Disenchantment is a Netflix series created by Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons). The story follows a princess, a demon, and an elf, through fantasy-times. Similar to Futurama, it seems to be aiming to be a very irreverent look at the normal tropes of fantasy cartoons.
For example, Princess Bean is a drinking, brawling princess. The elf leaves his land of singing that is taken to the extreme. The demon keeps encouraging them to keep making wrong decisions. The king is an oaf, etc. And that is the setup. Combine this with a bunch of semi-meta jokes, it seems to be a set-up for success.
And it mainly succeeds in what it sets out to do. It has wise-cracking and absurd situations where the main characters get through them in comedic fashion. It plays around with the tropes of the genre and also carves its own identity to an extent.
My only criticism is that it doesn't go far enough. Similar to Bart in the Simpsons, you can predict the moments where the irreverent nature of the show will stop and the heart-warming end sequence will begin. This is a shame, as it means that it gets dragged back into the generic territory, where it constantly plays it safe.
There are no shortage of irreverent animated comedies available these days. The show is still good to watch, but it doesn't quite do enough to stand out. It keeps getting dragged back into familiar territory, which is a shame considering the humour hits more often than it misses.
3.5 out of 5 elf blood waffles.
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