Flinthart’s rating: 1 out of 8 Scooby Snacks

Flinthart’s review: I’m in the process of losing weight. I mean, a lot of weight. Since mid-January, I’m down by (counts in Americanese) 45 pounds. That means a whole effing lot of time spent on cardio. And most of that is on a stationary bike. In front of a screen. So yeah — I just watched Velma.

Sure wish I hadn’t.

Call me an unreconstructed nerd from the old days, but when Velma got almost instantly rewarded with a second season, I smelled a mystery – because even Wikipedia says, and I quote, “Audience reception was overwhelmingly negative.” (And there’s a link to a Wikipedia page entitled “List of television shows notable for negative reception”.)

Now, as the series is titled for its central character Velma Dinkley of the much-beloved, nay legendary, Scooby-Doo franchise (which was a cartoon all about four meddling kids and a strangely anthropomorphic Great Dane solving lame-ass mysteries which inevitably ended with the unmasking of some white dude who was trying to convince the locals he was really a ghost so as to depress real estate values or conceal his hidden gold mine or some such desperately contrived crap), I figured that the addition of a touch of real-life mystery to the show would make it something worth my time.

And I guess I’m almost right, because I’ve just watched the first season and I totally understand the audience reaction and I absolutely cannot guess why they greenlighted a second-season at all, let alone so quickly. The audience was on the money. Velma is awful.

Now first, let me say that the voice work and the animation are all just peachy. The show looks good and it sounds good. But where it falls flat is in the crucial elements of the writing, and most especially, the humour. You see, the show sets out to be a comedically self-aware parody of the much-loved original material, but the real mystery is: Who the hell stole the comedy?

Gotta throw in a caveat here. There’s a lot of people whining about the ‘woke’ qualities of the writing, and I personally don’t give a monkey’s booger about that. This version of the Velma character has Indian parents? Fine. Who cares? Fred is an over-entitled, dumb, rich white kid? Hey – wasn’t he always? Norville ‘Shaggy’ Rogers is now a black genius nerd character? Eh. They’re lining him up to turn into the stoner that everyone assumed he was. What difference does it make?

The thing is, though, that social commentary, ethnic diversity, and self-awareness are not of themselves intrinsically funny. I’ve seen plenty of comedians playing the ‘woke’ side of the street who have had me in stitches of laughter, but the writers of Velma evidently didn’t get the memo. The ‘zingers’ are forced and unfunny (“I’m gonna wear so much make-up! Like a forty-year-old actress on an audition!”).

Meanwhile, the ‘meta’ card gets laid out like a grand slam in trumps in the first thirty seconds of the show… and never, ever goes away again. Note for the writers: breaking the fourth wall, or cutesy self-aware references to lazy tropes nevertheless eagerly utilised within the show script – those things can be funny once in a while. But if your whole schtick hangs on them, you just look sad and desperate.

What do I mean? Well, take that first minute or so. We’re introduced to the showers in the girl’s locker rooms at Crystal Cove High, and the coterie of ‘Hot Girls’ is having a shower discussion about how lame it is when TV show pilots start out with so much more sex and nudity than the rest of the season. Get it? Eh? Get it? We’re watching the cartoon hot girls in the shower in the first episode of a TV show, right? And they’re talking about how lame it is when first episodes feature more nudity and sex than the rest of the season?

Yeah. I know. Hilarious. Oh, but don’t worry. There’s no actual cartoon nudity. That would be just too damned daring and edgy – so there’s the inevitable soapsuds bikini effect. I mean… shit. If you’re gonna call yourself out on one lazy trope only to hide behind another without acknowledging it… That is some spineless stuff right there. At least depict some cartoon nipples and trigger some legitimate debate about sexualised imagery, eh?

Anyway, that’s pretty much where the comedy stays. Velma is a thoroughly unlikable and selfish (but socially aware!) character who periodically notices that she’s unlikable and selfish or calls out unlikable and selfish behaviour from others which she then performs for her own ends. Somebody, please: take away the writer’s “irony” license.”

So, yeah. Mostly just limp zingers directed at the usual targets (the male gaze, male privilege, the expectations of patriarchal society) and equally limp meta-references laboured so heavily that any sense of fun just evaporates. For the record, I actually smiled once around episode three, I think, when Fred (beginning as a thoughtless chauvinist, naturally) accidentally read ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ developed an attraction towards smart, empowered women, and ogled a middle-aged woman painting watercolours in the local park. Seriously. That was a high point.

And the story? Eh. Pretty much typical Scooby-Doo fare, just dragged out over ten episodes. A little more gore and violence, a few sexual references, plenty of sub-plots questioning Daphne and Velma and Norville and Fred’s relationships and sexuality (as if the fan-base hadn’t already been having fun with that stuff for the last fifty years!) but ultimately, just another rich whitey in a mask thwarted by those meddling kids. (Spoilers: Rich whitey is female this time. Empowerment!)

Ultimately, then, I guess I got my mystery. “Velma” is a huge yawnfest from one end to the other. The questions of sexuality have been the subject of smirky in-jokes since forever. The humour is limp and harmless as that so-called lettuce they put on your burger down at Mickey Dee’s. The story, by virtue of being parody, simply apes the stories of the original series (with a few extra elements to keep it focused around Velma, and string it out over ten episodes.) Add to that the notably harsh audience response, and we’re left with two questions. The first, of course, is ‘Scooby-Doo, where are you?’ because the beloved canine simply doesn’t appear in this pre-origin story.

But the second?

Who the hell thought we needed more of this sad, limp bit of infinitely forgettable cartooning? Who hates the Scooby Gang’s legacy so much that they’d spend millions of dollars to destroy it utterly? Could it be… Scrappy-Doo? Oh. Wait. No. That was one of the movies, wasn’t it?

No, it’s probably just some rich white guy whose mask is actually a numbered account in the Caymans. That’s right, folks: make more “Velma”, and the world will be safe for rich white capitalists again!

Folks, if you bother watching this stuff you’ve only got yourselves to blame. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.