Désenchantée

It's a struggle watching Disenchantment - I have a deep and endearing love for Rough Draft studios and their animation game is strong here. In fact, Groening's aesthetic has never looked nicer - beautifully painted backgrounds, huge complex CGI sequences seamlessly integrated with the 2D stuff. You've got all your favourite voice actors and some nice cult British comedy casting, you've got the legendary Mark Mothersbaugh crafting a fun score to keep it rattling along. It's a serious shame then that it's so let down by some wildly inconsistent plotting and some absurdly sketchy characterwork.

In trying to flex from a syndicated-style comedy animation to a multi-part fantasy epic Disenchantment manages neither very well - and the weight of the story is let down by the flailing plot tendrils and stop-start character arcs that drift in and out of focus seemingly entirely randomly. It's like a big fantasy book where each chapter is being written by different people who each had a brief half-forgotten conversation with the person who wrote the chapter before. It's frustrating, and you find yourself going "wait, but what about this thing from seven episodes ago? Did they forget about it? Will it ever be referred to again?! IT SEEMED IMPORTANT AT THE TIME."

So it's a hodge-podge show really - magnificently polished on the one hand - but incredibly sketchy on the other. Like when a load of artists fold over paper and pass it to another to draw a strange hybrid creature, sure it all sticks together but it doesn't quite work as a whole. It's a show sort of fighting itself and my own mind is doing the exact same thing when I'm watching it. Was Futurama this frequently awkward and hit-and-miss? Is my whole life a lie?! Well perhaps but I'll stick with it for as long as Netflix does (or will the resurrection of Futurama on Hulu spell the end?) - for a deep love of what was and what may or may not ever end up coming to pass.

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.

This series had potential to be unique, and I think in some ways it still maintains that, but overall it doesn't do well in capturing your attention. I do think it has a few redeeming qualities that would make it worthwhile to some viewers.

The show's characters aren't interesting or distinctive, which is what I believe this series misses most.

The episodes tend to have very little conflict. The stakes are typically low as well which make for boring television. Often, the main trio (Bean, Elfo, and Luci) get into something trivial, it resolved, then they're back to square one and ready to repeat it in the next episode. It's all predictable. Each episode started to blend together at about episode 6 in Season 1. I soon realized I was having trouble with episode plots and what the characters were truly doing.

As for comedy purposes, it doesn't garner laughs from me--the comedy it tries to produce isn't particularly funny.

There is some sort of charm the show possesses though. I can't quote put my finger on it exactly, but it makes for a decent show to have on in the background.

I don't think the writers are passionate about the show, unfortunately. It certainly shows in the episodes.

All in all, it's watchable enough.

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.

The animation style is just wonderful. It's like 2D in a 3D world. When you see the clips of the village, you can really see it.