What It's Like Being Alone

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. Though it is appealing to a younger audience the plot lines aren't facile. For example I especially enjoy the brilliant autopsy of the idiosyncrasies of racial stereotypes. Dwayne Hill is a maestro of voice. If only there were more shows like this on television. Finally we have proof that a fantastic series with great production values can come from Canada. I just wish there was more marketing behind it.

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 stumbled on this show much later... I wasn't sure what it was about but thought I'd give it a try. I was surprised that this funny, well animated show did not get the love it deserved! The characters are well thought out and have good chemistry. I can't believe the people that gave it a one-star on this site... really? Sure, it's not for everyone and those who can't understand dark comedy will never like it but come on, even if you are not a big fan, you have to admit it is well done and should at least be given a five-star. Not sure why people are also comparing it with Tim Burton's work. So are they saying that every clay/stop-motion show that has a dark theme should be compared to those? It's like having every space-themed, science fiction movie be compared to Star Wars. It's just too bad there are only 13 episodes... as with most CBC shows (some deserving and some not), it gets little to no promotion and just fades away. I'm positive if the show's creator had pitch this to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, there would have a good cult following in the US.