Strange Planet

Strange Planet has the potential to be one of the most human animated series we’ve seen this year, despite the fact that none of the characters are actually human.

Bright, sweet and cheerful, if unusually concerned with mortality, it is, as satire, highly affectionate — keen to human frailty but understanding, hopeful, more engaged with our possibilities than our limitations.

While entirely suitable for kids, the gentle but sharp humor of “Strange Planet” addresses all kinds of issues that make us grownup humans feel like lost little children most of the time — or like the unformed beings that, if you want to be honest, we really are.

Most of this, though, hits the level of wry amusement and not much more, not unlike the experience of reading a comic strip, smiling, and saying, “I get it,” without actually laughing. But the softer humor is buoyed by a reliable level of sweetness.

It’s a sweet, well-observed, and funny show that will appeal to those interested in celebrating the strange, ineffable things that connect us.

The wry simplicity of "Strange Planet," in its single frames or quadrants, strains when asked to support a 20-odd-minute premise. But it also becomes a different animal, exploring, say, the invention of air travel and its effect on the mind of "beings," as the whole race is called.

Plain-spoken sentiments give purpose to the beings’ endearing — though inconsistent and occasionally overdone — vocabulary, and give the show a unique gravitas. More often than not, “Strange Planet” is cute and delightful. But when it settles in to its more ephemeral musings and universal thoughts, it’s more than just cute: It’s funny and it’s warm … like a cozy pair of fabric foot tubes right out of the tumble heater.

At the core, it is a sweet and heartwarming series that sheds light on the oddities of human behavior to help us recognize we aren’t alone — but it has a way to go before it truly finds peace.

After three episodes’ worth of hyperliteral takes on situations that neatly, but with no further purpose, point up the absurdity of human existence, you kinda feel you’ve heard them all. If the moments with emotional resonance start to join up – and this anthology-style series does have characters who recur in later episodes, which helps – and the creators start to lean in to the possibilities of an animated series rather than a series of static four-panel strips, it could be wonderful.

“Strange Planet” is undeniably clever and an easy, amusing watch. But its current iteration lacks much deeper resonance beyond its acute yet surface-level observations about the quirks and paradoxes of modern life. The idea that our society is inherently absurd could pack more punch if explored through a larger narrative or tied to a more specific lead character.

Strange Planet is mild enough for kids, but what it really feels like is a children’s show for grownups, in the way that Millennial slang like “adulting” and “feels” are baby talk for grownups. This can be a very nice thing, depending on your taste, your mood and your tolerance for twee terminology.

“Strange Planet” far too often paints with a broad brush (and that includes the animation style — an endearing, tranquil color palette filling in broad, homogeneous designs that lack visual wit and never quite spring to life).