Most of humanity dies before we repulse an alien invasion. The generally inept survivors try to rebuild the United States.
This is an underwhelming animated series on Netflix. I didn't think I'd make it past the first episode, but it does get better. However, the art is cheap, the characters are shallow stereotypes, and the humor leans very heavily on the elevator pitch of "Idiocracy meets Family Guy".
Idiocracy sometimes felt like it was more like a list of grievances than a laugh-out-loud comedy. However, it had some truly great scenes. Who could forget the idiotic majesty of the guitar army? Or the arguments about Brawndo? Idiocracy tapped into something real.
The writers of Mulligan, on the other hand, seem content to just list their grievances and toss out the occasional pop culture reference. As I watched the series, I thought this was shallow. As I thought about it afterward, though, I started to think that this show isn't really for adults.
Adults will understand more of the throwaway pop culture references and the jokes about Nixon and Reagan, but I think the intended demographic here is teens and college kids. Mulligan really doesn't have anything in common with Love, Death and Robots. It's simply too shallow, the jokes always go for the cheapest and most obvious target, and the art looks like a kids' cartoon.
Some of the voice acting was pretty good, so if you're a fan of the cast members, it might be worth watching. However, the things that the writers had them say were not very intelligent or deep. Phil LaMarr did a great job with his character, an alien who led the attack. This was also probably the best character on the show.
If they retooled the show to focus more on LaMarr's character and found something interesting to say, I think this show could be saved, even with the cheap art. As it is, though, it strikes me as more of a kids' cartoon than adult animation. Even if they're satirizing cheap kids' cartoons and the dumbing down of adult programming, it's not done in an intelligent or insightful way.
This is an underwhelming animated series on Netflix. I didn't think I'd make it past the first episode, but it does get better. However, the art is cheap, the characters are shallow stereotypes, and the humor leans very heavily on the elevator pitch of "Idiocracy meets Family Guy".
Idiocracy sometimes felt like it was more like a list of grievances than a laugh-out-loud comedy. However, it had some truly great scenes. Who could forget the idiotic majesty of the guitar army? Or the arguments about Brawndo? Idiocracy tapped into something real.
The writers of Mulligan, on the other hand, seem content to just list their grievances and toss out the occasional pop culture reference. As I watched the series, I thought this was shallow. As I thought about it afterward, though, I started to think that this show isn't really for adults.
Adults will understand more of the throwaway pop culture references and the jokes about Nixon and Reagan, but I think the intended demographic here is teens and college kids. Mulligan really doesn't have anything in common with Love, Death and Robots. It's simply too shallow, the jokes always go for the cheapest and most obvious target, and the art looks like a kids' cartoon.
Some of the voice acting was pretty good, so if you're a fan of the cast members, it might be worth watching. However, the things that the writers had them say were not very intelligent or deep. Phil LaMarr did a great job with his character, an alien who led the attack. This was also probably the best character on the show.
If they retooled the show to focus more on LaMarr's character and found something interesting to say, I think this show could be saved, even with the cheap art. As it is, though, it strikes me as more of a kids' cartoon than adult animation. Even if they're satirizing cheap kids' cartoons and the dumbing down of adult programming, it's not done in an intelligent or insightful way.