Disenchantment is a new comedy animated show written by Matt Groening (Futurama, The Simpsons) and Josh Weinstein (The Simpsons). The show is about a princess who's friends with an elf who loves her and a demon who's possessed her for life. Its a fantasy inspired show with Futurama artwork. Not only do we get the characteristic Futurama style artwork, we also get the humor, albeit much dryer in the first couple episodes. Characters
Bean is an alcoholic bad girl princess to a terrible King who beheads and kills his subjects all the time. She's no saint herself, accidentally sending people to their deaths and such. She is a bad egg, a misfit, which might be because her mother was turned to stone when she was a kid and she's longed for her ever since. Likewise, her father is hell bent on getting the Elixir of Life, in order to restore his ex-wife, even though he remarried and even has a son with the new wife, an heir to the throne.
Elfo is an elf who's completely ignorant of most things. He left his elf kingdom and almost died before he met Bean. Bean's father, King Krog keeps him alive because he believes he needs elf's blood in order make the Elixir of Life.
Lucy
Lucy is a demon that possessed Bean when she opened up this bottle in the castle. He's the devil's advocate in every way, causing Bean to make horrible mistakes, ruining her relationships even more. Everyone thinks he's a talking cat. Despite being a terrible person, he's one of the more likable characters, joke-wise.
The early episodes are slow and have almost rocky starts. This isn't a show that immediately envelops you in laughs. Rather, it makes you work for it, like a art-style science fiction novel, I'm thinking of Neal Stephenson, that kind of thing. Where you might enjoy the writing style, but its so dense that it takes you a long time before you get to the meat and potatoes of the story or what the writer intends to say. Same thing with Disenchantment.
Slow early episodes
Things don't really start to become interesting until episode four, with each episode being 30 minutes that means you have to sit through almost two hours before things get rolling into a comfortable drama with jokes. In a way I've come to expect this, especially as a modern literary device, where writers can spend forever building up one idea, only for it to come to fruition and finish in two seconds.
There are certain episodes where Bean does just this. She's put into a confrontational situation and she panics and we are wondering what she will do. Instead of something interesting or grandiose, she instead comes to a conclusion in two seconds, the plot is finished, episode done, fin.
Now, I can certainly be critical here and say this is a result of lazy writing. It could be for all we know, we weren't there when they wrote it in their work room. However, it might not be lazy writing, perhaps they saw the easy way out and just went with the easiest solutions. Either way, I don't see it as entirely bad. Its just a cartoon after all.
One of my favorite episodes was this one where Bean gets exorcised by a creepy guy who imprisons Lucy, and plans to throw him in a volcano at the top of a mountain, think Mordor. Turns out he had tons of Lucy's demon race people and he was throwing them all to their deaths! Bean almost falls into the volcano in order to save Lucy from death. Quite the surprise because we are given an understanding that none of these characters care about anything. When the old creepy priest is throwing demons to the fire, a female demon shouts out,"I possessed your aunt and she loved every second of it!"
End of season thoughts
The show takes a surprising twist near the end of the series when they get the actual Elixir of Life, and Bean uses it on her mother's stone corpse, which reanimates her to life. What will begin in season 2 will be a much different altogether piece of work, where Bean isn't at the beck and whim of her father, where she will be able to drink with her mother, and who knows, go on a quest and become a real warrior? They've been nudging Bean unto the warrior path a little bit. Which brings me to my next point.
Is this real Fantasy?
Have any of the writers of this show every read any real fantasy novels? Perhaps they have, and perhaps they haven't. I certainly haven't read any comedy fantasy novels, although I'm certain they exist. This isn't your high fantasy like Ursula K LeGuin or even low pop fantasy like Game of Thrones. In a way its just a fantasy skin, other than the fact that the time period is like the Middle Ages, albeit with swords and sorcery, this isn't like CS Lewis or Tolkien come to cartoon. Its video-gamish at times. There's a scene where the gang is flying atop a griffin, which is stereotypical of World of Warcraft fast traveling.
Critics of the show say it isn't fantasy enough, it doesn't satisfy fantasy fans. I say its okay, but that it needs to supercharge it fantasy credentials into high gear for season 2, otherwise I would say its pandering to the nerdy, intellectual, female, fantasy crowd.
Female Lead
I've talked to friends about the show and some of them can't get into the female protagonist perspective. He said,"I don't find her funny." I think that's sexist, but perhaps this is a trend. By making progressive shows about female lead characters, TV shows are having an influence on gender politics and such. I think its great. In fact, I can relate to Bean in many ways, not because she's a girl but because of her alienation, which could be a symptom of being a woman in this universe. If the female protagonist is going to become a trend, I think its a good one because women aren't main characters much on TV (I mean this loosely, as the show is a Netflix exclusive). Its a nice touch.
The verdict
Although this show isn't as great as Futurama or The Simpsons I'm sold. I found it so good that I finished season 1 in three days, which is pretty fast for me because I don't watch TV shows too much. I see the entire first season as a slow buildup for more hip and happening fantasy-driven plot in season 2. I think that will be what brings in even more fans, and we'll see if the writers can 1) write better 2) write real fantasy 3) do more interesting things with the characters. I think if they do these things the show will not only become more popular, but develop into a cult classic, a new part of the geek culture, although in some ways it already is. Check out the show now, its on Netflix.
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