P T

I loved the original movie, and I went in with high hopes for this show because the trailers looked really cool. But...boy, was I let down. This show is a classic example of "you should've just left it alone" Right out of the gate, that insufferable YA feel of the characters and story turns this show into an unwatchable train wreck. The dialogue is actually *awful*. They don't sound or even act like characters in a fantasy world, they talk like characters out of a modern high school teen drama. Kit is an obnoxious, hamfisted "rebellious teen princess" tomboy trope that's so cliché and lacking in any actual personality to prop it up, she might as well have come fully formed out of a can like a cylinder of cranberry sauce. I immediately hated her as the protagonist and wished Jade, the aspiring young knight who didn't immediately grate against me like sandpaper, was the focus instead. Being queer myself, I welcome genuine representation and subversions of classic character archetypes--that being said, Disney as usual drops the ball by making the relationship between Kit and Jade feel completely artificial and, much like Kit's entire personality, like it was plopped in front of me out of a can. It feels blatantly tokenized. It would've been nice for there to be a blossoming romance between them, some kind of growth leading up to it, but they rushed it right out the door in the first episode while barely establishing them as characters, as if the writers were desperate to get the fact that they were a thing across to the audience as fast as possible before people lost interest. So there was no chemistry other than the story *telling* us they're best friends, not really taking the time to really *show* it. Like I get they were probably aiming at a younger audience with this show, but even keeping in mind that this was maybe aimed at teens/young adults, the writing feels borderline insulting. It feels like somebody jingling keys in my face expecting me to giggle like I'm a baby. No amount of pretty CGI or Warwick Davis returning for the role can make up for this mess.