Infinity Train Season One
Over the Garden Wall, Gravity Falls, The Owl House, Steven Universe… We’re truly in a golden age for Shows-for-Kids-but-They’re-Mostly-Enjoyed-by-Grown-Ups.
And as Grown-Up with the heart of a child, the lower-back of an octogenarian, and the weird sense of humor of a robot taught about humanity exclusively through the internet, that’s great for me. And Infinity Train appeals to all three of those things in me.
Tulip is a young woman with a simple dream in her heart: the dream of designing an awesome video game at video game design camp. But after her parents’ divorce, Tulip’s starting to slip through the cracks, and those cracks lead her directly on to some sort of… unending locomotive.
The train is impossible. Tulip wakes up with a glowing green number on her hand and no clear way home. She meets a pair of robots named One and One, and suddenly she’s off, trying to beat the train and make her way home-ish. Camp counts as home, right?
While the train moves ever-onward, the path of the show is a little more circumspect. Sometimes it’s as cutesy as a children’s theme park, sometimes unflinchingly dark in a way kids shows rarely dare to be. Each car presents new puzzles, new potential allies and enemies, and new challenges for Tulip, external and internal.
And that’s the very best part of Infinity Train: while other kids’ shows have stops for character growth along the route to beating the bad guy or becoming the very best like no one ever was, in Infinity Train, the character growth is the whole point. Sometimes learning a lesson is easy. Sometimes we backslide as we try and figure out our real priorities.
I could make a cliche statement about it not being about the destination, but the journey here, but I think we’re both better than that. What I will say is this: a show that can teach kids to care about the emotional health of others and themselves AND has a corgi king in it is rare. You should cherish such a treasure. And while Tulip’s story is short and somewhat bittersweet, there are three more seasons with new characters and adventures to keep the train rolling.
I give Season One 4 train cars out of 5. It’s streaming now on HBOMax. Choo, choo, everybody.