The Knuckles show is out today on Paramount+. As Kotaku’s resident Sonic (eh, Shadow, really) sicko, I did not like it! I gave it a broadly negative review and was especially caught off guard by how little the titular punch-throwing echidna is actually in it. Now that the show is available to stream, fans are forming their own opinions, and it turns out the show’s landing like Sonic falling into a body of water and sinking to the bottom.
There seem to be a few major points of contention. The biggest one is that the title character isn’t the main character of his own show. Knuckles may have his name on the opening credits, but the show is all about comic relief cop Wade Whipple dealing with his daddy issues and trying to win a bowling tournament. I went through the show and took time stamps of scenes Knuckles is actually in, and he is present for less than half of the roughly three-hour run time. Even then, he barely speaks in most of those scenes, especially in the show’s latter half. Knuckles leans into the worst part of the live-action movies: the focus on human characters, instead of the anthropomorphized animals people show up for.
One character that seems to have rubbed fans especially wrong is Wade’s sister Wanda, played by Knives Out actor Edi Patterson. She started out as a fun foil to her brother as a very self-serious FBI agent to his doofus cop, but the abrasive meathead persona wore out its welcome real quick, and her scenes are the most representative of the low-hanging fruit humor the live-action Sonic movies swing for. One fan even made an edit of one of her most annoying scenes and added a laugh track to sell just how awkward the writing and editing of these scenes are.
Knuckles’ focus on human characters isn’t the only problem inherited from the Sonic movies: Its use of cheesy licensed needle drops rather than pulling from the franchise’s excellent soundtrack continues to be a point of friction for fans. But its music choices have become so predictable that someone was able to make a joke about Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” showing up in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, only for it to be used in Knuckles.
Episode 4, “The Flames of Disaster,” has been a particular pain point for fans because it’s the most blatant in how much it excludes Knuckles. He’s in the first and last scenes of the episode, but the rest focuses on Wade learning about Knuckles while he’s not in the room. It implements Sonic lore in a wild actually entertaining way, all while pushing its main character off-screen.
Despite the myriad issues, some are still finding enjoyment in The Wade Show Knuckles. There are a bunch of fun scenes in between Knuckles fucking off for what feels like entire episodes.
Knuckles is a helpful recentering of expectations to have while we’re at the peak of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hype, at least. Keanu Reeves is playing Shadow and the movie has its Maria, so it will likely be covering some of the darker moments of Sonic lore. But the overtly family-friendly vibes of Knuckles has tempered some of the excitement for the movie. While the bigger budget might mean Sonic, along with his friends and rival, will probably get more screen time than Knuckles did in his own show, some fans’ confidence has been shaken. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will premiere in theaters on December 20.