There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Wondla - it's a perfectly serviceable show. The visuals are passable, the writing is OK, the characters... exist. If all you want is white noise to pad up some time, then by all means, give it a watch. But if you're actually looking for anything compelling, memorable, or even - dare one hope - actually good, then look elsewhere. Wondla ain't it.
I can't speak to the book series this was based on, but the show is yet another generic Hero's Journey. I've literally seen this show before, except then it was called Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. And before that, it was She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Hell, I can go as far back as Samurai Jack, and all of those shows did this concept better. And that's a problem.
The primary issue with Wondla is that it's entirely paint-by-numbers. Child is raised in a vault, leaves vault, finds world full of monsters and aliens. Along the way, she has the standard coming-of-age story of rebelling against parent figures, making new friends and learning to believe in herself. The power was inside us all along.
Muthur is... a mother figure without much substance to it. The show tries to have a dilemma about whether she's a real person or just a machine, but she acts like a person so that dilemma falls flat. The blue alien whose name I forget is Han Solo. Not much else to him. About the most memorable character is the giant telepathic tardigrade service the role of Appa from Avatar. He was quite charming.
The plot can best be summed up as: "Go to place, look for people. No people. Go to other place, look for people. No people. Go to other-other place, look for people. No people. Boss fight." We have Tatooine from the Phantom Menace where we have to gamble for money on plot device, there's the Last Jedi diversion that eats up half the runtime and changes nothing, there's the whiplash character development where people instantly rethink their entire lives and turn into different characters, etc. There wouldn't be much to spoil even if I wanted to, because there's not much to the story.
And then there's the antagonist of the story - Bastille - a giant four-armed yeti thing with a punt gun. He shows up every so often whenever the game... sorry, the show needs a chase sequence or a boss fight, then disappears entirely once more. It's like the show really wants to tell this amazing coming of age story, but is contractually obligated to have action scenes so it recycles the same boss multiple times.
The reason I keep framing the show within the context of a video game is because it really resembles one. The plot exists merely as a vehicle to move the characters between locations, where they get to have action setpieces and talking cutscenes. If there's greater depth than that, I couldn't find it. It feels like the quintessential loud, colourful kid's show with all he edges rounded out and all the characters simplified to the point of caricature.
I don't regret watching it, but I really can't recommend it.
