Disenchantment, Season 3 (2021)

17 January 2021

I worry my appreciation for Disenchantment is misguided because it fills the void left behind from Futurama. Partly since most other TV series I've followed have for the time being either concluded (Venture Bros.) or lulled a little (Final Space), but also because there haven't been many shows that I've liked in television. To me, a series needs to (1) appeal to all/many audiences, (2) be clever, and (3) show growth / character development. Very few things do all three - I'd call out Doctor Who and Futurama - but I think it's hard to get that vantage point until years later.

Back to Disenchantment though. I called out that last season didn't really have character growth, and I feel like that's underscored with this season, because there are a lot of changes this time around. Main characters like Bean and Zøg have life-changing events, and it'll be interesting to see what impact that has in Season 4. It's also looking like a few characters won't be moving ahead in the next part of the story, although in a world of magic and cartoons some folks never truly disappear. We also get more of the worldbuilding, though again more to the character development side of it all, with additional characters introduced in some of the newer settings.

But do these character changes make for an engaging story? While character progression is good, story progression is better - instead of solving some mysteries they're adding a little more here, with a curse and some political maneuvering in the mix. I still get a feeling of a stretching story line, but that's an unfortunate norm in this kind of programming. I like this season better than the previous one... but if Fox could kill Futurama, or if Netflix is willing to kill successes like the Dark Crystal renewal, Disenchantment could suffer a similar fate before its story has any sense of closure. 6/10