- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: Aug 17, 2018
Critic Reviews
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As far as early efforts go, Groening’s third small-screen endeavor, whose debut ten-episode run arrives on Netflix August 17, is routinely entertaining. ... And fortunately, it gets funnier as it goes along. Led by a terrific vocal cast that includes many Groening favorites.
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Disenchantment casts a demented spell.
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If The Simpsons and Futurama are PG-13 shows, Disenchantment is maybe PG-14, ever-so-slightly sexier and bloodier. Like the other shows, its jokes are more suggestive than bawdy.
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Playing against the seriousness and self-glorification of so much sword-clanging fantasy, it makes the most of slapstick pestilence and the absurdist misery of peasants, revisiting history as farce. The scenes are quick and punchy, yet the episodes, unfolding serially, are long and sometimes sluggish. ... The season is perhaps most satisfying if consumed in a binge, so that its questing convolutions feel like the motions of a languorous epic.
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The series premiere is the least funny episode, too reliant on setting up its characters and its world. Be patient. Once those are in place, and the writers and talent are allowed to have some fun, it works much better, and it’s the kind of show that gets more enjoyable as it goes along, revealing character through repeated jokes and just having more of a good time.
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Despite some snarls, we do find ourselves caring and rooting for this defiant teen, wayward elf, and conflicted demon, and it’s thanks in great part to the cast. Disenchantment has the potential to become as engrossing an updated fairy tale as it is a debauched one, without choosing between one-offs and longer arcs.
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The visual and verbal gags still come fast, but now they’re in the context of a more earnest and straightforward style of storytelling. They feel more illustrative than essential.
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The episodes work better when they focus on action and spectacle (like a slasher movie climax inside the gingerbread house from the story of Hansel and Gretel) than when they’re going directly for big laughs.
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There are an array of interesting stories happening in Disenchantment, none of which the show gives quite enough time to.
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While early installments are too committed to wheel-spinning setup, sparky humor and rapport develops later in the season. [7 Sep 2018, p.109]
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Disenchantment raises questions about feminism and history-bending gender roles that it's barely prepared to engage with. Then again, it's only been seven episodes, and perhaps all of the undercooked elements will coalesce into another Groening favorite as opposed to the light corset-and-pantaloon-festooned amusement it is thus far.
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In the last three episodes, Disenchantment embraces its story in a way that makes for easy viewing--there’s still nothing revolutionary here, and much of the comedy is still too stagnant, but it’s a far more effective fairy tale.
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The first two episodes of “Disenchantment” are more amusing than funny with entertaining enough puns and parodies of modern-day brands in the names of shops in the Kingdom of Dreamland.
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Disenchantment just feels full of potential that it hasn’t yet figured out. That’s maybe because it stays very much in safe territory.
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Disenchantment is pretty to look at--the background illustrations are often lovely--but it’s not very funny. The producers have said the show is filled with a budding mythology and lots of Easter eggs for the fan base it hopes to build, so if you’re into that kind of detail-oriented viewing, this may be a show for you.
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What Disenchantment should have done is taken advantage of being on Netflix and gone for a more serialized story, which would help it distinguish itself from Futurama and also help bring it into this century of binge TV.
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Disenchanted doesn’t seem interested in wrestling with tropes or, for that matter, anything too deep. It’s more focused on finding easy comedy in the pockets of the universe it’s invented, which, to the credit of Rough Draft, the animation studio that brings the show to life, has an impressive, cinematic quality that outshines previous Groening projects. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t match that ambition in other areas.
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The missing pieces, arguably the most important ones, are the groundbreaking and socially relevant ones. That proficient and fluid animation aside, Disenchantment breaks no ground, offers nothing socially current other than the fact that Bean's a strong, independent woman.
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It's a by-the-numbers affair -- the equivalent of a joke that begins "A princess, an elf and a demon walk into a bar...."
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It’s somewhat entertaining, but you may feel as though you’ve seen it all done before, and better.
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Alas, though the heart of Disenchantment is in the right place, its episodes feel overly long and thin on pep. ... On the flipside, although Disenchantment is slower than “The Simpsons,” it’s also a lot darker than Groening’s other series in a very good way.
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Wielding a satiric sword badly in need of sharpening, Disenchantment meanders along a medieval middle ground, often fun but rarely funny.
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By plotting a serialized narrative within Dreamland's unique landscape, Disenchantment only slightly tweaks the hermetic formula of Groening's other shows. Yet with Bean, a hilariously restive, subversive, and ambitious protagonist, the series has the potential to transcend its stock roots.
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Disenchantment feels half-formed, a bit plastic. The vibe is like one of the wilder “Treehouse of Horror” segments, the kind where the big joke is how many grotesque ways Simpsons characters can die.
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Alas, Disenchantment more than lives down to its puckish title with a flimsy premise, underwhelming characters and relentlessly labored humor. [20 Aug - 2 Sep 2018, p.10]
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There’s so much history and texture that could be mined for comic potential and hasn’t really been touched since Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but instead the show inhabits a sketchy, ill-defined universe--and casts a spell whose effectiveness has long since started wearing off.
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Disenchantment was billed as “an adult animated comedy fantasy series” but misses its mark, since it’s neither “adult” nor is there much comedy. The 10-episode series will appeal more to a preteen sensibility than to anyone over 14 and it’s got plenty of, well, cartoonish violence a la “Itchy and Scratchy” from “The Simpsons.” What it doesn’t have is the charm or wit of that series--either in its storyline or its characters--and mostly plods along with only the occasional throwaway line eliciting a smile.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 164 out of 257
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Mixed: 43 out of 257
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Negative: 50 out of 257
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Aug 19, 2018
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Aug 17, 2018
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Aug 18, 2018Love it. It instantly felt familiar. and it's funny. can't wait for this series to grow. give it a break. every one is so harsh. Geez!