My first impressions of the 2017 DuckTales series seemed to do well, (At least well enough for me) so I thought I'd try talking about another show that I have just finished recently; Gravity Falls.
Gravity Falls was, and kind of still is, a much different show from Disney. They've never really done a show that was part fantasy, part mystery, part comedy and part horror before. Sure they've had episodes of some shows that delved into darker aspects of the concept or characters, but nothing to the extent of Gravity Falls, at least, not to my knowledge. This show was kind of a big risk, and like a lot of risks, it seemed to not pay off very well in the initial responses, anyone else remember WatchMojo putting it on their most hated Disney shows list? However, it's become a fan favourite, and even NoMojo said to forget that list ever happened (Never!), so in the end, what do I think about the show?
Gravity Falls follows the Summer vacation of twins Dipper and Mabel Pines as they are sent to live with their Great Uncle at his tourist trap, "The Mystery Shack", in the titular town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. While their they uncover a large mystery about a strange Journal that Dipper finds in the forest, and all of the strange and peculiar goings on in the area. Being a mystery series, I don't want to spoil the reveals, but if you are invested in the plot and characters, the reveals are going to be exciting. This is a very serialized series, you can afford to miss an episode or two, but you are going to miss callbacks if you do, and you can not watch this series out of order. I brought up serialization in the DuckTales blog, and I still stand by that it is a good balance of serialized and episodic, Gravity Falls definitely leans towards the serialized in this regard, but in the end Gravity Falls has one major advantage that a lot of other serialized shows (Like anime) don't have; Length!
Gravity Falls is only two seasons long and each season is twenty episodes long, give or take an episode. This gives it a huge advantage over other shows because, if you go at a pace of five episodes per week, you can finish the series in four weeks, so the serialization is not really a deal breaker since the entire show can be binged in a decent amount of time.
On top of that, I really did enjoy the characters. Dipper and Mabel have a kind of idealized, but also sort of realistic sibling relationship, though I may be biased because my own sibling relationship was... turbulent to say the least. Still, it is nice to see that they aren't at each others throats all the time, but they do get on each others nerves. The characters around them are fun, Stan is a really slimy conman, but a bit more on the fun side than the slimy side. He'd make a fun villain if he was the antagonist. Then we have the other two employees at the Mystery Shack, Soos and Wendy. Both of them are loyal friends to our leads. Wendy is laid back and calm, but does show her emotional side, and Soos... Well, Soos is the man! He is a bit dim, but not to the point where he is unaware of what is going on around him. The rest of the townsfolk are fun, and they're used sporadically so they never wear out their welcome. This brings us to Bill Cipher, who is a good mix of entertaining and frightening, maybe leaning a bit more on the threatening side. After a while his more humourous side became a lot more unsettling.
Much like DuckTales, there are a lot of hidden secrets in this show. Unlike Ducktales, the secrets are ciphers, puzzles that lead to... something. Look, I wasn't a part of that whole Gravity Falls treasure hunt thing that happened, but it is a very interesting part of this show's history. Really, the show kind of revels in the cryptic and conspiracy, right down to the main baddie being, essentially the illuminati symbol. I can see how Alex Hirsch ended up working on Inside Job.
So, why was the initial reaction so off? Well, was it really? What you got to remember is WatchMojo is often a fan-voted list, and a lot of people might have just been put-off by it because it was a departure from the usual Disney show, and because it was, at the time, a modern cartoon. People really tend to prefer the cartoons of their generation and not the ones that come after. I think it was simply the effect that a lot of cartoons get when they're new and shiny, someone is going to dislike it simply because it's new and shiny, only in this show's case, it wasn't 1999 and someone on a message board, it was 2014 and the internet has changed a lot since the 1990s. Other than that, reception of the show has been fairly well positive, so I don't think the show's initial reception was really that negative. Yeah, I know that seems odd coming from the writer that just published a blogpost that expresses worry over how Disney is treating Pixar, but this one comes mostly from hindsight.
Overall, I really enjoyed Gravity Falls. I was really invested in the mystery angle, I enjoyed the characters and I thought the reveals were really good. Of course, the entire show was built around the mystery, so those things had to work. I think the show also hit a good balance of horror and humour, and was over an enjoyable time. If I had to pick my favourite episodes; Land Before Swine, Society of the Blind Eye, Not What He Seems and of course the Weirdmageddon finale. As for least favourites, Roadside Attraction and The Love God, were just a bit awkward for me to get into. As a whole, I definitely recommend this show, if you like mysteries and spooks, this may be the show for you.
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