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Netflix’s “Disenchantment.” It’s Futurama, but medieval!


KHCast

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Disenchantment is a new animated Netflix series from the creators of the Simpsons and Futurama. It focuses on medieval age, fairytales,etc. It very much follows the style of the past shows, humor, typically meta/self aware, along with overarching story elements. The show features a female main protagonist Bean, the princess of the main setting of the show who could care less for her royalty as she strives to be her own person, Elfo, an elf that’s left his home to see the world, and Lucy a demon that is bound to bean for all eternity. The first season is out, and I’ve seen it, and personally I enjoy it. Certainly more than current Simpsons, but not sure if I’d put it above Futurama. Again this is the first season, and it’s still finding its footing in a lot o ways, and there are a lot of loose plot elements left hanging clearly for future set ups, so there’s still not much in that regard. I think the humor is great and all, but at times feel it gets a bit too self aware. 

Im definitely looking forward to the next season either way. I hope they develop some of the characters a bit more, and tone down on the assholish nature of some of the others.

What are your thoughts on the show?

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The first series was okay. I enjoyed watching it all in all, but it fell flat it more areas than it really shone. It was a disappointment compared to what I was hoping for. I guess it felt quite stilted a lot of the time. There were long silent periods, the action was slow and it seems to think that it's universe it more developed than it already is. The jokes start before the characters are developed enough for the jokes to actually make sense. Oona and the Prince just seem to be the butt of so many jokes before they've been given any substance to be joke characters. The only episode that got any laughs was the Hansel and Gretel one. Everything else was just okay. The series is definitely still trying to find its feet. But I did think that the series finale was very good from the story-telling point of view. I enjoyed the twists. Moving forwards, I think Disenchantment will be at its best when it's sticking closer to the storyline. It's got a lot to work with there.

And yes, I really agree with the "too self-aware" thing. I love a bit of self aware humour. It's too early in the series to be managing much of that sort of content yet though. 

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I'm interested in this, I don't enjoy Simpsons anymore though, but I do love fairy tales aspects, so, I'm definitely intrigued... will try out.

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1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

The first series was okay. I enjoyed watching it all in all, but it fell flat it more areas than it really shone. It was a disappointment compared to what I was hoping for. I guess it felt quite stilted a lot of the time. There were long silent periods, the action was slow and it seems to think that it's universe it more developed than it already is. The jokes start before the characters are developed enough for the jokes to actually make sense. Oona and the Prince just seem to be the butt of so many jokes before they've been given any substance to be joke characters. The only episode that got any laughs was the Hansel and Gretel one. Everything else was just okay. The series is definitely still trying to find its feet. But I did think that the series finale was very good from the story-telling point of view. I enjoyed the twists. Moving forwards, I think Disenchantment will be at its best when it's sticking closer to the storyline. It's got a lot to work with there.

And yes, I really agree with the "too self-aware" thing. I love a bit of self aware humour. It's too early in the series to be managing much of that sort of content yet though. 

You know what it feels like? It feels like a show that expects you to have watched Futurama and Simpsons and just throws you into that style of humor and story, assuming you know what to get from it. It doesn’t really do a amazing job at setting up the important characters, and just kinda tries to rush into their everyday wacky lives. I mean obviously it’s catered to those fans of their prior work, but I still feel like you can do that while still pacing the plot well and introducing us to the world a bit better. Like at times, it feels like I’m in a season 2 or 3, and not a pilot season 

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10 minutes ago, KHCast said:

You know what it feels like? It feels like a show that expects you to have watched Futurama and Simpsons and just throws you into that style of humor and story, assuming you know what to get from it. It doesn’t really do a amazing job at setting up the important characters, and just kinda tries to rush into their everyday wacky lives. I mean obviously it’s catered to those fans of their prior work, but I still feel like you can do that while still pacing the plot well and introducing us to the world a bit better. Like at times, it feels like I’m in a season 2 or 3, and not a pilot season 

Yes, definitely. It's like they've made it's something that's already established, and not a new property. I don't mind them going for the Simpsons/Futurama style comedy because that's great when some right. But it's got absolutely no build up or foundations in play. Hopefully everything will start to fall into place more with later seasons, because right now it's sort of... what.

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I've been meaning to check this out now that I have a Netflix account.  I've been seeing a lot of "why this show is disappointing" clickbait on YouTube so i'm hoping it's not as bad as my internet recommendations would have me believe.  If it is, it's a shame because I quite like the concept, and it's by the creators of two shows I enjoyed at one point.  Here's hoping.

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The show is alright. Not spectacular like Futurama or early Simpsons but just alright.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I watched the first two episodes, and it made me laugh somewhat more than I'd been lead to believe it would.

It's decent so far, not super great, not Futurama great, but it holds promise. A lot of promise.

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I have been meaning to watch this.  I've read and heard good things about this.  Matt Groening should end The Simpsons after the 30th season and then 100% focus on Disenchantment.

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So I watched the first episode.  I'll watch one or two more episodes later just to see if it picks up, but I was not impressed.  In fact, I'm actually kind of blown away by how much I didn't care for this.  I expected it to be mediocre but not this... bland.

I can't think of a single joke that hit.  Every joke felt forced and lacked any sort of comedic timing, which wouldn't be quite so bad if it also didn't feel like they hammered every single joke in.  On countless occasions, I found myself thinking "Okay, we get it."  For that matter, I know it was only the first episode, but already the characters feel painfully one-dimensional.  The traits established by the characters at the beginning are the ONLY character traits these characters possess.  Princess Bean is a rebellious girl who questions her destiny.  That's ALL she does.  Luci is a demon.  That's all he is.  That's the entirety of his character.  Elfo is stupid and naive.  The list goes on.  At no point did any of these characters even hint at a possible presence of depth or any other kind of further intrigue beyond their very core character traits.  Even modern Simpsons, as bad as it can sometimes get, isn't this flanderized.  And the pacing.  Easily the longest 38 minutes of my life.

But while there is nothing I would say is GOOD about the show so far, there's nothing really offensive, either.  It's just... bland, lackluster, and ultimately a snore fest.  Eric Andre's performance as Luci steals the show for me, but even that didn't do as much as it should have.  Overall, a very, very mediocre start, despite the huge assortment of talent on board with it.  Like I said, I'm not going to immediately drop it.  I'll watch a little bit more, but to say that it didn't leave a very good first impression on me would be an understatement.

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