Galavant is a dashing knight, loved and respected by all for his courage and honour. Blessed with looks, strength of arms, and a beautiful lover in the shapely form of the lovely Madalena, it seems Galavant has it all.
Or at least, it does until the supercilious, entitled and dishonourable King Richard kidnaps Madalena, intending to make her his bride. This cannot be allowed to stand, and - powered by the strength of his passion and the might of his sword-arm - Galavant cuts his way into the castle to free the love of his life.
Only it turns out that, when you get down to it, Madalena's feelings don't run as deep. She may not care much more Richard, but he's as weak-willed as he is pompous, and he has lots of lovely power and money. She spurns Galavant, crushing the knight's spirit. He descends into a melancholy of depression and alcohol.
Princess Isabella of Valencia, whose kingdom has been conquered by Richard, finally manages to stir the old flames of courage and heroism in Galavant's heart when she (falsely) tells him that Madalena has repented her earlier decision and now wants Galavant to rescue her after all. All he has to do is help Isabella first ... but can one single hero and his squire really save the day?
Galavant is a fantasy musical comedy adventure series. Which is something of a niche offering and may explain why, despite positive reviews, the show struggled to find an audience. At the end of its first season of 8 episodes, it was a favourite for cancellation - a fact that the show cheekily acknowledges in the opening episode of season 2, "A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear".
I personally enjoyed the show a lot, particularly the first season. The show is helped a lot by having a talented core cast who seem to be having fun with the genre aware silliness of the story. Some of them were likely helped by having past experience in such material: Timothy Omundsun, who plays King Richard, had a recurring role in Xena: Warrior Princess, for instance.
The guest stars are also strong, with numerous recognisable faces turning up in one-off or occasional roles. I give the show particular props for looping in 'Weird' Al Yankovic as the leader of an order of monks who have taken a vow of singing.
As a musical show, it is of course important that the songs be fun and well written. There are no worries on that front: Alen Menken, who composed for Disney's The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, delivers his usual excellent work in combination with other talented musicians.
On the comedy front, the jokes certainly come thick and fast. Not every single one is a winner, but you're likely to laugh more often than not. There's plenty of funny moments here, including one or two sequences of such gleeful absurdity that I came close to having to pause the show and give us some time to recover.
I also liked writers' willingness to spend time with characters you might not have expected to feature much, and to develop arcs in unexpected ways. Characters do not necessarily end the show in the places you might expect, and I think this is a strength of the program.
So: that's all pretty glowing. Do I have any complaints? Well, two. Firstly, the breaking of the fourth wall .is perhaps a smidgen overdone at times. Secondly, the show's second season is a bit overstuffed in general and could perhaps have shed a couple of episodes. It feels to me like they started the writing for this season from the the ending they wanted to get to, and then kind of invented stuff to connect that up with where they ended the first season. To my mind, the stitching together of these elements is sometimes a little clumsy. For instance, things sometimes happen that seem like they should utterly change the direction of the show - but then ten minutes later they are fully resolved and have already triggered the next plot point.
Overall, though, this was 18 brief and breezy episodes of TV, packed with funny scenes, clever songs, engaging characters, and a few neat surprises. I'm definitely glad I watched it.
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