It has been awhile since we’ve seen Dreamland, and with Disenchantment season 2 we get to once again visit the land. Things have of course changed since all of the populous has been turned to stone, but that doesn’t really matter too much. The focus then follows a now segmented group of characters. In a far away land we have Bean (Abbi Jacobson) connecting with her mother whereas King Zog (John DiMaggio) is dealing with his now empty life.
This season definitely has some deeper dives into the emotional elements of life in this messed up place, but it’s also about the same in terms of quality. It’s enjoyable, a quick binge and you’ll certainly get some laughs. That being said, a lot of the dialogue and situations were predictable before they even went into motion. I was constantly thinking and chatting with others exactly what would happen, before they did. Others were also able to predict things, and that makes elements of it become rather boring as we’re anticipating while not being surprised. The story is decent here, but it also feels a bit messy.
There’s not necessarily an arc to follow, it starts off with one and that gets scrambled along the way as they do randomly loosely connected episodes afterwards. They did visit some neat places, and characters definitely shifted around. There’s obviously lots more to see as the one most random episode brought us somewhere mystically robotic, but I didn’t quite see the point of doing so without exploring it further.
The animation was great here bringing a high quality look and some fascinating creatures. With this taking on a fantasy setting they had some more mystical elements while also cracking jokes at that. The show was generally funny too with more good moments that did lean towards being slightly dramatic as well. I don't think it quite hit the mark that Futurama could at times, and it doesn’t seem like it will after two seasons.
The core cast is great, I especially like the lead character that has continued to have a deeper development this time around. This wasn’t structured quite as well as the first season, but it still had some fun moments. It’s once again about characters aiming to do their basic requirements so that they could drink, but less bar times in this season. I would have liked more side characters to come into play, as this continued to focus on just Bean which is fine I suppose. It just seems like such a rich universe to explore, but it remains limited in scope.
Disenchantment Season 2 is a solid continuation of this animated series, it brings some laughs but some painfully predictable moments throughout as well. The structure could have also been better, but I did find this season somewhat more put together than the first. It’s a minor improvement, and one that creates more questions in opposition to creating a contained narrative. It really feels like a middle section of something, or just a build-up of what might come down the road.
It has some likable characters, it definitely brings some laughs and I look forward to more. It seemed to mostly just fill in more of the journey, as opposed to leaving a direct stamp on this overall adventure. Bean is great, and her friends are interesting as well. I hope they explore the worlds further in the future, and that hopefully they present less of a “day in the week” sort of structure that happened after the last season’s big issues were wrapped up.
Disenchantment Season 2 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
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