Man, did I miss this show. Besides the Halloween special last year, it’s been two and a half years since we’ve had a Venture Bros. episode. The third episode of season five premiered on Sunday (with a small but cheeky performance from Gillian Jacobs) and between that and the hour-long premiere the other weekend, this show continues to surprise me with big changes for the Venture clan.

Show creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick have never been shy about making story choices that greatly change the characters. I mean, in the last moments of the season three finale they killed off 24 right after Brock quit — two fan-favorites gone from the series, at least as regulars. But that fearlessness and willing to shake things up is how the show went from a straight-forward Johnny Quest satire to the eclectic, often bizarre and even touching show that it is today. The one aspect of the show that has ultimately changed the least is the boys.

That’s not to say Hank and Dean haven’t grown up at all during the first four seasons. Both boys have been disillusioned about their father’s success as a scientist and have an overall better idea of the world around them. But while the show has had the boys change in previous seasons, their naivety seems to snap them back over and over. In the last couple weeks (on top of the Halloween special), I’ve started to think the brothers are really changing.

Hank’s personality hasn’t changed nearly as much, but he is stretching his wings. Hank Co. is back at the compound  and as much as Rusty has belittled him for not being the ideal future super scientist like Dean, Hank is showing initiative. Then in this past episode, we see Hank with highly focused Dark Knight-esque survival and combat skills that save the day. Granted, he was hyped up on coffee at the time, but the only thing that went wrong in his plan was the iPad didn’t go off. That’s pretty impressive considering how many times he died previously due to his own incompetence (including via rooftop umbrella drop trying to be Batman).

But as Hammer and Publick have said before, the show is really about failure. And while the boys are becoming their own people, I doubt their lives are going to be any less disturbing. I mean, in the premiere Dean gets a girlfriend who slowly mutates thanks to Rusty’s new radioactive project, then beats the mutant’s leader in hand-to-hand combat to please his mutant girlfriend, which he then discovers will doom the world to a mutant apocalypse.

The boys might change, but some things stay the same. And I’m looking forward to watching it all.

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B003VVBZ7W” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510m-deQWmL._SL160_.jpg” width=”139″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B00466HOR6″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Pl3lJhSiL._SL160_.jpg” width=”139″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B001NOMO38″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51My7e2fUsL._SL160_.jpg” width=”126″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B001NOMO2Y” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511%2BWGWqJbL._SL160_.jpg” width=”145″]

Martin Starr doesn’t say too much when talking about his character on Adult Swim’s NTSF:SD:SUV – after all, that’d be a breach of national security. Starr plays Sam Stern, the tech expert for the super-secret National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle, on the comedy that parodies the glut of TV procedural dramas. Each episode is only fifteen minutes long, so Starr has mastered getting right to the point.

He calls the gig “Pure enjoyment. The feel on set is a lot like making a sketch comedy show.” Who amongst NTSF‘s hilarious cast is his favorite to work with? That’s something he’s happy to declare. “Kate!” he declares, meaning Kate Mulgrew, who dropped by for a chat last month. “The rest of ‘em are okay but Kate wins by at least one million fun points.”

Starr is relatively tight-lipped when it comes to spoilers. “I believe that part of the beauty of watching a show, finding out what’s going to happen,” he says. “But I will tell you that I got divorced and remarried three times this season. In my personal life. Was that the question?”

I do get him to talk about this season’s third episode, “Sabbath-tage,” which sent him out into the field to take on a terrorist who decided to attack San Diego on a Saturday. He tells me that the best part of the Sam-centric episode was “Working with the immensely talented Alison Brie. We almost got married,” he quips. “Dodged that bullet.”

He’s got a short list of oddball things he’d like to see Sam do next: “Skydive, be the only male at an orgy full of sexy villainesses, skateboard on an airplane, turn back time and fight crime as a baby,” he says. These are not all that implausible, given that past episodes have included Mulgrew’s character Kove getting her own podcast and the city of San Diego being destroyed.

Given that NTSF parodies crime procedurals and action flicks in equal measure, I ask him to name his favorites in either genre. “True Lies. Face Off.  It certainly isn’t as amazing as I remembered as a child but it is still pretty amazing.  I mean Woo!  John Woo!” he says, adding that he’s a fan of actor Matt Bush.

When it comes to his other work, Starr tells me that his small role in 2008s The Incredible Hulk opposite Edward Norton was “a fantastic experience,” but doesn’t have a favorite role on his resume. Instead, he advises fans just to “keep thy eyes open; I’m not quitting anytime soon.”

And with that, those are all the secrets I can get him to give up. If you want to find out more about Sam, you’ll have to tune into NTSF:SD:SUV, which airs at 12:15AM tonight (or technically, Friday morning) on Adult Swim.

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B006WXHJNU” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mqHkprZcL._SL160_.jpg” width=”115″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B000RZGIOA” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51x8sJ-ltIL._SL160_.jpg” width=”126″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B00026ZG10″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41a4-%2BzZNBL._SL160_.jpg” width=”110″]