"Actually, I don't know. I've been thinking a lot about it every since he kidnapped me, and I'm gonna go with the fame and fortune"
Dan Fogelman's last show to air on ABC had one of the worst pilots I had ever seen. "The Neighbors" was a one joke premise and that joke involved aliens having the same names as famous athletes. I very quickly dismissed the show as just another piece of pilot season garbage. The show ended up running for a couple of seasons on ABC Fridays and actually did provide two bright spots in the form of two very entertaining musical episodes. So when Fogelman's new show, Galavant, was announced as a musical comedy set in the middle ages, I was definitely intrigued enough to give the show a shot.
Galavant tells the story of a knight, the titular Galavant, and his quest to get the woman he loves back from the evil king. This all sounds like fairly standard stuff until its revealed that the woman he loves actually chose to stay with the king, sacrificing love for a life of riches and fame. This choice causes Galavant to live in a drunken stupor, until a princess from a land invaded by the evil king comes to ask for his help, and he sees it as a chance to win back the woman he fell in love with.
The meat of Galavant is the musical aspect of it. The songs are rather catchy, but really that has more to do with their repetitive nature than their cleverness. Throughout the first episode (ABC will be airing two every night for four weeks) the same song is sang over and over. The 2nd episode that aired had the better music and on the whole was actually more entertaining than the first.
The real standout performance here is by Timothy Omundson as King Richard. He seems to be having so much fun as the evil king who really may just be misunderstood. Vinnie Jones plays his bodyguard Gareth and is also quiet a treat. The only other performance that stands out so far is Luke Youngblood (who some may know as Magnitude on Community, Pop Pop!) as Galavant's faithful squire and only friend.
All in all Galavant is.... an OK show. Its fun and harmless without ever actually being all that funny. The setting and musical aspect has allowed the show to net some interesting guest stars which i will be curious to see over the next few weeks. By burning out all the episodes in one month, ABC obviously doesn't see Galavant as a match for anything else on the network and probably doesn't see it in it's long term plans (despite debuting to some fairly decent ratings). I'll stick with it for the time being just for its uniqueness and brevity of its run .
GALAVANT (ABC): 6 OUT OF 10
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