(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from Tangled: The Series a.k.a Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure)
Doug (vo): It's Tangled: The Series, or is it Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, or is it Tangled: Before Ever After? Apparently, this has quite a few names, but if you were to say it's Tangled: the TV series, people would know what you're talking about. I think I heard about this series before. I remember my thoughts just being, “Oh, that looks cute. I mean, I liked the movie fine, but I didn't love it or anything." So I just expected this to be a cute little show for kids. But everybody was telling me, “No, no, no, this is, like, a grand, epic adventure, and it has these amazing songs, and the animation gets really good, and the characters are great.” All right, fair enough. So after a ton of requests, I finally sat down, watched the whole thing, and they're absolutely right...eventually. Yeah, this is another one of those shows that really starts off slow and boring and kind of on a different foot than what it ends on. The first season of the show is very, very, very, very, very different from what the other two seasons are. As such, I was watching it, thinking, “What the hell was everybody talking about?” But when it gets to the good stuff, it is really good.
Premise[]
Doug (vo): The pilot episode...which is the length of a TV movie, I think that's how it premiered as, too...shows Rapunzel and Flynn Rider*, right after they escaped Mother Gothel, trying to live out their happily ever after in this giant palace with her mother and father. But things start going wrong when suddenly, these sharp black rocks appear. Rapunzel's badass-in-waiting, Cassandra, takes her out to the rocks to see what's going on, when suddenly, her long golden hair reappears. And not coincidentally, the sharp black rocks start growing at an even faster rate. So Rapunzel, Flynn, Cassandra, and a whole slew of colorful characters venture out to find out what's causing this mayhem...in season two.
*He's now known as Eugene Fitzerbert, not Flynn Rider.
Review[]
Doug (vo): In season one, her father says "No, no, it's too dangerous", and they just stay in the freaking kingdom. And it...drags. Every other episode, they're revealing, like, a new mystery to what these rocks are and an ancient evil that's behind it and what could be causing it, but in all the other episodes, it's little social oddities. Like, oh, what does Rapunzel do when somebody doesn't like her? Does Cassandra have to be a lady-in-waiting when she really wants to go and fight in tournaments? You know, being queen for a day is really hard... (Stutters and angrily yells) Who gives a shit?! There's this grand, magical land that hasn't been explored, and it's just ignoring it! And not only is the reason they're not exploring it so dumb, just because the king says you can't, well, sneak out or something. Come on, have you ever seen a Disney anything? But the more and more you discover what's going on and the king's connection to it, the dumber and dumber he looks. This is an awful, stupid character!
(Clips and screenshots focusing on the first season are shown)
Doug (vo): With that said, the first season seems to have a lean more towards younger kids. I get the feeling the creators wanted to go on that magical adventure, but maybe Disney was still trying to figure out their fanbase, so they kinda kept it around the kingdom, and sometimes, they would venture out a little bit. So, yeah, like I said, every other episode will be exploring what the mystery is, and the other ones tackle more what, say, a funny, clever manners class might teach. It is done well. Even that episode I was talking about where somebody doesn't like Rapunzel, it's done in a really funny way. Richard Kind voices the guy that doesn't like her, and...he likes everybody and everybody likes him, he just doesn't like her. And at the end, he still doesn't like her, and...yeah, that's actually kind of a cool lesson, a good lesson to teach. Sometimes, you just gotta cope.
(Footage focusing on seasons two and three is shown)
Doug (vo): But yes, you are waiting for it to get to the point, and in season two, they finally do, and, man, does it pick up. The show finally lets them explore, and there's a lot of cool places they discover, and they're designed great and they're creative, and you find out a lot about the characters as they go on these adventures. It sucks because I can't just say "Skip season one", because there are some important elements and characters and setups that are explored more in season two. So if you're like me and you started and you're scratching your head saying, "Why is everybody saying this is a great show?", stick with it, it does get there. But, yeah, when it gets going in season two, it's really great.
(Footage focusing on the song sequences is shown)
Doug (vo): The songs...though not as frequent as I thought, they pop up maybe every fourth episode...are pretty much Broadway-style songs. They're sung great, they're orchestrated great, they're written great, they explore what the characters are going through, they sing about their passions. They're really, really solid.
(Footage focusing on the characters is shown)
Doug (vo): The characters, both the original and the new ones they introduced, are all really interesting, too, and most of them are given really good arcs. There are some choices characters make in this show that legitimately caught me off guard. There are some surprises at the end of season two, and the beginning of season three, I was gasping at. Holy shit, things just got so much more interesting in a story that was already interesting. The voice acting is also wonderful. Everyone has their comedic timing down, but the dramatic moments are really effective, too, and some of the celebrity guests are really brilliantly utilized. I'm not gonna say who voices this brain dead monkey or Flynn Rider's father, but all I can say is, you couldn't pick anyone better.
(Footage focusing on the animation style is shown)
Doug (vo): The animation didn't grab me at first, I just don't really get into the style, like, kind of taking those Golden storybooks and using Flash animation to move them around, they just kind of look like flat construction paper. But as it goes on, it gets better and better, and there's so much layer and dimension to them.
(Footage focusing on the series finale is shown)
Doug (vo): If I did have one major problem after season one, is that the series finale kinda wraps up exactly how you would think it would wrap up. For a show that was so good at surprising you and the characters legitimately caught on to stuff you would think they wouldn't catch on to, but they figure it out the same time you do, the ending is very by the numbers. But it's not really a letdown either. (Posters of Lost, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones and Dexter are shown) I guess there are a lot of finales that take big risks and they don't always pay off, but this one definitely plays it safe and I would have liked one or two more risks taken.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): With all that said, I do think this is a really good series. I'm so glad I stuck around and watched the whole thing. Even that first season I talked about isn't terrible, it's just not thinking that much of the adult audience or the ones that want to see, like, an epic story. I feel like they were bound to that kingdom because somebody said they had to stay there, whether it's Disney or one of the producers or whoever. But once season two gets going, it really gets going. So, yes, everybody's right, it is a really good show with fantastic songs and wonderful characters and good animation. You just gotta be patient. But when it picks up, it picks up really quick. Tie up your hair and jump on in to see what everyone's been talking about.
(A scene showing Rapunzel's glowing, lifting hair is shown)