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I thought seriously about covering Disenchantment when it first hit in 2018. I mean it was a new Matt Groening show and I love Matt Groening shows, even if it was coming nearly twenty years after the last, to not a substantial fanfare, and on a streaming service where though it had greater freedom, it was liable to be lost in the shuffle of dozens of other series. Futurama was, as I have discussed, one of the most important shows of my youth, and The Simpsons when I eventually came to it in college quickly became a favourite as well. I liked the set-up for Disenchantment, felt it was coming at a good time, with the fantasy genre more popular than ever. The characters looked promising too, especially the lead. And of course I appreciated that this show was basically a way to keep most of the production crew and voice cast of Futurama employed after their second cancellation in 2013.
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And then it dropped and I watched the first episode …I thought it was fine. Watched a few more and decided not to write a piece on the series -not because it was so bad, but because I didn’t feel I had a lot of strong feelings about it. That in itself though was disappointing, and while yes I reminded myself that the first season of The Simpsons was kind of awkward and messy, I also remembered that the first season of Futurama was really good virtually right out the gate (I still think “Space Pilot 3000” is one of the all time great TV pilot episodes). Disenchantment was just kind of there, it wasn’t terribly new, and though funny in bursts it had nothing on the humour of its’ predecessors.
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On some level this was inevitable. It was a show after all targeting a contemporary staple of genre entertainment largely written by men in their fifties -great writers who I’ve loved from those previous series like co-developer Josh Weinstein, Bill Oakley, Eric Horsted, Patric Verrone, Bill Odenkirk, and especially David X. Cohen- but folks perhaps not terribly in-line with the zeitgeist anymore (as much as Cohen for example is a D&D nerd). We see this all the time in the modern-era Simpsons, and nobody really wants that in a brand new series. It was also a show that maybe promised more than it could deliver in terms of the richness of its story and character development given the distinctness of its set-up; and while it is lightly serialized and gets into stronger plotting towards the end capping off in a shocking cliffhanger, the bulk of the season is rather generically sitcom in scope. A lot of the stories could be transposed into other contemporary comedy shows without losing much, as opposed to Futurama which was often in its early years completely off-the-wall and distinct. And then there’s the anachronisms, jokes that riff off of specific ideas or places or jobs or histories that seem to have no contextual basis within the world of the show -it’s a small thing, but indicative of a lack of real devotion to detail in the world-building, which is very important to a series set in another world.
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And yet there was something there. Disenchantment had a lot of the makings of a great show, and it was apparent before an episode even aired. Honestly, the trailer sold me right away on the set-up, the characters, and even some of the jokes. It established the personalities of the main trio as different but just similar enough to their counterparts of the other Groening shows; it looked really creative and that it had a bit of a bite to it, and the whole thing was tied together by a charming medieval-themed cover of “Rebel Rebel”. It hinted at some degree of depth and heart as well, which I’ve loved in its’ sister shows. And none of these were entirely untrue of the actual series.
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Abbi Jacobson as Bean was easily the biggest strength of that first season. She’s both a really fun and really interesting character, with an irresponsible party-girl attitude yet also a principled tenacity with regards to her place in the kingdom and her personal autonomy. She makes for a great protagonist and has a strong design too with that bleach-blonde hair, casual pseudo-medieval outfit, and the oft-referenced buckteeth. The ideas behind her two companions are equally compelling: Elfo, a jaded but still kinda wimpy elf who left his secluded Keebler-like society to experience the world outside, and Luci a personal demon sent to Bean to encourage her worst impulses. As voiced by Nat Faxon, Elfo was the least interesting of the three, and a bit on the irritating side with his infantile mannerisms and somewhat possessive crush on Bean (I think they were trying to make him like Fry, but without the sincerity), though he did have funny moments and was about as pure a Groening design as you could get. Eric Andre’s charismatic Luci though, while occasionally working with some less than stellar dialogue, was a pretty enjoyable snark machine and foil, despite never being anywhere near as evil as he claimed (the less obnoxious Bender of the gang). The supporting cast too was a fun if underdeveloped and cliché assortment of fantasy misfits -only John DiMaggio’s King Zøg getting any strong characterization.
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In addition to the characters, the show did have fun with its’ fantasy premise, if it perhaps didn’t go far enough at times and sidled into other genres a bit too liberally. Like Futurama, it wasn’t afraid to dip its toes into dark comedy and once in a while showcased the world beyond the central kingdom of Dreamland with a relative consistency that indicated the showrunners were taking it slightly more seriously than they let on. Though most of the episodes were standalone plots, they bled into each other in a way the other Groening shows haven’t, and that I think was a good storytelling choice, as was the decision to give the season dramatic stakes by the end. That was also where it began to show its’ real ambitions, as it tapped with more conviction into Beans’ emotions, Elfo’s background, and even Zøg’s personal history. In spite of the general bumpiness that got it there, I was interested in where it was going with its’ cliffhanger -which involved the sudden resurrection of Bean’s mother Dagmar (voiced by Sharon Horgan), who abducts Bean as everyone in Dreamland is turned to stone.
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Season two, or rather "Part Two" (like Gravity Falls and Futurama's last couple seasons, this show splits a single production season across two years) picked up on this just over a year later in 2019. It took the first three episodes to resolve the threads of Dagmar's machinations for Bean, the curse over Dreamland, and Elfo's death (he’d died late in the first part), leaving just five episodes for the shows' usual antics, parsed with new story beats throughout, and a final two devoted largely to setting up developments for the following season. Structurally, it was uneven, and you could feel the need for more episodes to balance out the pacing better. Nevertheless season two was an improvement, and part of that may have come from the writers valuing plot, character, and world-building as much as the comedy. The show still maintained its’ humour, but its’ concern for comic situations, joke persistence, even the fantasy satire the series seemed to be built on didn’t seem as valiant as in the first season. Amid a quest to an ogre village, an elf heist, and a monstrous octopus, the show was fleshing out its’ characters and building some personal investment.
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Lightly it examines Beans’ newfound psychological issues regarding her evil mother, her relationship with her father, and the mystery about Elfo’s non-elf origins. Even King Zøg gets a really good story involving a fleeting romance with a bear selkie. In addition to this, the world continues to grow and exhibit almost an Adventure Time ability to adapt to any context. Many of the initial seasons’ issues persisted though, as in spite of the curiosity of his half-elf nature, Elfo remained the weak link of the main cast, as insecure and whiny as ever. It became much more apparent that his romantic feelings for Bean weren’t going anywhere and he wasn’t made any more likeable by that grudge he held against her for choosing to resurrect her mother over him. And after a visit to Hell in the second episode gave him a chance to shine, the season didn’t know what to do with Luci. There were also some creative lapses in individual episodes, the writers not doing as much as they could have with certain ideas or sticking too closely to the sitcom rule book; and too many of the jokes still failed to land.
However it did feel like it was building toward something, and perhaps the guaranteed twenty more episodes the show had been granted is what prompted this more intense long-form storytelling that saw more use of callbacks to previous episodes and characters, and developing even side characters into fixtures of the show. Once again multiple threads were left in the air when it ended, not to be followed up on for sixteen months.
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And that release schedule may be what hurts Disenchantment much more than the varying quality of the show itself. Like many a Netflix production, Disenchantment is a series designed to be binged, and it’s likely another reason the writers have incorporated more direct continuity into it. But with more than a year between each season some of the callbacks can be missed and the continuity forgotten -I failed to remember all but the biggest storylines when season three started. And with no continuity reminders upfront as some other shows do, it seems to ask its audience to be rewatching each prior season before the new one. That is something you can afford to do if you’re prime Netflix real estate, but Disenchantment is not -and it’s a comedy show too. Yet it’s steeped in this serialized storytelling that requires real investment from its audience that I don’t think the Netflix model (one that’s readily proving to be unsustainable) quite serves. And that long gap between seasons isn’t liable to draw in a whole lot of new viewers -given Netflix’s bad habit of burying its shows and not promoting the right ones, it’s entirely likely subscribers who don’t watch or only saw a few episodes will have forgotten its existence when the next batch comes up.
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It’s really unfortunate that that’s the case, because season three (or “Book Three”) of Disenchantment is the best yet, and the first sign that the show could evolve into something great. All it took was doing away with standalone stories entirely. The season is structured as one long narrative linked through a handful of story episodes: an escape from underground catacombs, an investigation into Steamland (introduced in a one-off appearance the previous season), a mad royal crisis, and an impending battle to ready against. The season takes place over a shorter span of time than the last, adding to the impression of urgency; and it flows rather gracefully, evening the larger plot out with smaller stories and significant character beats. Luci sadly seems still underutilized, but Elfo has finally grown into a more useful (and likable) character. He seems to have traded in the unreciprocated romantic relationship with Bean for the goofy best friend –which works a lot better. He gets a few love interests of his own this season (one of which is a boat), a brief freak show diversion for the first time puts him in a sincerely sympathetic position and it culminates in a genuinely noble sacrifice in the final episode. Supporting characters like Oona, Prince Derek, and Merkimer are given added dimension, King Zøg’s relationship with Bean continues to be the shows’ most unexpected emotional undercurrent. And as for Bean herself, this season gave her her greatest character study thus far.
Bean gets several strong moments throughout the season and it’s some of Jacobsons’ finest work -starting with a confrontation with Dagmar in the second episode where she reveals some inner angst about their relationship in the guise of impersonation. But we need to talk about “Last Splash”. Coming in the middle of the season and mostly functioning as a transition between major plotlines, “Last Splash” is the best episode of the series and the first truly great one that I might put on par with some of Futurama’s greatest hits.
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Through most of it Bean is engaged with and opening up to a mermaid called Mora, whom she and Elfo rescued from that aforementioned freak show. She spills some extremely relatable insecurities about her love life, as she and Mora discuss past relationships and begin to forge a meaningful connection. Eventually they wind up on Mermaid Island and share a lovely intimate moment on the beach, only for Bean to awaken alone and her circumstances to despondently convince her it was all a hallucination. There is so much to this episode that I love, from the sweet romantic moments peppered throughout, to the ukulele song Mora plays for Bean as tender as anything from Steven Universe, to the perfect bittersweet note of the ending, to just the possibility the walruses peeking up from the water is a reference to Song of the Sea. The confirmation that Bean is bi or pansexual is cool (to my knowledge the first for a protagonist in any adult animated series), even cooler that it’s in no way commented on; but it’s the way the show delves into her personal anxieties, gives context to some of her attitude and perspective, and allows her a moment of bliss with a romantic partner she is adorably smitten with -it’s beautiful. And I want more episodes like it going forward.
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But the rest of the season is also very inventive, particularly the stuff in Steamland which allows the show to escape its’ usual aesthetic. The ways it plays with Dreamland’s role in the wider world is interesting too: their relationship with Bentwood, that Steamland innovator’s desire to marry Bean and forge an alliance, the ogre attack at the end. And in among all this the show is getting more confident. The “dark” part of this dark comedy is emphasized a few times this season, especially the ending to episode one, which leaves on Zøg being buried alive, his captain of the guard (and a noteworthy secondary character through the whole series thus far) Pendergast beheaded for aiding in his escape. And it seems more sure of its direction now, dropping deliberate hints in the last few episodes.
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None of this is perfectly done I’ll clarify; a lot of developments and introduced threads still feel conceived on the fly, and it can be a bit much to keep up with. I’m not sure with just another ten episodes the series can adequately respond to it all (there are also at least a half dozen characters who are clearly being set up for more) without dispensing of its origin identity entirely. The approach to serialization here is clearly novice, and it does kinda show in the ending, which feels a bit on the repetitive side, being the third in a row to leave Bean in the clutches of her mother and what seems to be yet another journey into heaven and hell. It makes me sympathetic to those who find the plotting tedious and would prefer the show just concentrate on being funny. Some people still just want fantasy-themed jokes more than another fantasy series.
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However I think a happy medium exists, and Disenchantment is on the right path to it, provided it is allowed to keep going. Part Four will mark the end of the renewal Disenchantment was granted in 2018, and I would like it to get more episodes -although would it indeed be a proper Futurama successor if it didn’t get unceremoniously canceled after four seasons? To that end I hope that the writers are scripting it as a potential finale and wrapping up as many plot threads as they can. Whatever else, they can’t leave it on a cliffhanger in reliance on a renewal or pick-up somewhere else. It’s a lot to ask of this show to keep up this trajectory while assuming the end is near -it might not even be useful to point out it’s only just starting to get really good as it might be on its last legs. But I think it’s for that reason that I wanted to talk about it now -now that I am genuinely invested in it going on. There’s hope for a renewal, nobody knows those Netflix numbers. And even at its’ worst, it’s still more interesting and entertaining than The Simpsons, which has somehow evaded cancellation for almost two decades now of consistently mediocre work. Disenchantment has more than one more season of story in it, and I would like to see the full potential of this wacky fantasy comedy. There isn’t much room anymore for shows that aren’t instant hits, and so I hope Netflix has faith enough to let this one continue to grow.
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And if season four sucks and deserves the can, I still think Disenchantment will have been worth it. This is a show that even in its failings is more interesting than it gets credit for. At the very least it’s a show that would’ve become a cult classic in another era. I really hope more people give it a shot, because the kind of show it wants to be and that it’s working towards is the kind of show I wish to see in the adult animation space. A show that can freely be funny and sincere, with dramatic storytelling aspirations, a resonant human touch, and creative takes on genre conventions within an imaginative, unusual world. The shadow of that show is enough to have made me a fan of Disenchantment, a series I fully believe deserves a future.
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