Show Review: Disenchantment

Ultimately, I wanted to like Disenchantment a lot more than how I ended up feeling about the show.  I mean, it is a show starring Abbi from Broad City (if that's a selling point for you), with art and story by Matt Groening (The Simpsons) all taking place in a fantasy setting that reminds me a lot of HarmonQuest.  What I think I really wanted was something akin to Futurama, but in a fantasy setting.  What I felt Disenchantment was a coming of age (kind of?) animated comedy that only occasionally reminded the audience that this was set in a world of high fantasy.

Now, it has been a couple of months since Conklederp and I first watched Disenchantment, which probably means that I am going to keep this short rather than talk like I know 100% what I am talking about and as if I have rewatched the show multiple times before writing this article.  I have watched the show once during our initial run, and have not felt compelled to watch it again, and I do not have the feeling that I/we will rewatch the season before season two is released probably some time next year.

The basic premise of the show is that Bean is a rebellious princess who does not want to live the life that is expected of her, ends up befriending the rebellious Elf Elfo who does not want to live the life that is expected of him, and Luci who is a demon who is attached to Bean and encourages her to do "the wrong thing," which is often the things that she wants to do anyway and frequently comes across as some aspect of her conscious.

I realize that one of my main critiques, that the show does not seem to play towards the fact that it is in a fantasy setting might actually be one of the commentaries that is being made.  That even in high fantasy settings that include trolls, Elves, and semi-aquatic tentacled step-queens, that they can experience any of the everyday problems that could occur in a contemporary sitcom set in late 1990s New York.  Sure the setting is vastly different, but a lot of the issues and day-to-day expectations are similar.  Maybe?  But then why not just watch a sitcom that takes place in 1990s New York?

Sure, you are not going to find anything in this one screen in an episode of Friends, but there are times when the show does try to use its setting, that it still does not feel either inventive or exciting.  And maybe because it has been so long since I sat down and watched a full episode, but there are often times when the episodes feel like there are not any real stakes to lose.  And maybe that is because very early on I stopped caring so much about either Elfo who about halfway through the season (I only say halfway because I cannot quite remember when it actually happened) turned into the annoying stereotype of the toxic masculine character who only sees his goal as one that involves conquering a woman who he does not see as having any other options/goals in her own life.  For Elfo, I thought it was lazy fall-back writing and was completely unnecessary.

There were a couple of episodes though that I really did enjoy, and these tended to be the ones that focused on Bean and Co. going out on quests and exploring the world, which is something that was severely under-utilized the entire season.  I really think that this is the crux of my critique of the show.  It is that I was frequently bored with a lot of the episodes that stayed put in the castle.  Imagine if the entirety of Game of Thrones had taken place in King's Landing, or if X-Files only took place in Mulder's basement office?  Quest episodes getting Bean, Elfo, and Luci out of the castle and away from the Kingdom of Dreamland I felt really allowed the characters to have moments and stories that were possible because of the high fantasy setting.

Now we are getting to the crux of my train of thought!  Because Bean was written as a princess who does not want to live as a stereotypical princess, the audience expects her to go out and do things un-princess-like.  Unfortunately, a lot Bean rebelling against her upbringing meant she was in and around the local tavern rather than her tall tall tower room.  Sure she was acting out, but after the second episode, acting out by way of the tavern was getting a little old.  I mean, sure following the scene above, drunk Bean and Co. do flee the castle, but instead of continuing the episode in this way after evading a wall of hee-hawing police on mules (asses?), the story picks up after the faux-commercial break by having the group back in the castle.

There is plenty of about the show that I have not talked about such as additional recurring characters and storylines, both main and side quests that I have not touched on, some good, others less interesting.  And you know, for all of my blustering, I will most likely watch the second season when it is released next year (2019) because the way the season ended gave me some bit of promise that the story would not be as focused on the castle of Dreamland and might include more questing.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The World On You Depends