Netflix's The Midnight Gospel: Season 1 Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Note: this is a spoiler-free review of The Midnight Gospel: Season 1, which is available to stream now on Netflix. [poilib element="accentDivider"] It's surely no coincidence The Midnight Gospel, Netflix's latest genre-defying, adults-only animated series, is debuting on 4/20. The series is a trippy, psychedelic romp through alternate worlds where lowbrow fantasy collides with high-minded discussions about death, meditation, magic, therapy and the ever-elusive specter of personal happiness. The series is nothing if not an interesting fusion of wildly disparate elements. Unfortunately, it's a series that only really lives up to its potential in the final episode. The Midnight Gospel is a collaboration between Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward and comedian/podcaster Duncan Trussell. The premise is basically this - main protagonist Clancy (voiced by Trussell) is a pink-skinned slacker living a solitary existence in a realm called The Chromatic Ribbon. In true Adventure Time fashion, Clancy is a mercurial explorer whose only constant companion is his superhuman dog. Clancy passes the time by plugging into his Universe Simulator and traveling to various dying worlds where he interviews residents for his "spacecast." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/16/netflixs-the-midnight-gospel-trailer-adventure-time-creators-new-r-rated-animated-series"] To give you some idea of the execution, the first episode has Clancy beaming himself to a world where the White House is overrun by zombie hordes. Clancy calmly initiates a long-winded chat with the President (voiced by Dr. Drew Pinsky). Even as the duo shoot down the undead and flee from a massive, kaiju-like monster, they ramble on about mental health and experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs. A later episode casts Ask a Mortician host Caitlin Doughty as Death herself, leading to a discussion about the funeral industrial complex. There's an intentional disconnect between the lackadaisical nature of these conversations and the more physically immediate conflict playing out on the screen. Apart from narrative-driven fare like Alice Isn't Dead, podcasts don't really make for great binge experiences. Most are more designed for passive listening experiences - companionship on the train to work or something to drown out the din of the office while working. The Midnight Gospel attempts to prove otherwise by adding a visual component to these discussions and transforming them into a more emotionally engaging experience. It works... to an extent. The surreal animation style certainly spices up these conversations. The series is animated by Titmouse, a studio that should be immediately recognizable to Adult Swim viewers. Like Rick and Morty, The Midnight Gospel manages to sport a purposefully crude and simple style while still delivering moments of sweeping grandeur and scope. The imaginative visuals do their part to hold the viewer's attention. Still, the series ultimately fails to establish a compelling hook. The Midnight Gospel is probably best described as a mash-up of the animated philosophizing of Richard Linklater's Waking Life and the absurdist talk show format of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. However, it's neither as fascinating as the former nor as amusing as the latter. The series could make up for those shortcomings with a strong storyline, but there's not a great deal of plot to be found here. What little narrative progression there is to be found is mostly relegated to the opening and closing segments that bookend each episode. In those handful of moments where Clancy isn't plugged into his Universe Simulator, we get a faint sense of his daily routine and the life he seems intent on running from. Unfortunately, the series never really seizes on those elements to tell a more focused story. There's only a very loose sense of continuity linking one episode to the next. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=netflixs-the-midnight-gospel-photos&captions=true"] Even with the animation lending spice to these conversations, the series eventually grows fairly tedious and repetitive. It's only really in the final episode where The Midnight Gospel become more emotionally resonant. Without giving too much away, the subject matter in the finale is more personally meaningful to both Trussell and his character. There's a clearer link between the conversation that unfolds and the imagery onscreen. It finally fleshes out the emotional journey of a character who had previously kept himself at arm's length from his audience, and it all wraps up in an extremely heartfelt way. Given how little narrative connective tissue there is in Season 1, there's nothing really stopping viewers from skipping straight to the end to get to the good stuff. The series may be best appreciated by watching the first and last episode only - one to get a feel for the premise and tone and the other to see what's possible when this unusual format hits its dramatic sweet spot. Any more than that and The Midnight Gospel may wear out its welcome.

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