Overall, I liked it. But there were issues. A flawed gem, if you like.
Unlike some other low-episode shows, I think this one could have been greatly enhanced by more low-stakes establishing episodes to drive home the main points. More episodes like the fast-food one, where each character can exhibit their personality, maybe highlight their past or the trauma that seemed to be holding them back. Definitely more examples of Cain being a nightmare-chaos-engine-source-of-anguish.
And then, yes, the ambiguous, dangling, or unresolved plot threads at the end. Can the abstracted get fixed/their files uncorrupted (particularly Queenie)? If Cain can access a wi-fi connection to look up what happened to their real-world analogs, will they ever use it again? Is the version of Gummygoo Pomni bonded with still there in the trash folder ready to be pulled out again? Does Bubble/the AI Cain freed from himself get any continued existence? And so on for so many different things. Some things probably should be left vague (whether Jax specifically will unabstract, whether Ragatha and Pomni are coupling-up as Zooble and Gangle clearly seem to be, etc.), but a whole lot of others could have been dealt with.
such as why everyone forgot their name or why Jax's thought/nightmare about what would happen if Pomni died (which we were pretty sure was behind the chained door in his mind) was never actually presented.
I didn't get that interpretation. I thought the one behind the chained door was the violent abstracted mind, or possibly the murderer he feared he was.
Personally, I felt that the series tried a little too hard to make everything turn out alright. Based on how the characters had been evolving, and where the plot was going, things seemed to move a little too neatly into "but everything turned out okay" territory (notwithstanding, of course, those who had abstracted...but even for them, the tenor seemed to be overly sanguine, with their being shown as akin to fish in an aquarium). Particularly given how things turned out with Cain.
I think Cain had to turn out that way to make it what it was supposed to be. I have the theory that
TADC is the
Man of La Mancha to
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream's
Don Quixote -- the positive re-telling of the same story that says, effectively, 'yes, I hear what you are saying, but, and hear me out, what if positivity works?'
As for everything turning out okay. I think it would have been interesting (and I suppose realistic) if one or more of the characters found out that they real-world counterparts were doing quite poorly -- Jax (or Ragatha) in jail for killing their mother, Gangle paralyzed, Kinger a widower there too. However, there were some decently ambiguous 'are doing fine enough... for now's. Jax is a delivery guy, Ragatha doesn't mention her mother much on her website (so escaped the control of, but not necessarily the emotional burden), etc. In the Circus, Gangle, Zooble, and Cain are doing great -- romance, adventure, learning, acceptance, a chance to explore their artistic outlets, etc. Pomni and Ragatha are okay -- playing softball together, having come to a bit of an understanding that Pomni still considers Ragatha her best friend, Ragatha maybe getting a bit of found family with the Zoinks (whom she'd previously expressed admiration for as being a loving family), etc. But no clear indication that they get to go on to resolve their future hopes and dreams in any meaningful way (probably because those weren't well established leading up to the finale, see my point above about more establishing episodes). Kinger gets the least happy ending -- getting a low-light viewing station where he can watch his abstracted wife swim, and that's about it.
And of course, all of us agreed that there were tidbits which didn't make much sense. Like that bit with the talking moon near the end, which was apparently the creator of the show's shout-out to...themselves? Someone else? The audience? I'm honestly not sure, but either way it felt self-indulgent on their part, like they were going for what they wanted rather than what would make for an impactful story.
The moon and the sun were poorly explained/developed, and I don't think added much because of it. However, that part at the end made perfect sense to me: she was telling Caine that he was loved -- not because he'd programmed something to love him or demanded it of the people in the circus, but because of who he was. Mind you, he'd only been actually thoughtful or good in any way for a few minutes leading up to that point (repenting, and going and getting that info on peoples' real-world counterparts), requiring her to be omniscient for her to have seen anything love-deserving in him -- but accepting that somehow she knew what good he'd done, it made for a compelling moment.
Overall, I like the series, but it feels like it fumbled the landing.
And I can see that too. It strongly violated a lot of norms of story structure -- sympathy for the least sympathetic cast members, villain gets redeemed mostly by just realizing they had screwed up, near LotR-esque post-climax, unresolved plotlines, etc. It's... ... ...it's a dish that if you described it people would say the wouldn't like it, and then when people try it they either say, 'huh, I didn't think I was going to like that, but somehow you pulled it off' or they are, in fact, not going to like it.
