When I first saw the pilot for Victor and Valentino, I was engaged by the dark latino-themes and the intriguing plot-line it had, with admittedly characters that needed some work, it had felt like somewhat of a successor to Gravity Falls with latin and mexican folk-lore added to it, I was excited when I heard this show had gotten picked up.
As of the time I am writing this, its been nearly 2 months since this show premiered, having 14 episodes that have premiered. I think this show has been off to a pretty weak start. Now, the show is nowhere near bad at all, as a matter of fact, from the assortment of episodes we currently have, the show's been pretty decent so far. My biggest problem with Victor and Valentino is the execution of the episodes, I think the ideas behind the episodes are great and have lots of potential, but the execution of some of the episodes have been very weak and in some cases pretty bad.
Take for example the episode "The Dark Room", where Val wants to join a photography club but is rejected, so he goes out to take a picture of the legendary chupacabra. the idea for the episode sounds great, but after seeing the episode, I feel it was executed in a pretty bad way. Spoilers for the episode but, it turns out the chupacabra is just a misunderstood creature who likes animals and hates having pictures taken of him, and is instead interested in making sculptures of the animals he admires. This had me utterly disappointed with how things turned out, not to mention that the trope of "a scary creature is actually a misunderstood loner who's actually nice" is very redundant and just came off to me as a half-assed way to wrap up the episode.
Some other minor problems I have with the show are the fact that the some of the characters we're supposed to know are very underdeveloped, like how Valentino just feels like an overly protective guy who comes off as a bit of a prick sometimes. Also, the animation of the show feels cheap, like it had the budget of the PPG 2016 reboot, where the movements look stiff and there are shots that just look awful, as another example, in "Folk Art Foes" when HueHue jumps onto the table of someone's quinceañera, the movement of HueHue just looks wrong and the shot looks bad. I think that some of the issues I previously mentioned could be fixed if the characters were given more time to develop in episodes, and if the show received a higher budget animation-wise. I feel as if this show would work better in a 22-minute format, where they could devote more time to developing the characters and making the stories better executed.
That doesn't mean this show is without it's pros though, some of the ideas that have worked have been pretty well done, the voice-work is pretty top-notch, and I think that some of the more recent episodes have been better than the first few. I think that if this show takes a more story-driven direction and works on how each episode is executed, I think this could become a great show. Bur alas, with the amount of problems the show has right now, I think that Victor and Valentino is just a decent show. The show does do things right, but the ideas for the stories are just executed in a very weak manner, the characters need more development, and they focus a bit too much on comedic aspects that just fall flat at times. This show needs work in order for people to have a good time with this show.
I would personally check out at least 4 episodes of this show to see what you think, they can be any 4 since the show is currently episodic, but remember that this show isn't going to be the most amazing thing ever, as the problems i mentioned are pretty noticeable in some of the episodes. The show honestly needs as much support as it can get so it can improve, because I honestly do not want to see this show shafted off with only 1 season behind its belt. Give V&V a watch, just don't expect it to be the most revolutionary thing ever.
As of the time I am writing this, its been nearly 2 months since this show premiered, having 14 episodes that have premiered. I think this show has been off to a pretty weak start. Now, the show is nowhere near bad at all, as a matter of fact, from the assortment of episodes we currently have, the show's been pretty decent so far. My biggest problem with Victor and Valentino is the execution of the episodes, I think the ideas behind the episodes are great and have lots of potential, but the execution of some of the episodes have been very weak and in some cases pretty bad.
Take for example the episode "The Dark Room", where Val wants to join a photography club but is rejected, so he goes out to take a picture of the legendary chupacabra. the idea for the episode sounds great, but after seeing the episode, I feel it was executed in a pretty bad way. Spoilers for the episode but, it turns out the chupacabra is just a misunderstood creature who likes animals and hates having pictures taken of him, and is instead interested in making sculptures of the animals he admires. This had me utterly disappointed with how things turned out, not to mention that the trope of "a scary creature is actually a misunderstood loner who's actually nice" is very redundant and just came off to me as a half-assed way to wrap up the episode.
Some other minor problems I have with the show are the fact that the some of the characters we're supposed to know are very underdeveloped, like how Valentino just feels like an overly protective guy who comes off as a bit of a prick sometimes. Also, the animation of the show feels cheap, like it had the budget of the PPG 2016 reboot, where the movements look stiff and there are shots that just look awful, as another example, in "Folk Art Foes" when HueHue jumps onto the table of someone's quinceañera, the movement of HueHue just looks wrong and the shot looks bad. I think that some of the issues I previously mentioned could be fixed if the characters were given more time to develop in episodes, and if the show received a higher budget animation-wise. I feel as if this show would work better in a 22-minute format, where they could devote more time to developing the characters and making the stories better executed.
That doesn't mean this show is without it's pros though, some of the ideas that have worked have been pretty well done, the voice-work is pretty top-notch, and I think that some of the more recent episodes have been better than the first few. I think that if this show takes a more story-driven direction and works on how each episode is executed, I think this could become a great show. Bur alas, with the amount of problems the show has right now, I think that Victor and Valentino is just a decent show. The show does do things right, but the ideas for the stories are just executed in a very weak manner, the characters need more development, and they focus a bit too much on comedic aspects that just fall flat at times. This show needs work in order for people to have a good time with this show.
I would personally check out at least 4 episodes of this show to see what you think, they can be any 4 since the show is currently episodic, but remember that this show isn't going to be the most amazing thing ever, as the problems i mentioned are pretty noticeable in some of the episodes. The show honestly needs as much support as it can get so it can improve, because I honestly do not want to see this show shafted off with only 1 season behind its belt. Give V&V a watch, just don't expect it to be the most revolutionary thing ever.