(Des)encanto

When I seen the series for the first time, I mean 1st season, it had interesting scenario, great characters, actors behind the screen, nice humor, amazing illustrations!

The ending of 2nd season has opened a great story of politics in the style of GoT, and it was excited and promising!

But what happened with the series by 4th season? Where is humor, scenario, characters? It turned into boring long playing animation with absolutely unclear plot and scenes of the stories. A lot of actions, but no sense at all...

Did the authors decide to make a joke and give us a real real Disenchantment?

2024 UPD: 5th season of the series even worse than 4th.

________

10 stars - for illustrations, characters, bright worlds and the cast (I love IT Crowd and Mighty Bush guys) 3 stars - for the plot.

With this show being from the creator of "The Simpsons" and "Futurama", I was of course curious enough to give it a watch, and I thought it would be as outrageous and hilarious as those earlier shows. While I didn't think the show was terrible, it is to a degree somewhat disappointing.

First, the good stuff in the show. Technically, the show is first rate, with good animation and art design. The premise and the characters are pretty original, making the show not feel like a clone of any past TV shows. The show is certainly not boring, and is somewhat amusing at times.

However, "somewhat amusing" is about as funny as the show gets. The humor of the show lacks significant comic jabs to make it truly laugh-out-loud funny. The show seems to be content to move along with an amiable attitude instead of really trying to be hilarious. There are other problems with the writing as well. The creators of the show seem to be having difficultly moving from a 22 minute episode format to a longer version; you can really feel some blatant padding at times, especially with the first episode of the show. Also, the show is very slow in explaining details of the characters and situation at times. For example, Bean's half-brother is not clearly identified or given a chance to speak until about halfway through the show's first ten episodes.

This is not a bad show, but currently it's not reaching its full potential. It's possible the writers will manage to improve things should the show be renewed. Until then, I would say give the show a chance by watching the first three episodes. If you like what you see there, you'll probably find the rest of the episodes amusing enough. If not, then I would say skip the other episodes.

Season 1 began with an episodic construct that was similar to any fraction of Futurama or The Simpsons. At the eleventh hour, it suddenly gained a multi-episode narrative that finished off with a Game of Thrones-esque cliffhanger, and suddenly it became a strange, if not interesting departure from the formulaic sitcom it made itself out to be.

Season 2 picks up right where they left off, and not only kept the narrative, but proved that it also gained a personality somewhere along the way.

Don't get me wrong, I love the first season. The plots are endearing, it's easy to binge, it's nice to look at, and the world is interesting. Is it Game of Thrones? No. Do I want it to be Game of Thrones? Absolutely no. When I see Futurama in medieval times, I want it to be Futurama in medieval times.

Futurama and The Simpsons are meant to be "soup of the day" shows, and people enjoy that. Some people have enjoyed that for 30 years. It's situational antics and shameless social commentary, and that junk is candy for the eyes and ears of your average viewer, myself included. What makes Disenchantment different from Futurama or the Simpsons (apart from only having 20 episodes so far, and a season-long plot, to boot) however, is the fact that both of those programs don't have a main character that lives to make an important statement.

I love Bean and everything she stands for. She's meant to not only be someone who rocks the proverbial boat (especially given the medieval-fantasy setting of the show), but someone who is pained, confused, complex, strong and often has valid points to make; shes a real person. She's a great character. And while I love how Homer Simpson can have a heart sometimes, I really love how Bean has a heart all of the time. She can be mean and she can make mistakes, but she can also learn, care about things deeply, and throw a punch at someone who wrongs her. I think that's someone that a lot of people secretly wish they could be.

The second season has a lot of heart, made me frustrated a lot, probably ended episodes rather abruptly at times but still managed to be really interesting story-wise, and develops the characters nicely to the point where I want season 3 to premier yesterday.

So it seems like everyone and their mother expected Matt Groening and co to pull off a hat-trick and add a third golden animation series to his resume. It's hard to find a review that doesn't mention or compare it to his earlier work (And inevitably I will do so too). But people are being unfair, illogical and overestimating the current comedy prowess of the veteran crew around Matt.

It makes no sense to compare Disenchantment to the golden age of the Simpsons, which lies more than 2 full decades in the past now. Nor to compare it to Futurama, which has been off the air for years now and that includes the revival, which was mostly build out of archived leftovers from the initial run hence why the revival was still top notch material.

If you want to compare Disenchantment to something compare it to the last few Simpons seasons. Last one I saw was season 24 and that was already an atrocity so I can only imagine what depths they should have reached by now. Point here is: what was anybody still expecting here? that Matt and co would reinvent themselves after they've been unable to do so for years?

Another major point in why a comparison is approaching disenchantment the wrong way is because it's clearly trying to be something different. There's a serialized narrative, a longer format, some mystery to the plot, a new painting-like art style (for backgrounds) and little segments here and there that seem to have a different purpose than straight up comedy, something that supports the idea that Disenchantment might not be intended or at least envisioned as a purely comedic effort.

And herein lies the fatal flaw that impairs Disenchantment. It plays it way too safe. It doesn't fully embrace the new direction and misses on potential opportunities. disenchantment could have been crafted as a full blown adventure series, with a hefty dose of classic Simpsons comedy injected. There's a rule in comedy: the less grounded in reality your fictional creation is the harder you'll have to try to be funny. It's why series like family guy have to go way over the top while things like veep and curb your enthusiasm can keep it simple and still be funny. The idea is that making your comedy series more real creates potential to have impactful emotions beyond just those derivated from comedy. More grounded comedy series can instill for example fear, tension, sadness, melancholy etc. So in my opinion they should have shifted Disenchantment along the comedic spectrum in the opposite direction from where it is has gone now. Could have been something Avatar:TLA alike but with maturer comedy but now it's just Futurama in middle-earth.

Which leaves us with only the comedic aspect as a potential selling point. And by now you've guessed it: it's simply not funny enough. Like another reviewer stated: Disenchantment seems to be content with being just amiable instead of being genuinely funny. I made it to the sixth episode. By then it came clear that there wasn't much novelty to disenchantment in general, they weren't really committed to the concept of serialization and this sixth episode was particularly unfunny.

I'll give you an example of a joke from one of the first scenes of said episode (though it might not translate very well by just typing it out): The 3 main characters Bean, Luci and Elfo are playing a drunken game of guessing who the other is impersonating.

When it's Elfo's turn he simply says: I'm Elfo. Luci reacts: Hmmm, I know this one, (keeps thinking aloud for a few lines), I wanna say Schmelfo? Elfo replies: No! It's me, Elfo!

........sigh.

This sort of comedy level feels like watching one of those many third-rate short-lived stoner comedies on adult swim nobody's heard of or watches. Or like going to an amateur improv comedy night. Rest of the episode was on par, so that was my limit.

In general it's fairly watchable, it doesn't deserve the 1 star rating from people who expected to relive the Simpsons/Futurama golden age and are just rate-bombing in frustration. It get's a 7.3 currently and that seems about right. 7.3 Counts as mediocre on IMdb but in my book average is still 5 logically so it gets a 5. Barely recommendable.

This show is not a comedy! It's a story and character driven fantasy show with jokes. And I love it! Every time the focus is on the characters or the story and world, it's awesome!!! Don't treat this show as a comedy, and kind of suffer through most of season 1, still enjoyable, but mostly one offs. This show is fun!