Netflix Originals Are Just Bad Enough to Destroy It
Mediocre shows won’t cut it as the world’s biggest streaming company faces more competition
Last year, in August, I settled in with a smile to watch Disenchantment, Netflix’s satirical fantasy sitcom from Simpsons creator Matt Groening. I imagined it would skewer the popular fantasy genre as a hilarious satire of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings sword-and-sorcery tropes, with characters every bit as memorable as Marge Simpson and Krusty the Clown.
And so I spent the morning on Netflix, watching the first few episodes, expecting greatness. I chuckled a few times during the pilot, mostly at an elf character named Shocko (the joke is that he’s always shocked). But as I made it through each episode, a half-hour each with no commercials to pad out their running time, I laughed less and less. I glanced at my watch and fidgeted with my iPhone. By the middle of the first season’s initial run of 10 episodes, I began to wonder if I was going to be able to finish the show at all. It just wasn’t funny. The characters weren’t that interesting; they come across as whiny and lacking in personality, despite the voice talents of Abbi Jacobson, Eric Andre, and John DiMaggio.
Disenchantment improved a bit, but not enough to make it must-watch TV. The second…
