Disenchantment

It’s happened again: I’ve succumbed to a cartoon on Netflix.  Though this wasn’t that recent.  A few months back, I found myself clicking play on episode after episode of Disenchantment.  But I can hear my dear reader(s) asking: why am I talking about it now?  Well, it’s vaguely linked to fantasy-based medieval kingdoms with dragons and that.  For a blog about TV shows, the fact that I’ve not really mentioned the highlight of our televisual lives so far can’t have gone unnoticed (unless you’re just dipping in for the shows you actually watch and not indulging my ramblings about things you haven’t seen – the requirement is that you read everything).  I had mighty plans for Game Of Thrones, let me tell you.  Breaking with precedent (93 posts and counting) I was going to cover each series individually, giving me the perfect excuse to re-watch all seven existing seasons (which would be my third time doing this – cool).  Alas, I am no longer in a Sky household however, so each Monday while series eight premiers is characterised by me rushing around London trying to get invited round to friends’ houses to avail myself of their Now TV or (ideally HD) Sky packages.  Today I took four different buses to Fulham and back.

I was supposed to be in my own flat by this point.  I had dreams of returning to Westeros on a massive sofa in front of a 55” telly, but I’ve not moved into My First Newbuild yet, as lawyers are not only doing nothing, they are doing it at their contractually glacial pace.  So, while I’m still in my final rental, with nothing but somebody else’s Netflix account for company while I save my final pennies for furniture, cutlery and a washing machine, I might as well cash in on Thrones fever by talking this week about something that is a bit to do with it.

Disenchantment is to fantasy what The Simpsons were to real life and what Futurama was to science fiction: animated irreverence.  Uniting all three is my hero and the owner of a surname I’m still not really sure how to pronounce: Matt Groening.  Whether he’d have wanted to or not, this man had a hand in my upbringing, such was the influence of his humour on me at an impressionable age (0 to 34).  Luckily, he didn’t have an effect on my appearance, as so many of his characters have horrendous overbites.  That said, I did require orthodontics to fix my own overbite, but this was never horrendous.  It was initially grotesque and now it is nearly moderate.

Instead of Westeros, then, we have Dreamland, a ye olde fantastical kingdom, ruled by a king in a castle.  Through the eyes of our heroine, we join a complex network of political structures.  But while treaties with neighbouring kingdoms or giants might be inconsistent and rocky at best, Princess Bean’s sure-fire ability to make a hash of most things is a very reliable way to create the perfect plot device, ensuring hilarity ensues in each episode.  Voiced by my beloved Abbi Jacobson of Broad City, Bean prefers drinking to all other princess-ly duties.  Goading her in this misdemeanour is a black cat-like demon whose possession of her spirit signifies a sort of adolescent willingness to do the wrong thing.  Funnier than him, though, is Elfo, a little green elf who is picked up into the trinity of pals along the way, and voiced by Nat Faxon of Friends From College.  As the elfin punching bag for all punchlines and physical comedy alike, Elfo’s interminable cheeriness proves a worthy foil to the constant fantasy peril in which our three leads find themselves.

Each instalment is a standalone adventure, though there does seem to be progression towards various landmarks in Bean’s life and Dreamland’s existence.  The realisation of a fantasy world varies, seeming at points incredibly rich such as when they voyage to the damp realms of Dankmire, and at other junctures shallow and only serving a purpose of pay-off for some joke or other.  Similarly, there are moments of animation touched by true artfulness, such as every establishing shot of King Zøg’s castle, and others which look like the creative direction was running out of time.

The misadventure, however, plods along from mildly amusing to oh-so-clever.  Untapped reserves for future mining spring up everywhere, from the various elves of Elfo’s home village, such as Kissy (who kisses), and the fact that Bonnie Prince Derek, Bean’s half-brother, is completely emo.  This is because the territory is fecund and therefore ripe for parody, mostly through shooting fish in a barrel rather than needing to do anything truly original.  Either way, it adds up to a pretty smart watch, leading me to the conclusion that you probably can’t go wrong with a cartoon on Netflix.  There are so many more stages in animation when compared to filming live action; I imagine that this means there are more opportunities for someone to decide the whole thing is bollocks and stop or improve the production.  A second, longer series is greenlit and the security of that acceptance should provoke bolder humour and bring the seminal achievements of Groening’s other canon within closer grasp.  It won’t fill any Game Of Thrones holes in your life, but you may well enjoy a couple of funnies while your beloved characters are brutally killed off.

Broad City

We’ve all been young.  We’ve all lived pennilessly in big cities.  We’ve all made bad decisions.  But if you’ve stopped doing any of those things (though I’ve only stopped doing one of them – I finished being young in 2010) you can live vicariously through two young, penniless-in-New York, bad decision-making characters in the form of Broad City.  Your experiences might not be as hilarious as theirs are, but it’s worth remembering your life isn’t actually a sitcom penned by two of the funniest people ever to be given a film crew and some development budget (by Amy Poehler.  Sort of).

The first of these people is Ilana Glazer.  If someone’s ever shouted ‘YAS queen’ at you, or written it beneath something impressive you’ve done and then shared on social media for attention and approval (maybe your baby looks cute, or you’ve been having overdue catch-up drinks with this one – shudder), it’s due to this lady.  Ilana plays Ilana (Wexler).  She is the wild one of the two New York broads around whose lives the show revolves.  While both have hopeless careers, Ilana wilfully refuses to adjust her behaviour no matter what the situation.  Her colleagues typically hate her and onlookers gawp in the street, but her priority is affirming her dear friend.  And also being a bit sexually inappropriate towards her.

Cue Abbi Abrams, played by, Abbi Jacobson.  Everything she says sounds cute.  Three years older than Ilana’s twenty-two years (the characters, not the actors), series four explains how the two met and instantly connected.  Occasionally there is a glimmer of hope that Abbi will get her life on track, but Ilana is always there with something that appeals to her impulses.

Doing justice to their relationship is not possible among all my usual snarky remarks.  It just works.  What drives them to each other are the grotesque characters outside of their friendship.  There’s Bevers, Abbi’s roommate’s boyfriend.  However, you never see this roommate and therefore Bevers is the definition of an outstayed welcome.  Particularly if that welcome is shedding bodily hair onto the bits of your bedsheets it hasn’t already sweated or spilled ice cream onto.  As with all gross people, he mistakes the rage he causes for affection, considering Abbi his (ample) bosom buddy.  He showers her with mistimed, miscalculated and misfired acts of friendship, which makes him all the more entertaining in his skin-crawlingly saccharine gestures (while he sweats and sheds hair and spills food that stains).

Abbi fares no better at work.  A would-be illustrator, she languishes at Soulstice (universally representing all gyms that have disappeared so far up their own philosophy that the air is thick with smugness) as a trainee trainer for many episodes.  I will never get tired of watching members throw towels at her face, mistaking her for a laundry hamper.  People in gyms really only do see other people as places to discard of towels.  I know I do.  Soulstice is the habitat of Trey, the embodiment of all personal trainer clichés.  Never seen with sleeves, he patronises Abbi and his clients, making skin crawl in a way that is somehow completely the opposite of Bevers, but just as comedic.

Balancing out Trey and Bevers, there’s also Lincoln.  He has a lot of chill.  He is Ilana’s frequent sexual partner and devoted rescuer, though she responds to his requests for a real relationship with an insistence that things remain casual.  This is often done with graphic language at his place of work: a dental clinic for children.

So, YAS queen, that’s the character highlights, but what actually happens?  Anything and everything, mostly.  There are wild nights that perfectly capture the sort of evening which is followed by waking up and wondering what happened.  Also, where are my shoes LOL?  There are hare-brained schemes to play the system.  There are awkward workplace moments.  It doesn’t really matter, as the girls keep the amusement going and celebrate New York for all of its beautiful unfairness.  Hillary Clinton even shows up.  I might still be penniless in a big city, I might still make bad decisions, but this show makes me want to be young again.