After seeing people discuss the latest project by Matt Groening called "Disenchantment", I finally decided to take a look and see if there's anything worth the time. It all starts out innocuous enough but soon the sappy teenage drama gives way to some "Hostel" settings, pretty unbelievable action, sudden character development and closure of story arcs. The viewer is struck with a couple-story bombshell in the 10th episode of season 1, so if you've given up before that, you'll probably keep thinking it's a trash show. There are no spoilers but there are some gore shots that could spoil your lunch, so be advised.
I'll be changing my usual approach on how I review shows to avoid spoilers, so instead of giving a rundown of each episode, I'll just briefly describe my impressions of season 1. The second season is expected in 2020 and 2021, so I should review what we have available right now (December 2019) rather than wait for the rest of the show to water down my impressions.
The protagonist of the show is the teenage princess Tiabeanie aka. Bean, a bucktooth drunkard. In the first episode, she is given a two-dimensional demon, Luci, as a gift and meets an elf called Elfo, who has grown up in a cozy elf kingdom working on the assembly line. He gets bored of his life and flees, encountering common people and finally Bean. The two literally appear sitting on her shoulders and prodding her to take action. Yeah, we won't be getting much subtlety.
The graphic artists flex their muscles at the very beginning, showing us some backgrounds with an impressive amount of details. In the scene below from season 1, episode 1, we get Elfo leaving his hosts' hut (click the image for a 162.74 KB, 1280x720px version).
2D animation is pushed to its limits to provide us with sweeping 3D shots, such as this image of Dreamland, Bean's kingdom (click the image for a 98.1 KB, 1280x720px version).
Soon enough, the show turns grim and starts throwing drug, prostitution, alcoholism and sex references into this seemingly innocuous setting. All right, so the creators are your run-of-the-mill perverts who want to corrupt children but the gore is something else. In season 1, episode 5, we get a retelling of the Hansel and Gretel story with some rather unsavory imagery (click the image for a 162.74 KB, 1280x720px version).
Hope you're not eating lunch because there's more (click the image for a 113.49 KB, 1280x720px version).
We eventually settle back to the usual fantasy setting, except we occasionally get a funny background joke. In this scene, Bean is getting wasted at a tavern to get away from her dad, who launches scepters from his palace to make her come home (click the image for a 170.2 KB, 1280x720px version).
On occasion, a scepter smashes through the window and lodges itself into a beam or a table, with patrons unflinchingly continuing with their drinks. This joke is unique, fresh and fits the medieval setting, with numerous graphical details enriching the joke; I guarantee you'll remember the Flying Scepter tavern. Other than that, the backgrounds, though detailed and charming, are criminally underused. Take a look at this sweeping establishing shot of the town – Bean is drinking, Luci is standing on the barrel of apples and Elfo is gawking at the wares (click the image for a 228.57 KB, 1280x720px version).
I carefully looked at what the kid behind Elfo was doing and it felt like he was glitching out, like something out of that Rick and Morty episode where they're in a simulation. Overall, the show feels really sloppy when it comes to contextualizing these tiny details and weaving them into the story, not to mention continuity errors.
In that same Hansel and Gretel episode there is a scene where Elfo enters a forest and approaches a pond; in one shot, he's missing a shoe, in the next he's wearing both shoes and in the third he's again missing one. In another episode, Bean runs outside a temple and jams the door with a shovel; in the establishing shot as she was approaching, there was no shovel in sight. Was it so hard to add a tiny shovel in the background, considering the artists added all sorts of interesting but irrelevant details to the sweeping shot above?
If these continuity errors make you think the story is underdeveloped and sloppy, you're right. Characters who were killed off in one episode by literally being thrown into a volcano with a lava "burp", off of a plank and cord bridge no less, come back with a vengeance. Another character who had his head impaled on a GoT-like Iron Throne survives for days (months?) and delivers unfunny quips without anyone batting an eye. It's a prince, no less! What is this place? What are these characters able to do?
Learning about our characters is the only way to identify with them and perceive moments when they grow. Sadly, character abilities in Disenchantment are largely unexplained. The Professor Farnsworth ripoff serving Bean's father, Sorcerio, can't actually produce any magic despite there being tons of magical creatures, items and events all around him. Luci, the demon, is both solid and non-solid and can escape being trapped in a box but can't escape a bottle. Luci can also produce flame from her tail when convenient but also conveniently forgets about his abilities for dramatic purposes. So, is Luci male or female? Yeah, about that...
Look, I don't care if you're in love with the Moon, stars or whatnot, but I do care when I'm presented with a story that shoehorns in gender politics and gender traits just to make a crude, obnoxious joke, and in Disenchantment we get a lot of it. In the story, Luci uses a gruff, man's voice but the name is a woman's one. Yeah, I get it, it's meant to be shorthand for "Lucifer" but it still reads like a woman's name in an attempt to befuddle the viewer in terms of Luci's gender. We meet a transgender gryphon who literally says, "Gender is a spectrum", Elfo does nasty things with a giant woman and even Sorcerio turns out to be having a gay affair with another advisor of Bean's dad.
What does this have to do with the story? Absolutely nothing, it's just thrown in for cheap laughs on the level of "geh is funneh". None of it is addressed, referenced or even woven into the story at all, it's just there, like the writers expected to pile up minced body parts and have them animate themselves into a storytelling monster. I'm not against any expression of gender identity but this felt insulting and disrespectful on all levels to me as a straight guy. If you'll make two gay characters a part of your story, make their relationship matter somehow, don't just throw it out there and leave it like that. Otherwise, it's a waste of everyone's time because there's no payoff, though that's a problem common to the entire show, especially when it comes to Bean's and her dad's relationship.
A massive part of Bean's motivation in the first season is that her dad isn't treating her right. The dad appears airheaded but then turns out genuinely vulnerable and alive in season 1, episode 9 without any foreshadowing. It's just, one second he's an idiot and the next he actually cares. Remember the Flying Scepter tavern? Her dad is actually a herculean hero who just got fat and lazy because of plot contrivance. What about Bean? Sadly, she just mopes and constantly whines. I understand the whole "hero doubts himself" angle but this is in every episode and there's no growth in Bean at all; she's just a spoiled brat.
It's possible to do teenage angst well, just like was done in "Grounded for life", an amazing sitcom starring that guy who gets his hand chopped off by Blade and featuring his teenage daughter character Lily. After all these years, I still remember Lily and I just realized she actually had more superpowers than Bean, whose stepmom was half-frog – when Lily was chastised by her dad, she would scream to the point of what felt like rupturing ear drums.
In Disenchantment, Bean just causes trouble and her dad forgets about it or forgives her or has amnesia? This is never explained and there are no consequences for Bean so none of it feels real. It's possible to make the daughter-dad conflict clever but in Disenchantment, Bean never gets her comeuppance nor does she get in any danger or trouble at all, so no events have any real payoff at all, that is until episode 10, when everything gets turned upside down. In essence, Bean is invulnerable and unkillable, which ironically kills all tension and deeply wounds the viewer's sense of relatability. I learned nothing watching Disenchantment, except that Elfo has no body hair and is bikini-ready at all times.
Graphically, Disenchantment is an unusually strong show, except when it comes to continuity details, such as that scene with Elfo's shoe or that with the shovel. On all other counts, Disenchantment is a subpar show, but especially when it comes to fleshing out the characters to make them believable and likable. There's nobody likable in the show except Elfo, who feels like a genuine person with affinities and opinions, which I believe is because writers actually played around with the "noble, tall elf" trope. Just use existing tropes and play with them, guys!
The show is set in a medieval setting but doesn't draw any inspiration from the existing lore or use any fantasy tropes to flesh out the world. In Disenchantment, fairies are literal hookers, princesses get wasted and high, elves hang rebels and have sex with giants. It's all pretty anachronistic, feels awkward and provides little to no payoff, which makes me think it was all put in for shock value. The show might as well have been set in the future and nothing of value would be lost. I think the only reason for a medieval setting was to avoid comparisons with Futurama, which does indeed appear like a direct inspiration and a much better show on all counts.
Overall, Disenchanment lacks subtlety and doesn't let the characters breathe. It's only at and past the mid-way point of the first season that the show finally picks up with settings, humor, character development and story arcs to actually make me laugh out loud. I recommend binge-watching the first 10 episodes and then taking a break to reassess the show. If you like it after that, keep going, otherwise don't bother and just rewatch Futurama or the first 6 seasons of Simpsons.
After rereading this text and thinking about the show a bit more, I think I finally have an explanation for why the show seems so clumsy with the daughter-dad relationship. I believe the show originally slated Elfo as the protagonist, which would also neatly explain why it's titled "Disenchantment", meaning Elfo thought the world out there is enchanting but then got disenchanted upon meeting hooker fairies, getting drunk and high etc.
This would then mean that the show as it currently is, is a product of executive meddling, who probably said they wanted a more human-like, relatable protagonist, forcing the writers to shoehorn in Bean and her dad. But, what do the two do? Lacking the time to think of anything better, the writers would have designated the two to just mope and bicker, which is exactly how the show depicts their relationship.