Everybody wants to love Disenchantment. Every review ties itself in knots attempting to make excuses for why it’s not The Simpsons or Futurama – the other, better shows created by Matt Groening.
It looks awesome! The voice cast (Abbie “Broad City” Jacobson! Eric “The Eric Andre Show” Andre! Noel “The Mighty Boosh” Fielding! Heaps of Simpsons and Futurama alumni!) is excellent! One of the writers if goddamn Australian hip hop legend/Black Comedy and The Weekly star Briggs!
And it’s impossibly frustrating because it should be amazing and yet is stubbornly refusing to get great. It’s like it’s teasing us.
It’s so easy to watch, and it’s so easy to keep watching, and that would be enough if the pedigree of the creators wasn’t so strong or everything about it so obviously pointing towards something truly amazing, as you’d expect of a fantasy-themed Futurama.
And then the show itself is… it’s fine. It’s just fine.
Like, it has some great lines…
…and some gorgeous animation…
…but it’s just not… quite… there.
And part of the reason why people are loathe to slam Disenchantment is that fans of Groening’s previous work know that both his previous shows took a few years to find their groove.
But this feels like more than just teething. This feels like maybe it’s the format as a streaming series.
With Futurama and The Simpsons there was no particular reason not to just dip in and out. Futurama had some series-long arcs, but they were more about character development than specific plot points.
And thus each episode was more concerned with having a compelling episode-long story to tell, shoved full of as many jokes as it could hold, because that was how an audience was going to be won.
Disenchantment has different stakes. It’s not entirely clear what streaming services consider success, beyond driving new subscriptions, and no-one’s going to start with a random mid-season episode and see if it’s funny.
Furthermore, chances are those who start will at least make a shot at finishing. Thus there’s a story packed into each series which is entertaining and everything, but nowhere near the laugh-out-loud joy of Futurama or the Simpsons
And the thing is, we know that this can done and done amazingly well – BoJack Horseman is a perfect example of a animated Netflix comedy which would be baffling as episodic TV but works perfectly in streaming format – but Disenchantment just falls between the poles and it’s infuriating.
Mind you, if history is any guide, this means season three will be amazing.