The current state of the major kids' cable networks as of fall 2016:
Cartoon Network: Steven Universe, as IOTL, is bigger than ever and is currently the network's highest rated show. Not too much about the show as changed from IOTL, the biggest change is that Peridot is butterflied away thanks to no Invader Zim, but in her place we get more Lapis, Jasper, and a gem named Black Onyx who is somewhat of a stoic warrior gem. Hero Quest and Acrotopia have faded back a bit, though the two shows are considered part of the “Big Three” with Steven Universe. Iron Giant and its pals, the contingent of DC Comics/anime shows that have been on Saturday night Toonami for the last couple of years have also seen ratings declines, but the block is about to get a huge shot in the arm with the debut of Lyte and Darke in September. The network has also gotten a couple new comedies that are doing well, including Little Miss, a show about a bratty, hyperactive young girl who gets into random adventures, and Uncle Grandpa, an absurdist show about a strange magical old man who helps kids with their problems. These two shows, along with Stones, have helped elevate the network's comedy slate. The kids' block anchored by Thomas The Tank Engine has ended, though the popular train toon still airs on weekday mornings and sees new episodes and specials on a regular basis.
Nickelodeon: Nickelodeon has leaned heavily on internet interactivity, which has been hit or miss for them over the past couple years. There's a Saturday morning block in which kids vote for what they want to see, calling to mind the somewhat obscure U-2-U phone in show with a similar format. Virtual Challenge remains popular, though the idea to bring back Nick Arcade has fallen through, as has the idea to bring back Are You Afraid Of The Dark? (The network is sticking with its Goosebumps specials). There has been a major cartoon debut on the network: The Loud House, an animated show about a family of bunnies in which there's one boy bunny and ten girl bunnies, each with their own unique trait. That show has proven to be somewhat popular, though it hasn't quite developed the massive fandom it has IOTL (due to the fact that the show went with the original idea to use bunnies instead of humans). There's also another live action sitcom joining Zack and Zips: Tripped Up, about three teen triplets who have their own webshow. It's much more kid-savvy than OTL's iCarly, and the showrunner (a 29 year old woman) is far less problematic than Dan Schneider. Nickelodeon has been doing well, though the network lacks a runaway hit.
The Disney Channel: The Disney Channel has seen three major hits launched in the last few years, bringing the network's profile up significantly: Goldilocks: The Series, an adaptation of the popular movie, has proven to be incredibly popular in its own right, challenging Steven Universe for cartoon supremacy. Sonic The Hedgehog launched in spring 2016, an exciting CGI animated cartoon with some of the same writers from the Pixar film, it mixes adventure and comedy and is far better than OTL's Sonic Boom (its quality is comparable to the popular SatAM Sonic series, in fact). Then there's Home Run, a baseball-themed kidcom about a preteen Little League star and his younger sister. The show has proven popular amongst boys and girls alike, and Disney has already given the green light for two more seasons. They've also greenlit a series produced by music legend Selena, called She's Got It, that will star her daughter Crystal Rain as a wannabe pop star, which will debut in 2017. Disney has recovered quite well over the past few years, though the network is somewhat different from its OTL incarnation (apart from Rick And Morty, there's not much in the way of offbeat cartoons like there is IOTL).
Fox Family: Fox Family is still struggling to produce a major hit post-Welcome To Riverdale. Its Marvel cartoons just aren't clicking like Cartoon Network's DC cartoons, and the Capcom cartoons haven't been doing well either. Growing Up Super is probably the most popular show running on the network now, as its ratings and popularity have steadily climbed, but the network has fallen to #4 in the family cable ratings, and needs a big hit to bounce back.
PBS Kids: Tom Kalinske has done a great job of bringing the PBS Kids block back to prominence, and many of its new shows have become hits. Flora and Ulysses has become a massive hit, bigger than even Arthur ever was, with multiple Daytime Emmys in its first season and huge ratings, especially for a PBS show. The new Reading Rainbow has been huge, though Michael B. Jordan's growing acting career has limited the number of episodes he's been able to film (the show is testing out co-hosts for him). Where On The Page Is Carmen Sandiego? and Exploring the Multiverse have also done well. PBS Kids isn't a cable network, so it's not ranked against Nickelodeon, Disney, and the like, but if it was, it would be #3, just behind Nickelodeon and just ahead of the Disney Channel.
-
Lyte And Darke was an animated fantasy/adventure cartoon, and the third animated series created by the team of Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, after Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend Of Korra. While not having anything to do with either of those two shows in terms of plot, the show did have a similar animation style and similar themes of courage, bravery, love, power, rebellion, and family. The show had been in the conceptual stages for six years, even during the conception of The Legend Of Korra, and was one of the main reasons Mike and Bryan decided that The Legend Of Korra would last for only one season, as they wanted to focus most of their time and energy on this brand new IP.
Lyte And Darke takes place in a world with some elements of our own: more advanced technologically than the steampunk Legend Of Korra, it combines “modern” technology with magical power to create a sort of hybrid “magitech” world blending the two elements together. The world is populated with cities and towns much like our own, with most people being normal humans with nothing in the way of special powers or abilities. However, the world is also populated by two diametrically opposed groups of superpowered people: Crusader Knights, who are embued with the power of light energy from the world's high deity Luxarch, and Shadow Witches, powerful magically inclined people who use dark energy to cast powerful magic. The Crusader Knights utilize magical energy too, but they do it in a different way, wielding bladed and blunt weapons into battle and relying more on physical brute strength and superhuman abilities, somewhat similar to shounen anime protagonists on a somewhat lesser scale. Meanwhile, the Shadow Witches are straight up magic casters, utilizing magic of all sorts of different elements, and their powers work like a blend of the benders from the Avatar universe and the witches and wizards from Harry Potter. For a time, the Crusader Knights and Shadow Witches lived and worked together, but at some point in the past, a great war was sparked between them, leading to deaths and atrocities on both sides, and for hundreds of years since then, there have been many conflicts between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, with some periods of peace but other periods of brutal war. As of the time when the series begins, the Crusader Knights have just finished fighting a three year war against the Shadow Witches, and have nearly wiped them out entirely, with their goal now focusing on containment and eradication. Only a few Shadow Witches dare to operate out in the open (and only under close Crusader Knight supervision), with the others being hunted down and exterminated.
The two protagonists of the series include a young Crusader Knight named Lyte (voiced by Inez Delgado), and a Shadow Witch named Darke (voiced by Regan Hardwick). Lyte is a 15 year old prodigy and has been named a Knight Captain, the youngest ever to obtain such a title. Though she was too young to fight in the war, she already has a reputation due to her marks in training, by far the highest ever obtained, and her victories in duals with several powerful older Knights. She is given the task of leading a squad to capture fugitive Shadow Witches. Darke is a 12 year old orphan, a Shadow Witch who has been on the run for several years, including the entirety of the war. All alone in the world, she is frightened and scared despite her prodigious power, power that makes her exceptionally dangerous. She encounters Lyte in the first episode of the show, and Lyte's fateful decision to work with her instead of capturing her leads to the events of the rest of the series. Lyte has numerous friends in the Crusader Knights, the most prominent being Archer (voiced by Vincent Martella), her closest companion and friend, who has a more happy go lucky attitude than the strict and stoic Lyte. Then there's Celica (voiced by Zelda Williams), who was grievously injured toward the end of the last war, and returns to become a companion and older sister figure to Lyte. The two start as rivals, since Celica was supposed to have the position that Lyte ended up being in before her injury, but eventually, she becomes a very trusted companion. Lyte and the Crusader Knights live in the nation of Sanctum, ruled by Emperor Arvain (voiced by Patrick Stewart), who becomes at times a father figure to Lyte (who is also an orphan, as her parents were killed in the war). Then there's Celica's mother, High Priestess Cress (voiced by Frances McDormand), matron of the Crusader Knights, who serves as Arvain's right hand woman, so to speak. The tension between Cress and Celica ends up being a major point of contention, especially later on in the series. The main villainous force in the series is the Coven of Shadows, consisting of a group of powerful evil Shadow Witches, once led by Malicar (voiced by Steve Blum), who led a powerful army of dark witches to destroy Sanctum, only to be defeated, his powers stripped, and Malicar himself sealed away, leaving control of the organization in the hands of Zagus, the Scavenger, who is the main coven fugitive on the run. Voiced by Adam Driver, Zagus is a background figure early in the series, but becomes more prominent later on.
A big driving force for Lyte is the death of her 11 year old sister Theresa, just weeks before the start of the series. One night, an intruder believed to be a coven member slipped into Theresa's room and drained her essence, causing her to become sick and die soon after. Lyte blames herself somewhat for the murder, as she had been too busy training for the Crusader Knights to watch over her sister, but she has also been on a relentless hunt for the killer, which becomes another major part of the series, even as Lyte carries out her Crusader Knight duties. Lyte And Darke was, as you may have guessed, an oftentimes dark series, covering more mature themes even than The Last Airbender and The Legend Of Korra. It didn't shy away from depicting death, violence, and bloodshed, with even Lyte and Darke suffering numerous injuries across the series' run. It was TV-PG, and not a “soft” TV-PG like Steven Universe and Hero Quest, but a full on series aimed just as much as adults as it was at children, an exceptionally bold experiment for Cartoon Network outside of its Adult Swim material. There was even mild swearing at times, including multiple uses of “damn” and “hell” per season, and even the word “bastard” being uttered as an insult more than once. The show had a huge animation and voice acting budget, with numerous famous guest stars being brought in (and of course, it wasn't cheap to have actors like Patrick Stewart and Frances McDormand in prominent roles, though they were lucky to secure Adam Driver before he became a bigger star toward the end of the 2010s). The relationship between Lyte and Darke is at the heart of the series, and though many fans (controversially) interpreted it as a romantic one, it was instead intended as a sisterly bond, Lyte gaining a new younger sister to fill the hole in her heart left behind by Theresa, and Darke gaining an older sister to replace the parents she barely knew. The “found family” trope is at the very core of Lyte and Darke, permeating every inch of the series, not just its two primary characters but other characters as well. The series did include some LGBTQ themes, with two prominent male side characters engaging in a gay relationship that gets confirmed in the last season, while the relationship between Celica and the Shadow Witch Demire (voiced by Alycia Debnam-Carey) is the most visible and impactful LGBT relationship in the series, with the two starting off on opposite sides of the conflict, only to come together through their mutual attraction that grows into love over the course of the series.
Lyte And Darke would last a total of four seasons, premiering on September 17, 2016, and running until May 23, 2021. Each season (or “book”, as is the custom for Mike and Bryan's animated shows) would run 20 episodes each, with each season furthering the show's myth arcs while also being its own self-contained story. The seasons would play out like this:
Season One: Season one starts out by setting up the world of Sanctum, the conflict between the Crusader Knights and the Shadow Witches, and establishing Lyte's relationship with Darke. We are shown that Crusader Knights and Shadow Witches do often work together, with one prominent pairing being that of Reddick (voiced by Gideon Emery) and Visian (voiced by Naoko Mori). Reddick was a hero of the recent war, and he and Visian seek to bring the last Shadow Witches to justice peacefully, an approach that proves controversial among most, though Lyte admires him, especially after getting to know Darke. Much of the first half of the season is sort of a “monster of the week” format, with Lyte and Darke getting to know each other, getting better acquainted with their powers, and taking down random criminals, from rogue Shadow Witches to simply bad normal humans. The two obviously don't trust each other at first, but eventually Lyte begins to bond with her, showing her softer side, while we learn more about the Shadow Witches from Darke. The second half of the season deals with the workings of the Crusader Knights, and a corruption growing within. We're initially led to believe that Celica may be the cause of the corruption, but we eventually learn that the corruption stems from Reddick, who's actually being manipulated by Visian (who herself is shown secretly meeting with Zagus and Demire). While we are also shown that most Shadow Witches just want to live in peace, and some Crusader Knights are genuinely brave and open-hearted, there are many people in both factions who want to seize power, and that the corruption in the Crusader Knights is threatening to cause the war to spring back to life. Eventually, Reddick is brought to justice, Visian is defeated, and the corruption is rooted out of the organization. Lyte is hailed as a hero, but there's a steep cost: Crusader Knights are no longer allowed to work with Shadow Witches under any circumstances, and in fact, the goal has shifted from capture to eradication. Lyte, however, continues to meet with Darke in secret, knowing that the tensions between the Crusader Knights and Shadow Witches are about to ramp up severely.
Season Two: Season two focuses on the growing conflict between the Crusader Knights and the Shadow Witches, with the Crusader Knights cracking down more and more, especially with more Shadow Witches openly attacking people out in the open. Demire is a major villain early on, still working directly under Zagus, but there's another new threat: an anarchist named Cato (voiced by Phil Brooks, also known by his wrestling name, CM Punk). Cato believes the Crusader Knights are tyrants, and has rallied many followers to his cause. He has no powers of his own, but with lots of manpower and weapons at his disposal, he proves to be a bigger threat than Visian and Reddick ever were, and his activities cause the Crusader Knights to act even more zealously. Meanwhile, Lyte has been pulled further and further away toward Darke (instead spending more time training under Celica, who plays a big role this season as well), so Darke has begun wandering... and eventually discovers Malicar, beginning a mentor-student relationship with him. She knows Malicar is “evil”, but she still knows that she needs to train with him to get a better grip on her powers... and we eventually learn that Darke is Malicar's biological daughter, and is destined to lead the Shadow Witches back to glory. Darke's communing with Malicar becomes a serious point of tension between Lyte and Darke, one that has to be resolved toward the end of the season. We eventually find out that Malicar has been using Darke to undo the seals on his powers, and very nearly succeeds after Zagus is able to manipulate Cato into doing certain things to release numerous Shadow Witch prisoners. Of course, Demire begins to slip out of Zagus' influence after a few chance encounters with Celica, while it's eventually discovered that Lyte has been continuing to work with Darke. She is threatened with execution, but she and Darke are able to convince the Emperor and High Priestess to trust Darke, and indeed, to end the campaign of extermination against Shadow Witches after several of them help to battle back Cato and Malicar's forces. In the season's climax, Lyte and Darke work together to re-seal Malicar, while Cato and his forces are disbanded. The Crusader Knight crackdown ends, Shadow Witches are allowed to come back out of the shadows, and Lyte and Darke's friendship grows stronger than ever.
Season Three: Season three features an all out war between the Crusader Knights and Shadow Witches after Zagus finally re-surfaces in a big way, bringing dozens of powerful coven members with him. Meanwhile, Lyte is more determined than ever to find Theresa's killer, especially after she learns that Zagus himself was the one responsible. While the battle between the forces of light and dark has never been so ferociously waged, we also learn a lot more about the past of both the Crusader Knights and the Shadow Witches, with more clues about Darke's family, including her mother. Darke continues to be distrusted by many Sanctum authorities, but she and Lyte have grown closer than ever, Celica has become a close friend of both girls (and has also grown closer to Demire, whose loyalties are tested after she learns of Crusader Knight atrocities in the war, but who continues to trust Celica even as the intensifying war threatens to drive them apart), and Lyte's conduct has been unimpeachable, as she becomes the most powerful and heroic fighter in all of the Crusader Knights. The season culminates in an epic battle against Zagus to save the world, and he is defeated by Lyte and Darke together in an epic battle, stripping him of his powers and enabling him to be captured. The world rejoices, and despite some Shadow Witches committing some terrible crimes in the recent conflict, the ones who fought on the side of the Crusader Knights, including Darke and Demire, are treated as heroes by the people, with Darke finally being accepted for who she is. However, even after all of that, Lyte still can't let go of her sister's murder. She has learned that Zagus wasn't responsible, but that he might know who was, and she visits him while everyone else is celebrating. Zagus gives Lyte a clue that she overlooked, and Lyte, despite her better judgment, goes to check out the clue... which indicates that it was actually Darke who murdered Theresa. The murder was understandable: Darke was dying due to her own magical essence fading, and when she sensed Theresa nearby, she felt she had no choice but to drain her life force away. She thought Theresa would survive, and stole into the night with the stolen life force. Lyte refuses at first to believe it, but realizes that it's true, and immediately goes to confront Darke, who is still at the celebration in the city. Despite their friendship, despite everything they've been through, Lyte immediately attacks Darke, and begins fighting her, aiming to kill her, blinded by rage and revenge. Darke at first merely tries to defend herself, but once she begins fighting back, their battle rages throughout the city, the two girls throwing incredible bursts of power at once another, causing massive destruction. It's a horrifying, tragic fight, with echoes of the climactic Anakin vs. Obi-Wan battle in Revenge Of The Sith, or Zuko and Azula's final deadly showdown in The Last Airbender... but here, it's two young girls who have been through so much, coming to blows because one of them can't let her hatred and anger go. The fight lasts just a few minutes, but it's perhaps the climax of the entire series, one of the most tragic moments ever displayed on a television screen, the two crying, screaming at each other as Lyte tries to kill Darke with everything she has and Darke tries desperately to defend herself before unleashing her full Shadow Witch power with terrifying results. The fight ends in the Crusader Cathedral, the main HQ of the Crusader Knights, with Lyte standing over Darke, seemingly about to kill her.... only for a bolt of lightning to strike. We believe it's Lyte finishing off Darke, but instead, it's shown to be the other way around, a last, desperate burst of energy fired by Darke... and Lyte falls, seemingly dead, still with tears of rage in her eyes, whispering to Darke that she hates her before falling silent. Darke loses it as the Crusader Knights advance on her to arrest her, unleashing her power and bringing down the entire cathedral on the Knights and on Lyte's fallen body before flying out of the rubble, sobbing but also looking emotionally dead. The last scene of the season shows Darke returning to Malicar, telling him that she just killed her best friend and now she's going to kill everyone else, and Malicar smiling viciously.
The season three twist and finale was one of the most stunning moments not just in animation history, but in television history. It aired in July 2019 and set the internet on fire, with an enormous fan reaction and debates raging immediately afterward about who was in the right and what was going to happen next. Was Lyte really dead? What was Darke going to do? The cliffhanger lasted 14 agonizing months, the longest gap between seasons by far, generating enormous amounts of fan angst and discussion. Finally, in September 2020, the final season began to air, giving fans the answers they had long been waiting for.
Season Four: Season four began with Lyte, injured but alive, but also in chains in a Crusader Knight prison, charged with high treason for fraternizing with the Shadow Witch fugitive Darke and for causing the destruction in the city. She's still furious with rage, demanding to be freed so that she can find Darke and kill her, though the Crusader Knights already have plans for that. Once again, Shadow Witches are being hunted down and killed, and most of them, including Demire, have fled the city, while Celica reluctantly stays with her mother, torn about what to do next. Meanwhile, Darke is training fully under Malicar, ready to become his living weapon and the instrument of his vengeance. Lyte eventually breaks out of jail and goes on her own to hunt Darke, even as Celica tells her to calm down and to try and forgive the girl she was once so close with. We begin to learn even more about Darke's past and about the Shadow Witches, and that many of them have fled persecution to a secluded area known as the Umbrella, said to be a place for Shadow Witches who were fleeing both Crusader Knight persecution and also the evil ambitions of the coven. Darke journeys to this place and learns more about her mother, a woman named Lenora (voiced by Pat Benatar). Darke also learns that she once lived in the Umbrella, but that she and Lenora moved somewhere else in the dead of night for unknown reasons. Of course, Lyte and Darke eventually have another ferocious confrontation, and this time, Lyte has the chance to kill Darke, but she can't bring herself to do it. She still hates Darke, but she's calmed down since initially learning of Theresa's murder, and instead of killing Darke, she leaves to go and find Malicar to kill him instead. Darke then learns that Malicar seduced Lenora by telling her that he wanted to free the Shadow Witches so they could all live in peace, and that Darke would be the key, but when Lenora realized Malicar's intentions, she fled with their daughter, first to the Umbrella, but then, after realizing that Malicar could track them, fled to another village on the outskirts of the zone between Sanctum and the realms outside. Malicar found this village and not only slaughtered everyone there, but also killed Lenora after she refused to give up Darke's location. Horrified after learning of what happened to her mother, and feeling a new wave of guilt over Theresa's death, Darke decides to return to Sanctum to turn herself in, even though she knows she'll be killed. Lyte confronts Malicar but is unable to defeat him, and is nearly killed by him, only to be saved by Demire. Lyte is brought to the Umbrella, and though she knows Darke murdered her sister, the things she sees and hears from the refugees there lead her to forgive Darke, and to go and find her. Darke is surrounded by Crusader Knights, and Lyte attacks them to save Darke. The two are both nearly taken, but Archer and Celica show up, with Celica sacrificing herself by allowing herself to be captured, while Lyte and Archer get Darke to safety, leading to an incredibly heartfelt and tearful apology between Lyte and Darke, who re-affirm their sisterly love through waves of tears, both forgiving each other for what they've done. This sets up the last half of the second season, in which Lyte, Archer, Demire, and their allies work to fortify the Umbrella against an invasion by the Crusader Knights, while Malicar, utilizing the power Darke was able to obtain for him, plots his escape, using his agents to corrupt the mind of Emperor Arvain. Lyte and Darke eventually learn that Darke didn't actually murder Theresa... but that instead, Theresa, sensing Darke's pain and fear, reached out to her with her powers of healing, sacrificing her life force willingly to save Darke, and that now, her soul is a small part of Darke's, embuing Darke with healing powers and also enabling her to fulfill the Prophecy of Darkness and Light that becomes essential to the final episodes of the series. It's also why Lyte was so drawn to Darke and willing to trust her so quickly, because she unconsciously sensed Theresa's soul fragment within her (of course, once Lyte was willing to trust Darke, she started to care about her and love her for who she truly was, not because of her sister's soul fragment). The final episodes consist of a grand war between the Sanctum forces and the defenders of Umbrella, with Sanctum's Crusader Knights battling a combined alliance of Shadow Witch refugees, Crusader Knight defectors, and non-powered rebels. Meanwhile, Emperor Arvain seeks to fulfill the Prophecy of Light and Dark himself by stealing away Malicar's power to unify both light and darkness within him, allowing him dominion over both. This enables Malicar to finally regain his freedom and the full use of his powers, so while Lyte goes into the city with Archer and Demire to save Celica, Darke must wage her own private war with her father, to stop him and avenge her mother's death. She is able to defeat Malicar, but seemingly at the cost of her own life, as her soul is torn and twisted by Malicar's evil and rage. Meanwhile, Demire saves Celica, and Celica stands up to her mother Cress, engaging her in a fierce dual, while Lyte challenges Arvain. Lyte is defeated after Arvain is revealed to control both the powers of darkness and light, and it's Cress, who after her defeat at her daughter's hand, realizes the harm she has done and sacrifices herself to allow for Lyte and her allies' escape, while Arvain declares a new age of light and darkness coming together, where there will be no conflict or war because he will rule as the glorious Eternal God-Emperor of Sanctum. Meanwhile, Darke, caught between life and death, ends up “meeting” Theresa. Darke begs Theresa's forgiveness, but Theresa tells her there's nothing to forgive and asks Darke to take care of her sister. Darke returns to the world of the living and quickly flies to the capital, meeting with Lyte. As their friends battle back the corrupted Crusader Knights, Lyte and Darke go together to confront Arvain. As the two go to the palace, a cover of Pat Benatar's “Invincible”, performed by Inez Delgado and Regan Hardwick, is played, and the song continues to play during the final battle in which Lyte and Darke combine their powers to eradicate the evil Emperor once and for all. Though the Emperor is destroyed and the threat to the world is ended, it's not such a neat and tidy ending... the people of Sanctum still largely see the Shadow Witches as evil, and many of them supported the Emperor, even as he became an all powerful dictator. Though there is now peace, Lyte and Darke can no longer return to their old lives, and instead go back to the Umbrella, to protect it from the threat of a future invasion. Celica takes over the Crusader Knights, with Demire at her side, and promises to do what she can to keep the peace, though it will take time to change the hearts of the people. For now, and hopefully for many years to come, there is peace, and Lyte and Darke live together as sisters, protecting their new home and hoping that someday, the people will open their hearts and forgive the transgressions of the past.
Lyte And Darke was, without question, the most acclaimed animated series of its time, and perhaps of all time, surpassing even shows like The Simpsons and Batman: The Animated Series in cultural appreciation. It would win many, many Emmys, including a voice acting Emmy for Regan Hardwick's performance in the incredible third season finale, and would surpass both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend Of Korra in critical acclaim, though its ratings would lag slightly behind The Last Airbender overall. Its fandom would become one of the largest around, and though the fandom would produce many great works and would generally be peaceful, there would be tremendous controversies throughout the run of the show, most notably over the Larke (Lyte/Darke pairing). Controversial due to the fact that it not only pairs a 15 year old with a 12 year old, but also because they essentially become “sisters” over the course of the series, it would generate enormous debate within the fandom about the ethics of shipping such a pairing, with the debate between Larke “pro shippers” and “anti shippers” nearly splitting the fandom in two, particularly during the long 14 month hiatus between the third and fourth seasons. Despite the controversies, the good about the series would heavily outweigh the bad, and Lyte and Darke is the show that would cement non-comedy television animation in the West as no longer being simply for kids, but for adults as well. Its influence would lead to a number of people on its writing staff being given their own shows, most notably Noelle Stevenson, who would be given the chance to helm a revival of Jem and the Holograms for Blockbuster's streaming service starting in 2023.
-
Here are the ten most popular currently running kids' shows as of September 2016. This isn't in terms of absolute ratings, but a combination of ratings, reviews, and cultural relevance:
1. Flora and Ulysses
2. Steven Universe
3. Goldilocks: The Series
4. Home Run
5. Rick And Morty
6. Sonic The Hedgehog
7. Zach and Zips
8. Hero Quest
9. The Loud House
10. Growing Up Super
