, in turn, is humbled by the lightning storm that rises from its body. This shot with the Big O dwarfed by the storm, hanging in the corner of the screen, really encapsulates the sense of breathless awe that feels like one of the most fundamental, irreducible appeals of giant robots. To see a being of such unimaginable power and scale, and feel humbled by its imposing yet almost anonymous presence. Giant robots are like mountains, or the sea
And we end on the reveal that Dorothy actually felt jealousy towards Casey
And Done
The Big O’s first truly episodic adventure is complete! That was a compelling episode, though not in my mind an entirely successful one – though I appreciated how tightly this episode reduced a classic mystery shell into its most base components, I felt the electric city conflict was simultaneously a little too convoluted and a little too fanciful to present much narrative pull. That said, in stylistic terms, The Big O is still an absolute marvel, and making use of shadows and limited color palettes in ways that naturally translate noir’s dramatic language and appeal to animation. The trick with The Big O is making the noir mystery stuff and kaiju battle stuff somehow feel cohesive and dramatically linked; the linking role of Dorothy managed that in the first two episodes, but this episode had a bit more trouble connecting its primary modes. That said, both the noir and kaiju segments were engaging and beautiful in their own right, making me a very happy viewer.
This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.