I’m a big fan of the Simpsons even if they’ve became a parody of themselves after so many decades and always liked Futurama a lot so you can bet I was ecstatic when I heard Matt Groening was working on a new series for Netflix. Despite the negativity surrounding it I was hopeful since I think even at their worst Matt Groening’s works had never disappointed me too much as there was always something to salvage. I don’t think I was too crazy for the setting but with the present and future already covered it makes sense and I have nothing against medieval settings.
I like the characters a lot even if their voices aren’t as iconic as I’d want them to be they get the job done. Princess Bean being the opposite of what a princess is supposed to be is rather refreshing and fun, she looks a little bit like a young Marge too. Elfo the elf might look like Bart but he is his own character and has an interesting role being magical but frustrated for being a cuddly ugly elf. Luci de demon is fantastic and just the black humor that the show needs. I can’t say I like any of the recurring characters much, at least not now and the biggest problem I have with the character designs are the 5 fingers, it’s so bizarre to see Matt Groening’s style with more than 4 fingers. I think the show does need to have more recurring characters that are important and or entertaining but we haven’t gotten that so far.
As far as the benefit of having this show on Netflix I’m not really sure and I’ll be mentioning the pros I heard them say during interviews and counter argue them. They mentioned they could be more violent but the violence is not much more than the usual Tree House of Horrors episode, maybe a bit more blood but the extra blood isn’t needed but at least they didn’t go crazy with the blood. The extra length of the episodes with them being around 28 minutes instead of 22ish is not such a great thing since I feel it doesn’t really take advantage of it and maybe the episodes would be better if they were a bit shorter. The show doesn’t really use bad words either besides one or two so that doesn’t help and most of the nudity is Simpsons style and that works perfect. They mentioned they didn’t want any gratuitous nudity but that they’d have nudity of things you didn’t want to see, I think it’d be neat to finally see Bean nude and for her to be as unsexy nude as it could be since they do tease her getting naked a lot in the show.
As far as the actual show well I have mixed opinions, it’s not horrible but I don’t find it terribly entertaining nor funny either. There are a few laughs here and there and some episodes have more interesting plots than others but overall it falls a bit flat and it doesn’t really make use of the setting as much as it could. I think maybe the show would’ve benefited from more stand alone episodes even if they too connected since I found the ongoing story arc not that interesting . It’m willing to give the show a chance and willing to see if it can improve, the show has plenty of potential and I’m looking forward for more. This is only Part 1 of the first season I suppose and we’ll get the other part in a few months since Netflix likes to divide their shows so when more parts I’ll come back to this look back and update it.
Part 2 seemed less story arc centric, overall a bit better because of it. The show is still decent, not amazing, the characters are great, the humor just seems outdated, like stuff that would’ve been very funny 30 years ago but now it just seems a bit past due which is a shame. Excited to see more episodes, the Groening charm is there, it just needs an extra push to be as good as the simpsons/futurama got to be.
I think the chemistry of the characters is great and as good as early Simpsons / Futurama. They have a lot of charm but it doesn’t shine and I think it’s because of the serialized nature of the show which unlike the episodic Simpsons there is no arc to follow and even Futurama when they were trying out arcs the show had already established itself and most episodes still worked perfectly on their own. The humor just seems very 90s which isn’t as edgy or funny anymore since it has been done a thousand times by everyone including Matt Groening’s other work. Part 3 has the same problems that the previous 2 parts did, there is just something that makes it not be more outstanding. Part 4 starts slow but gets more interesting towards the end, show is never laugh out loud funny, it has a certain charm, perhaps binge watching it all from th beginning would wok better for it. Part 5 is the final part 50 episodes, while I was glad to see the storyline get an end, this was the weakest season/part.
Inconsistent show overall but I’ll miss it. Elfon and Lucy were great
I think the show needed other stuff to stand out, actual nudity, darker humor, i dunno it never used it’s MA rating correctly, it just feels like a less interesting Futurama/Simpsons, we were told wed get a different type of humor since it was for a more adult audience. I men’s why didn’t we see this gigantic Ogre penis as a joke for example, they thought it was a slide only to realize it was a penis, it didn’t need to be an explicit drawing just imply that’s what that’s green fleshy tube was, i dunno some idea i just thought of. It also needed more episodic episodes to build characters better.
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