Monday 14 July 2014

Pilot preview: ABC's GALAVANT - fairy tale musical hits bum note

Monday 14 July 2014

I've reviewed the pilot of ABC's new medieval musical comedy GALAVANT, months ahead of its US premiere...

What's the background?
  • GALAVANT is a medieval musical comedy with a fairy tale vibe, created by Dan Fogelman (The Neighbors), featuring songs composed by the renowned Alan Menken and Glenn Slater.
What's it about?
  • This is a traditional Ye Olde England adventure, about a dashing hero called Galivant (Joshua Sasse) seeking revenge against the despicable King Richard (Timothy Omundson), who stole the heart of his beloved Madalena (Mallory Jansen) with promises of riches.
What was good or promising?
  • Umm, let's see. It's promising that Alan Menken is composing songs for this TV series, because he's an Academy Award-winning talent responsible for hummable tunes in Disney hits like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tangled, etc. He also scored Little Shop of Horrors.
  • I quite liked Timothy Omundson's performance as the dastardly king, which was Kevin Kline-meets-Tim Curry. He seemed to be the only one having fun and treating the silly material with the right light-hearted approach and attitude. Then again, it's easier to play the baddie in crud like his.
  • These episodes are mercifully brief half-hours, although the pacing is such that I was checking my watch halfway through.
What was bad or regrettable?
  • Everything else, pretty much. Considering it's touted as a musical there weren't many songs in this opener, and one as a reprise. None were catchy or lyrically clever enough to satisfy me, while the comedy was on the level of something an eight-year-old might giggle at. Until you remember that under-10s enjoy far more sophisticated entertainment at the movies these days. The dance choreography was also very uninspired and simply not good enough for a post-Glee world.
  • It looked cheap and tacky, as if everything had been filmed at a medieval theme park when the crowds had gone home. I could have accepted they were aiming for a more artificial "picture book" look (close to a live-action pantomime), but the production rarely shifted from a few locations and consequently felt narrow in scope. Pilots are where the money's spent to try and impress execs to get a full commission, which doesn't bode well for the next seven episodes!
What does the future hold?
  • Galavant only has an eight-episode order from ABC, but unless episode 2 is a total reinvention I don't hold out much hope. Not that I expected a hilarious musical spectacular, as this comes from the man behind woeful sci-fi TV comedy The Neighbors (no UK channel was masochistic enough to import it), and that horrendous Fred Claus film with Vince Vaughn.
Who stands the best chance of enjoying this?
  • Anyone with low viewing standards, who trick themselves into believing Galavant is a winning mix of Shrek and a family-friendly Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's not. It dreams of being 5% as entertaining as either of those. Its own characters are one-dimensional caricatures with no spark of life.
Who will probably hate it?
  • Anyone with decent taste, or who's seen Spamalot! at the theatre and knows what a mediaeval musical comedy looks like. Heck, Ella Enchanted is better than this effort. Making a show like this is very hard and requires better writing, not Fogelman calling in a favour with Alan Menken (who composed Tangled, which he also wrote).
What are your final thoughts?
  • With only one solid laugh (a good twist of genre convention early on), no musical earworms, and a general vibe of people making a kid's version of Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire with half-hearted song-and-dance numbers thrown in, I won't be revisiting Galavant. Off with its head!
When does it air?
  • This will plug the gap when Once Upon a Time goes on mid-season hiatus for a few months in the US. At time of writing, no UK broadcaster has been dumb enough to buy it, despite the fact it has Lock, Stock's Vinnie Jones playing a thuggish guard (looking embarrassed his career's fallen to this new low).