Having seen the fact that reviews of this show are critically negative, or critically positive, with very little middle ground I thought I'd make an attempt to reviewing this title.
Starting with the plot, which can be lost from the show's pacing, is that Hell is overpopulated due to how tough it is to get into Heaven, therefore creating a problem, which i solved by a once the year purging happens, where the strongest demons in hell cleanse the populous in one of the 5 points of the pentagram, and take it as their own realm. To solve this problem, we have Charlie, who is the daughter of Lucifer and the Beast Queen Lilith, who decides to open a rehabilitation center for lost souls to get back to Heaven.
With all that being said let's go into pros and cons of the show.
Pros: The show doesn't glamorize the process of forced rehabilitation, showing the souls in the Happy Hotel don't necessarily want to be rehabilitated, because the fear of death is no longer lingering over them, and they can get away with any life style, and debauchery they want. This is clearly shown by Angeldust still drinking, doing drugs, and being overall violent and sexual as an individual, with no regards to the fact he is in rehab.
Alastor's character also shows that where he wants to help with the rehabilitation process, it's less about seeing people get healthy, and more about how he wants to see people fail and repeat the cycle, to just be a sadistic individual.
Charlie is a good individual, with a kind heart, who has been shown to have problems with her parents, being that she is the opposite of what they want her to be. Living up to the expectations of the Fallen Angel who caused the great war of heaven, and the Beast Queen Lilith who is the one who raised the Behemoth, and Leviathan, who also nursed Lucifer back to health as he was slowly turned into a goat by Jehovah,charlie has some pretty big shoes to fill, especially since Lucifer is quoted in saying Charlie is a failure, and Lilith refuses to return any call, or answer the phone from her daughter. Which leads me into a minor con of the show, where the character development of Charlie seems slightly Aped from Damian's personality from Zoophobia, the comic written by Vivian.
Cons: First and foremost to get off my chest, I think the sounds mixing for character's like Alastor do need to be edited down a bit. I feel the filter used for the character fits his personality, and design fantastically, but it sounds like a 50/50 blend of the old timey filter mixed with the actor's voice, but if it was taken down to around a 40/60 filter to voice, it'd capture the same effect and clean up the characters voice enough, easy enough fix.
Another big glaring issue is I don't feel like the team was ready to release for a 2019 Halloween release, and slapped together the cleanest parts they had finished, and tried to make a cohesive story, since this was a 3 year project, that had promised a 2019 release, and didn't want to be pushed back to 2020, that said, it's a torn between damned if I do, damned if I don't situation, which do you disappoint people by continuing on with making something cleaner, and have fans pull from the wait, or do you release some content, and have fans disappointed with the pacing. I feel the second episode will be a lot cleaner and more cohesive now they got the base established.
I also feel with that said, that we have an over saturation of characters with too much going on. I understand that everyone is a hero of their own story in their own life, but establishing a minor character, like Sir Pentious in the first episode, where he wasn't really designed to be a main antagonist, did outshine the importance of Alastor's character development. With that said as well, we also have an array of characters who didn't make it in yet, who will be established as going thru rehab, and trying to get better, that the plot does seem like it will get muddied by introducing too many people too quickly.
Finally I feel like we don't learn enough about the main cast, being that I can't be the only one to miss the part where Charlie and Vaggie were a couple? I'm not asking for flat out gratuitous PDA. but the personality of Vaggie, and how she treats Charlie is that more of an assistant or best friend then a lover. There is no "I love you" or "I know you can do this" with the gentle shoulder grab showing the support, it's just inferred by Vaggie being in the hotel, and no real evidence of them actually being a couple in any form, even if we are going for the "gay couples are just like straight couples" portrayal, I don't buy them as dating even if they were heterosexual.
So, if you take out Sir Pentious in the pilot, and added some more one on one time with Charlie having an existential crisis about her project to rehabilitate hell, and Vaggie showing a bit more support, we would be able to get a better concept of the direction of characters, and plot.
Overall I'm genuinely curious to see where this show goes, and I do love the audio and vocal talents of the cast and crew, and have been following Vivian since this was originally the Zoophobia cartoon project, before changing over to Hazbin. I fully support this project and want to see the group grow, overall rough start, but I feel like a learning curve has been hit by the crew, that the fans who have eagerly awaited this release of the project, is being either too tightly defended by fans who want this to be good, but are criticized by the fans who expected this to be something it wasn't more harshly.
It has potential, and I'm hoping, and expecting, that the team behind the show will be able, to see where they succeeded and where they failed, and just working on moving forward with a well planned sense of how to tackle and improve the show, not just to the fandom wishes, but to the story they want to tell. Fall too much into the fans, lose the message, fall too much to your guns, the next few episodes will be a bit too muddled, and impossible to follow.
Starting with the plot, which can be lost from the show's pacing, is that Hell is overpopulated due to how tough it is to get into Heaven, therefore creating a problem, which i solved by a once the year purging happens, where the strongest demons in hell cleanse the populous in one of the 5 points of the pentagram, and take it as their own realm. To solve this problem, we have Charlie, who is the daughter of Lucifer and the Beast Queen Lilith, who decides to open a rehabilitation center for lost souls to get back to Heaven.
With all that being said let's go into pros and cons of the show.
Pros: The show doesn't glamorize the process of forced rehabilitation, showing the souls in the Happy Hotel don't necessarily want to be rehabilitated, because the fear of death is no longer lingering over them, and they can get away with any life style, and debauchery they want. This is clearly shown by Angeldust still drinking, doing drugs, and being overall violent and sexual as an individual, with no regards to the fact he is in rehab.
Alastor's character also shows that where he wants to help with the rehabilitation process, it's less about seeing people get healthy, and more about how he wants to see people fail and repeat the cycle, to just be a sadistic individual.
Charlie is a good individual, with a kind heart, who has been shown to have problems with her parents, being that she is the opposite of what they want her to be. Living up to the expectations of the Fallen Angel who caused the great war of heaven, and the Beast Queen Lilith who is the one who raised the Behemoth, and Leviathan, who also nursed Lucifer back to health as he was slowly turned into a goat by Jehovah,charlie has some pretty big shoes to fill, especially since Lucifer is quoted in saying Charlie is a failure, and Lilith refuses to return any call, or answer the phone from her daughter. Which leads me into a minor con of the show, where the character development of Charlie seems slightly Aped from Damian's personality from Zoophobia, the comic written by Vivian.
Cons: First and foremost to get off my chest, I think the sounds mixing for character's like Alastor do need to be edited down a bit. I feel the filter used for the character fits his personality, and design fantastically, but it sounds like a 50/50 blend of the old timey filter mixed with the actor's voice, but if it was taken down to around a 40/60 filter to voice, it'd capture the same effect and clean up the characters voice enough, easy enough fix.
Another big glaring issue is I don't feel like the team was ready to release for a 2019 Halloween release, and slapped together the cleanest parts they had finished, and tried to make a cohesive story, since this was a 3 year project, that had promised a 2019 release, and didn't want to be pushed back to 2020, that said, it's a torn between damned if I do, damned if I don't situation, which do you disappoint people by continuing on with making something cleaner, and have fans pull from the wait, or do you release some content, and have fans disappointed with the pacing. I feel the second episode will be a lot cleaner and more cohesive now they got the base established.
I also feel with that said, that we have an over saturation of characters with too much going on. I understand that everyone is a hero of their own story in their own life, but establishing a minor character, like Sir Pentious in the first episode, where he wasn't really designed to be a main antagonist, did outshine the importance of Alastor's character development. With that said as well, we also have an array of characters who didn't make it in yet, who will be established as going thru rehab, and trying to get better, that the plot does seem like it will get muddied by introducing too many people too quickly.
Finally I feel like we don't learn enough about the main cast, being that I can't be the only one to miss the part where Charlie and Vaggie were a couple? I'm not asking for flat out gratuitous PDA. but the personality of Vaggie, and how she treats Charlie is that more of an assistant or best friend then a lover. There is no "I love you" or "I know you can do this" with the gentle shoulder grab showing the support, it's just inferred by Vaggie being in the hotel, and no real evidence of them actually being a couple in any form, even if we are going for the "gay couples are just like straight couples" portrayal, I don't buy them as dating even if they were heterosexual.
So, if you take out Sir Pentious in the pilot, and added some more one on one time with Charlie having an existential crisis about her project to rehabilitate hell, and Vaggie showing a bit more support, we would be able to get a better concept of the direction of characters, and plot.
Overall I'm genuinely curious to see where this show goes, and I do love the audio and vocal talents of the cast and crew, and have been following Vivian since this was originally the Zoophobia cartoon project, before changing over to Hazbin. I fully support this project and want to see the group grow, overall rough start, but I feel like a learning curve has been hit by the crew, that the fans who have eagerly awaited this release of the project, is being either too tightly defended by fans who want this to be good, but are criticized by the fans who expected this to be something it wasn't more harshly.
It has potential, and I'm hoping, and expecting, that the team behind the show will be able, to see where they succeeded and where they failed, and just working on moving forward with a well planned sense of how to tackle and improve the show, not just to the fandom wishes, but to the story they want to tell. Fall too much into the fans, lose the message, fall too much to your guns, the next few episodes will be a bit too muddled, and impossible to follow.