Initial thoughts: Live stream was acting a bit janky so there were small snippets I missed but I think I saw good enough to form an initial opinion on the first episode.
Honestly, this was the weakest pilot out of all the newer Fox animations (Bless the Harts, Duncanville, Krapopolis, HouseBroken, and The Great North). The first two acts were not good at all. Especially because the show just tends to allude to certain things but the delivery of it is either not funny or ends up being extremely predictable like the cyborg guy trying to make jokes yet ruining the vibe simply cause he's the "weird" one. It just feels like a smorgasbord of TV tropes meshed in just cause it worked in older shows doesn't mean it's gonna work nowadays with more fresh comedy takes. Not to mention it relies a lot on shock humor, which even Krapopolis at least tries to variegate itself with different types of comedy even though some of the jokes don't land for me. Plus not to mention, the son and mom forgiving Marvin seemed rather forced and there was no genuine sort of interaction to even warrant it. Seems like they just had to wrap it up quickly cause of time constraints but that's more of a Fox problem than a series problem imo.
Bless the Harts obviously did not have the best pilot but out of all the newer ones it's the best cause it tackles a relatable topic, has some genuine interactions between characters, and a reason behind the plot. It wasn't that funny but at least I could care about the characters, especially you don't see a lot of genuine interactions in adult animation. Jenny wanting to send her daughter to art school by getting a night job, all while hiding it from her boss makes the plot interesting and captivates you into wanting to see what happens. Grimsburg so far did not captivate me at all other than wanting to know who the killer was. But I didn't really care for any of the characters so far. It's hard to care about the son even cause so far all we know is he just wants his dad's presence. I see this changing maybe later on, but for now, I just can't.
I will admit though that I did not expect the young cop guy to be the murderer. That was a solid twist and seeing all the clues unravel was alright I guess. It feels like Scooby Doo though as an adult cartoon and no Scooby Doo or any of the iconic Mystery gang.
I'm gonna try to watch this again tomorrow without the jankyness of the stream and see if there's anything I missed but overall, not a good start to a series with a somewhat interesting premise. I hold out that the critics are right in that this episode is the weakest of the bunch because it was definitely not a good way to start the show at all.
Second watch thoughts: Gave Grimsburg another watch and again I liked how the pieces of the case were greatly connected. Though I would like to see the true premise of the show more than the cases in future episodes. It would be far more interesting to watch how Marvin discovers more of himself than simply be an adult/teen version of Scooby-Doo.
I have to praise Alan Tudyk's performance as the teacher. Probably the character that had me smiling the most. His criminal mind makes a lot of sense now that I gave it another watch, and it really did help Marvin solve the case.
I really don't like the cyborg character. He's just cringe more than funny. I get he's supposed to be the comic relief dude but we don't need one of those in every show and every single time he speaks it's just unfunny.
Still, this pilot episode had a lot of flaws but it was passable. I'll be checking out the next few to see if there's improvement.
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