Side Quest

As a fan of Mythic Quest, I was drawn to watch this spinoff. The first episode wasn't that great, but hey, it was only 4 half hour episodes, so I was determined to try to finish it all. Well, in the middle of the 4th episode, I bailed. Shame on the makers of Mythic Quest for releasing this, and relying on the goodwill of fans of the original show to watch it.

I suppose this series came about because there were one-off episodes that the Mythic Quest creators had thought about over the years that they wanted to produce, but didn't fit into the Mythic Quest paradigm (which is puzzling, because as all Mythic Quest fans know, each season there is a one-off episode included that has nothing to do with the plotline of that season).

Suffice to say, if they ever do a second season of Side Quest, I will not be watching it.

I'm going to take a gamble that the cancellation of "Mythic Quest" probable means that this spin off show isn't going to progress beyond these initial four epsiodes either - I may be proved wrong, in which case I'll write another review at the end of that season.

Phil (Derek Waters) an art director at Mythic Quest struggles to ignore Ian (Rob McElhenney) whilst on a vacation with his fiancé. Janae's (Shalita Grant) comic bookstore only receives one copy of a new Mythic Quest comic, leading to conflict amongst the patrons. Sylvie (Annamarie Kasper) cellist with an orchestra performing the Mythic Quest soundtrack on tour loses her love of music and Devon (Van Crosby) tries to organise his squad into an in-game raid, unaware that tensions have formed between them.

An anthology series, the four episode are all linked to Mythic Quest one way or another, and don't have any continuity between themselves and, in fact, with the exception of the first episode, don't have continuity with the main show. As with all anthologies shows, they are a bit of a mixed bag. Tonally it's similar to what "Mythic Quest" became as the show went on. They are mostly comedies, but each of them injects a healthy dose of pathos in as well.

For my money the worst one was probably the third one, Fugue. The concert one. It has nice performances, as they all do, but is less funny than the other three are, to balance out the whimsy of the story. The best of the four was probably the comic bookstore episode, again perhaps because it was the most traditionally funny of the episodes.

I'd have watched more, had Apple remained in the "Mythic Quest" business but by the same token, I'm not to sad to see this end here and to move on to something else.

Episode 3 was amazing but the rest if the episodes so far range from amusing to insightful.

If you look at it as a spin-off you might be looking at it the wrong way.

As an anthology series it touches vaguely on the main show but really does its own thing.

I haven't seen the entire thing yet (just 3 episodes) but I'm getting a pretty good feeling from this.

I hope we get more deep dives into the different aspects of this world.

It's not just comedy for comedy's sake. Heck, some parts of it are downright dark in tone but again, this isn't meant to be viewed as a sequel to the main show.

Hope they do a VO episode too.

Along the lines of the VO episode in Alan Tudyk's Con-Man.

4 episodes....

So what is the "side quest"? Apparently, unlike Mythic Quest, the Side Quest is to use the platform of TV to, in a minor way, "preach" some morals or life lessons to viewers.

The first 2 were decent. (Morals: Be assertive and don't be self centered).... Relatable stories with some MINOR humor injected. Not as much humor as Mythic Quest, but still I found the first two episodes engaging.

I found episode 3 (Moral: Working too much) dreadfully boring, uninteresting, and trying waaaaaaaayyyyy too hard to be deep and meaningful in an effort to convey some sort of "life lesson". Acting was good, the problem was the story.

Episode four.. (Moral: Be respectful) again, trying to be more deep and meaningful that it actually was.. and centered around pre-teens so, yeah there's that. It's been a while since I was in High School, much less Junior High...simply didn't find it interesting. But I can accept that I'm not part of the "Twitch Generation" and I'm not the audience for it.

So.. meh.. its a 50/50 series. If you're looking for the humor of Mythic Quest, it's not really here. The stories, other than the first episode, are far more tangential than directly related to MQ.

None of the episodes seemed worthy of a second viewing to me.

As a huge fan of Mythic Quest (MQ), I was excited to see this spin-off. With only four 30-minute episodes it seemed like a great way to pass a rainy day.

Unfortunately this show pales in comparison to the original MQ.

While the acting is good, the writing lacks the charm and humor of MQ. There is no cohesive factor joining the episodes together other than they are fans of MQ. It is a flimsy premise on which to base an entire show.

None of the characters are compelling or sympathetic. The fourth episode was one that actually had some pathos injected into it.

It is definitely not worth the two hours.