The Midnight Gospel Season One Review
It has been ten years since Pendleton Ward introduced us to his world of candy people, vampires and a plucky boy and his magical dog in Adventure Time. With his latest project, Ward teamed up with comedian Duncan Trussell to create The Midnight Gospel, a new eight part series on Netflix and the newest addition to their animated content for mature audiences. But does this new and surreal show make another great addition to the streaming platform?
Using audio from the podcast Duncan Trussell Family Hour, the show follows Clancy (voiced by Trussell) as he interviews people and creatures about their views and beliefs from multiple dying planets throughout the multiverse for his online show. From a president trying to survive during a zombie apocalypse and preaching about the effects of drugs, to a fish person on his boat of cats explaining magic to Death and Clancy discussing the afterlife, the series’ dialogue intertwined with Trussell’s podcast episodes goes through surprisingly deep subjects that makes it as engaging to listen as it is to watch the animation accompanying it.
This is certainly not a narrative heavy or character driven show as we don’t really see a lot of development from Clancy and the occurring cast of characters. While the show can be entertaining, the lack of an emotional connection to Clancy’s adventures and what he is trying to achieve certainly makes it more of a show that goes for style over substance.
Speaking of style, The Midnight Gospel certainly has plenty of surreal and abstract elements packed into the animation. Titmouse Inc were responsible for the production and they were able to show their efforts in experimentation and using different approaches to animation with their previous work on Big Mouth, Mao Mao and Ballmasterz 9009 looking very different from one another.
This series is by far their biggest departure for them with the use of pastel colours and psychedelic designs helping to deepen the conversations that Clancy has with all of the people, animals and galactic beings he comes across. While the animation can really add emotional support to the context of the subjects, the animation mostly felt used to try and create comedically odd episodes and moments.
That’s not to say that what is on offer isn’t pleasing to the eyes as it very much can be. It offers something different and it’s great to see how different the worlds and dimensions can be between each episode. No episode is ever the same and it’s great to see Pendleton Ward in the director’s chair again to show us what he imagined from Trussell’s podcasts.
The Midnight Gospel is a weird and surreal show that certainly fills a gap in the already broad animated content available on Netflix. It’s great to see something fresh and different on the streaming service, but it’s lack of approach towards the storytelling and character development just doesn’t come naturally as the animation and the lines used from the podcast.