What It's Like Being Alone

Edgar Allan Poe meets "Superjail". Hilarious in its absurdity, the cartoon shows the awkward and violent lives of the orphans in the forgotten mansion. Various creatures struggle for their dreams and mostly fail to archive them.

When the ads first started running on CBC las year (?) I thought the show looked great. A creepy, silly fun stop-motion animation show for adults! Can it get any better than this? Well, yes it can, because after viewing a number of episodes, the beauty of the animation can only carry weak writing so far. Each episode had a few laughs (few being the main word) but overall, this is an unfunny comedy and that's the worst thing a comedy can be.

Yes, I get that the humour is supposed to be ironic and that the tragic lives of the characters are supposed to be sickly darkly funny. Sometimes they are indeed, but most of the time their just kind of bland, or boring or tedious.

I really wanted to support this show, to see it succeed as a cool new thing, and Canadian to boot, but sadly, what it's like is, well, dull.

At first I was intrigued when I saw the posters advertising the show. Stop-motion animation on TV? what's not to like? But when I looked up the creators I found that one of the guys was responsible for Evelyn: the Cutest Evil Dead Girl, a short film whose style was obviously taken from Tim Burton, and concept was lifted wholesale from Roman Dirge's comic Lenore: the Adventures of a Cute Little Dead Girl. He couldn't even be bothered to change the title. So when I finally saw the show, I was watching with lowered expectations.

I've only seen the third episode, but for the most part it's about as unfunny and derivative as his previous effort. The style still looks like it was fished out of Burton's recycling bin, the main character is more grating than necessary and there are the usual comedy ensemble stereotypes. Only Aldous had a few funny lines and I liked the Seymour character mainly because he was mute. I might watch a couple more episodes to give the show a chance, but unless the writing improves I'll hold out for the next Aardman film, thanks.

I found what it's like being alone to be a creepily hilarious and hilariously creepy. Claymation as used in the show is beautiful and visually stimulating.Every aspect of the show was well thought of and the characters are clever and poignantly funny from the literally 'flaming' homosexual(yes it's a stereotype but that's the joke) to Army the one armed boy and even Seymour the no mouthed one eyed violinist.most people with a developed sense of humour should be able to enjoy this show though the potty humour goes a little overboard sometimes. the show should even hook horror fans with it's bleakness or the wonderful gore-fest towards the end of the third episode. Adittionally Peyton fans who are looking for more of his "The Cutest Evil Dead Girl" (His award winning short) won't be disappointed

From the comment titled "What It's Like Being Amazed"

***A wondrous and fiendishly humorous stop-motion animation series about freak orphans who are desperately trying to get adopted. They must have had a crack writing team. Incredible animation and each touching story is as pithy as it is erudite.... (yadda yadda yadda...)***

Clearly, this post was written by Peyton himself - no other human being would display such bravado as to write such complete drivel about a poorly constructed show that has nowhere to go and no way to get there.

While I have to admit that the animation and set design is top-notch, the actual story lines are weak and the characters direct rip-offs of other artist's creations: a cuter version of Princess Lucy can be seen on "The Oblongs" and the dead bunny is practically a direct steal from Vasquez's "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" - not to mention the Tim Burton-esquire "influence" that other posts have mentioned. This can come as no surprise to anyone who has ever had the pleasure of reading Dirge's "Lenore" comic book only to later be exposed to Peyton's "Evelyn" - the plagiarism is tangible enough to choke even the most stalwart goth-wannabe.

It is a shame that this show was made on the backs of the Canadian tax-payers while the art and animation department struggled to make the show funny and brilliant under the weight of poor scripts and even poorer management.

Do yourself a favour and watch the show with the sound turned off - at least that way you may enjoy the beauty of the animation and art direction unencumbered by the lousy writing.