I bought Netflix to watch Bridgerton because I’ve embraced my romantic side and I am still not immune to the propaganda that is Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma gifsets on Tumblr.
While I thoroughly enjoyed trodding my well-worn media grooves of romance and trashy reality television (Love is Blind but especially Perfect Match, Netflix’s version of Bachelor in Paradise) during my one-month indulgence, I found myself leaning into my other tendencies—the pressure to suck the marrow out of Netflix. I had a month, yes, but only one before school and everything else began to roll again—better make it count.
I started a half dozen shows: the pilot of BoJack Horseman, the newest season of The Circle, a few episodes of the Korean Drama Eve, Arcane, Anne with an E (to try and fill the book-ish hole I had after starting Persuasion, believing it to be the movie that inspired one of my favorite tpc posts, and subsequently dropping Persuasion when I discovered it instead inspired some other less-flattering posts which I very much agreed with after thirty minutes). I ended up spending most of my time with Black Mirror, which is not very in character for me, and watching a few movies, including Nimona and my favorite director Makoto Shinkai’s newest film Suzume.
In the face of all these options, all these choices, my sister brought back to mind one of my favorite shows: Infinity Train. For the past few years, I’ve had a defined list of favorite movies that I can rattle off when someone asks, but beyond, “I watch the Bachelor,” (which isn’t really even true these days) there wasn’t much I could say in terms of TV that I loved. But Infinity Train has stuck with me in a way that very few television shows have.
The basics of Infinity Train are that it is a children’s television show with eleven minute episodes. Each of its four seasons focused on a new character who adventures through this train that is, well, infinite—no two cars are the same. The animation is cute, the train cars whimsical, but the story is hard-hitting and doesn’t shy away from dark moments.
On a rewatch with my friend, I found myself just as wrapped up in the story as before, finding foreshadowing that passed my head the first time, noticing small details or jokes in the animation. Despite its brevity, taking a little under two hours to watch a full season, the show is able to reel you into the characters, root for them as they fall back into poor habits and eventually grow to make better choices. And then there’s just the childhood delight of the themed cars: who wouldn’t want to imagine a world where corgis rule a fully-realized society complete with a king?
As with a lot of good children’s media, Infinity Train has seemingly undertold depths beneath all the bright animated colors. Season three follows a pair of teenagers whose view of the train is markedly different from everyone else we’ve seen before, and markedly wrong. I’m still haunted by its exploration of how our views can twist us and the ones we love so heavily against others.
The show itself served as a sort of canary in the mines of archiving streaming television. It hopped from Cartoon Network to HBO Max, and then HBO Max discontinued the show in 2021 and dropped it from streaming in 2022. It’s available to purchase on Amazon Prime, and obviously you can find it other ways, but I worry for its long-term future. Where will all these influential, culture-shaping TV shows and movies, Netflix and otherwise, go when the parent company decides that they aren’t worth the server shape anymore? DVDs are a solution, but HBO didn’t bother to create them for seasons three and four. Maybe the major shows will survive, but what of the ones that weren’t commercially successful enough?
And what about the other four seasons that the creator had in their roadmap? The fully scripted movie? I think of Infinity Train with a mix of love and sadness; it feels like my white whale of media, a dream that I can picture but I will never be able to fully capture and have for myself.
I have a feeling that Black Mirror will be well archived, along with juggernauts like Bridgerton and Squid Game. But I’d like you to see the ones like Infinity Train as well. Maybe it’s time for me to make a plan to store it for myself.
Title inspiration (slightly spoiler-y for season four of Infinity Train)
Alex Johnson (‘19) is a virtual computer science teacher and a proud resident of Grand Rapids. When she’s not brainstorming the newest project to inflict on her students, she’s cooking semi-vegetarian food, reading too many romance books, and playing rhythm games.
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Alex, thank you for the excellent piece, as well as teaching me the feeling of having your tpc topic scooped by another writer while it’s still brewing 🙂
I mourn all the Infinity Train we didn’t get. I find it upsetting that it’s possible to purchase seasons 1, 2, and 4 on Amazon, but impossible to watch season 3 anywhere (legally). And I am angry that work was put in on more of the show only for corporate brains to scrap it all, while holding the rights, preventing more from being made for the foreseeable future.
I almost wrote about how I almost didn’t write this piece as I feel media reviews are one of my weak spots as a writer, so getting this comment from you made my week 🙂 I hope you still write the piece that’s brewing!!
I’m still coping that in twenty years we’ll have what could have been with Infinity Train. Maybe they’ll put out season three legally too