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Velma (2023-)
Seasons: 2 (confirmed)
Episodes: 10 (for now)
Network: HBO Max

Ever since its debut in 1969 with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! , the Scooby-Doo franchise has since evolved into one of the most recognizable and iconic franchises in media for 50 plus years with numerous shows, many direct to video movies, a few theatrical films live action and animated, video games, books and a lot of merchandise. Scooby-Doo in spite of its formulaic nature is a series that is able to reimagine and find new ways to stay relevant for each new generation and not only has been one of the biggest icons of Hanna-Barbera but also a long time icon for fans who grew up watching Scooby and his friends on their various adventures throughout the years and loving them throughout their lives, and I happen to be one of them as Scooby-Doo is a franchise that is near and dear to me in terms of favorite cartoons, as recently shown with my reviews of the Great Dane's shows throughout his 50 plus year history. But yet, the franchise was missing something, and what could that missing piece be?

OH Yeah! An unnecessary adult Scooby-Doo spinoff show without Scooby-Doo, which brings us to the subject of today's review....

HBO's Velma
(internally screaming in anguish)

When it was announced that they were doing an adult spin off show revolving around everyone's favorite bookworm of the Scooby-Doo gang, I was intrigued by the idea and what kind of show it could possibly be like at first. While others had conflicting to say the least things to say about the subject, mainly on the actress playing Velma in the show Mindy Kaling and it being a Scooby-Doo show without Scooby-Doo and potentially being a woke show (typically par for the course with the internet), I was willing to keep an open mind but the future of it past that started to give me immediate regret.
Then the first image dropped and gave us our first look at Velma and a rather gruesome image of a girl with her head cut open and brain missing and the internet went crazy and while I too was a bit skeptical, I still tried to give the show the benefit of the doubt that the show itself will be better than what the tease indicated. Then the first teaser trailer dropped and depicted a very condescending and self aware in the worst ways version of Velma as a surrogate for those who critiqued the show and the internet fire of hate was just beginning but I even then I still believed that the show could be better than the teaser would lead us to believe.

Then literally the day before the show released on HBO Max, an official trailer was dropped and things got even worse with the comments section turned off and the trailer itself showcasing some very discouraging to say the least content and that moment, my faith in the show was quickly fading and that the show actually will be bad but still tried to hold on to a sliver of hope that the show could at least be entertaining for how bad it is or at least could maybe could be "so bad its good."

But as quickly as you can say "and I would have gotten away with it if not for those meddling kids," reality smacked me in the head to the harsh truth.....

Velma is abysmal!

Now is it the worst show ever made in the history of TV? No, I'm sure there are other shows that I'm not aware of that might be worse but even taking this show as is, this show as a part of the Scooby-Doo franchise, is a new low for the franchise that is insultingly bad in more ways than not and is not only undoubtedly the worst show in Scooby-Doo's legacy as the time of this writing but is also one of the rare instances where the internet says something is awful and I find myself agreeing with the loud majority, maybe not as dramatically or as vitriolic as people online usually do but I do think this show overall is genuinely awful and an utter insult to not just Scooby-Doo and its fans but cartoon fans as well.
But before I get into ripping this show apart, let's address the few positives this show has because its not all bad and though they do not save the show from being terrible, they are at least something where I have to give credit where its due....

Positives:
The animation and visuals of the show are decent. The show's style while a bit generic in spots with some of the character designs, the animation has its visual highlights especially whenever the show wants to go for a more foreboding and spooky mood with its lighting background design and another big highlight in the animation are the freaky and nightmarish hallucinations Velma has which are nicely detailed and animated and whenever they do pop up, it does make the show in those bits more interesting to watch. The visuals aren't like the most amazing work I've seen but if there's anybody who did their jobs really well here, its the animation team.
While the cast for the most part is one of the biggest detriments of the show, there are a couple of okay to decent characters here and there such as Gigi and a few others like Sophie who while not the most interesting are definitely on the more tolerable side, especially when compared to the main four characters which we will get into.

Some of the voice acting is fine especially some of the ones like Frank Welker as Fred's dad and Cherri Jones as his mom and a few others like Weird Al Yankovic, Yvonne Orji, Jane Lynch and Wanda Sykes, and I will give that Glen Howerton of the four main leading VAs does do good for this take on Fred, which is the one bone I will give to this show especially as compared to the other members of the Scooby gang besides Scooby, he's easily the best one of the four (more on that in a bit). Again nothing that I haven't heard better from other shows, but they do adequately enough in spite of the hopeless dialogue and material they're given except for one but again, we'll get to that.

Some of the ideas and concepts with the season's main mystery were interesting on paper and if the writing wasn't so abysmal and the mystery was better developed and fleshed out with the revelations, the show potentially could have been something of higher merit....

But unfortunately the show we ended up with is a colossal dumpster fire in nearly all aspects and this is where the positives end and I'm not mixed on anything, as from here on out, we're tearing this show a new ass for what feels like the hundredth time.

Now before then, I want to address that no matter how I feel about a show or movie and no matter how bad it is, I have no personal ill will or disdain toward anybody involved as they are still people who were just doing their job and should not be threatened or attacked just because their product is garbage. Just be considerate as I civilly criticize the work they've done but know I have nothing against them as people and I encourage you to not go after people for anything like this, as while their product might be terrible or might tick some people off, attacking them doesn't make you any better. Just be civil, now on to the show...

Negatives:

Basically everything else...

This does not at all feel remotely like a Scooby-Doo show and not just because Scooby himself is not in it outside of a few ill fitting references and a thankfully false rumor outside of the show that Gigi was to be a female genderbent human Scooby, but his absense is the least of the show's problems.

This show actually goes out of its way to lambast and insult the very franchise its acting as an "origin" to and I say that very loosely with jokes regarding a white van shown towards the end of the season that is clearly going to be the Mystery Machine being called a "sex van" or some other suggestive terms and is given some tasteless jokes in its regard, Velma saying that putting on a disguise during a chase is stupid as if the show is ashamed of being a cartoon, and the show downplaying how insulting it is by having one of the characters say "playful reimagining of a beloved cartoon."

Sorry, No! Be Cool, Scooby-Doo is much more worthy of that description than you will ever be!

This show doesn't even feel remotely like a Scooby-Doo show and feels more like just another low rate adult cartoon / teen drama with the Scooby-Doo IP merely as just a mask and just there to make the show familiar and more marketable than if it were its own original series. I already mentioned the ways the show insults the very brand with its humor but how the show misrepresents the four main members of Mystery Inc. is the most egregious in that aside from the clothes and names, they act nothing like the characters they're supposed to be to the point where they are unrecognizable.

Starting off with the least troublesome of the gang and working our way to the worst of the gang,

Fred starts off as a bit of an annoying and dimwitted manchild with parental issues regarding his rich parents who look down on him for not living up to their expectations and is mainly just used to make low hanging jokes about privileged rich white males and him having a tiny dick but there Given how bad his relationship with his parents, he ironically has more sympathy and development than Velma (the main character), which is why he's easily the best of the gang here by a country mile.

Norville (Shaggy) as far as the main four characters go is passable on account that he seems like a nice guy but his giant flaw is that the show makes him into a beta simp for Velma and even when he gets with Gigi, he still has a thing for Velma and even after he finally tells off Velma with the truth and stands up for himself, he then immediately backtracks back to her through contrived circumstances.
Daphne is just an alpha bitch mean girl and the show does try to give her a story arc regarding finding her biological parents which doesn't last long or go anywhere and is just a very inferior version of Fred's story arc of the same thing from Mystery Incorporated and her having a very poorly handled romantic "will they/won't they" with Velma but by the end, she is the one the show has no idea what to do with.

And then there's the worst of the four, our main titular character Velma. Jinkies! Where do I even start with her?

Well, how about that this is Velma in name only as this has to be the worst and most ill-conceived version of the character yet. She's bitchy, condescending, judgemental, selfish, conceited, not even a genius, racist, and overall just an unpleasant and despicable person, made even worse by the fact that she's our lead character and so it is difficult if not impossible to root for her or sympathize with her when she's an intolerable bitch to everyone even to those who are supposed to be friendly with her like Norville who she treats like a doormat.

And despite claiming to be a good detective and being the real person to bring the gang together, she barely does any of the investigating of the main mystery, only relying on others finding the clues and her taking the credit or the clues to the mystery oh so conveniently coming to her, which makes her claims come off as utterly pretentious and phony and only adds to her feeling like an absolute writer's pet.

And throughout the season, she doesn't change or grow out of those negative traits, she starts off the season unlikable and ends the season unlikable and any attempt to try to get the viewer to feel for her like she's someone worth rooting for and supporting just feels artificial and insulting. How can you make a character that we are supposed to sympathize with and follow and yet you make us despise her? I know Velma always had a bit of a snarky edge to her in previous versions and can come off a bit bitchy at times like in Mystery Incorporated, but this is on a whole new level and at least those versions of Velma are way more likable than this faux Velma who is literally just Mindy Kaling whose delivery and dialogue for Velma makes her annoying to listen to and when your main character is the worst character in your show and played by someone who clearly disrespects and misrepresents the classic character most fans adore and that she claims to connect with the most, it just rubs salt in the wound.

Also it occured to me that this show is also a comedy? Which is news to me because this show is painfully unfunny and almost every joke or attempt at humor falls on its face. And its two types of humor, there's cheap shock humor and overreliance on meta humor.

The shock value side of things involves very uncomfortable and disgusting showcasing of sexualized girls who are minors and even having that be the first scene in the show as well as such very gratuitous instances of violence including one very horrific one in the last episode.

The meta humor is the type the show loves to over use and run into the ground with a character usually Velma or Daphne acknowledging or pointing out a cliche and making it seem like they're clever or subversive with their humor or claiming "if this were a show, this would happen but this is reality so what are the chances of that happening," which not only is not funny as they are essentially doing the very thing they just said they wouldn't but it also takes you out of the immersion and unable to connect with any of the characters who keep acting all self aware and winking at the audience, because people do not talk or act like that and the jokes feel uninspired and artificial. And I am not against meta humor and think that it can be pretty effective and funny depending on how well written it is, and this show is NOT it.

Oh and let's not forget that insulting "420/Adults Watch Cartoons" joke. Do I really need to explain what is wrong with that?

But what about the mystery? I mean that's one of the big factors of Scooby-Doo are the mysteries and this show certainly has one and like I said, the idea was certainly there and on paper, it was cool and interesting idea but execution felt incredibly underwhelming as the show barely even focuses on it to where it feels like an afterthought in most of the season. And even when we get development on the bigger mystery at hand of who the identity of the killer removing the girls' brains is and how Velma's missing mother is involved, the execution is messy and needlessly convoluted and even when we get to the reveal of who the villain is, which is actually Fred's mother (Spoilers, I'm saving you the trouble), it just raises even more questions and in the grand scheme of things, the person they picked to be the mastermind behind the case, does not make for a satisfying reveal due to who they picked barely being a character and the whole mystery falls flat and it leaves you with blue balls by the end of the season when the payoff to the mystery is very disappointing and the reveal feels like a twist for the sake of a twist.

I really hate ranting, really I do, because I wanted this show to be good and even if I came to face the music and knew it was going to be bad, I at least was expecting better than this or to be a part of the minority of people saying, "its not that bad," but in reality, it is that bad. As someone who is a huge fan of Scooby-Doo and has been for as long as I can remember and will continue to love the franchise despite this show's stain of the IP, this show at best confuses me on who this is even made for and at worst, insults me as a fan of the IP and of animation. Velma will forever go down as one of the most ill-concieved reboots in recent memory and likely if not for the fact that it had the Scooby-Doo IP, it would not be talked about and lambasted online as much as it is and despite the loud majority of the show's reception being negative, HBO proudly holds this show as their most watched new show because of the attention its gained regardless of it being negative and have a season 2 currently in the works. Oh joy....

I am usually somebody who believes that everyone who makes a piece of media, be it a show or movie, intends to make something good as I never understand why anyone would intentionally make something bad, and even if their product doesn't fully come out as good as they hoped, the least I could do is commend or acknowledge the effort and passion they at least had or give the show credit for some of the stuff it does do right, and I always want to support that creators intend to make something good. However Velma is one of those instances where I find it very hard to tell if its failings were by mistake or on purpose because even the most casual Scooby-Doo fan would look at what this show does and immediately be like, "that is a horrible idea, what are you doing?!" Even when the creators of the show are shown saying that they are fans of Scooby-Doo, the way the show presents them just feels disingenuous and feels like an insult more than a loving tribute and aside from being the first adult series in the Scooby-Doo franchise, Velma has next to nothing new to offer or bring to the table as most of the stuff its tries and fails to do are things that previous Scooby-Doo shows have already done and done much better, which makes this show not only unremarkable but pretty much worthless at the end of the day and a show that I will never watch again willingly now that I'm done talking about it.

Final Thoughts:

This is a show that still baffles me to this day with how dreadful it ended up being. I genuinely tried to like this show and wanted to give it a chance but Velma was just an absolute failure of a show and outside of the animation and some of the voice acting and some neat ideas on paper, there is little to nothing of worth here and is overall an ill-concieved series that fails miserably as a Scooby-Doo series and just simply fails as a show in general and just begs the question of who is this for and why would I choose to watch this over the other much better Scooby-Doo shows we have? Really the one positive thing I could say about this show is that it made me appreciate the past Scooby-Doo shows much more than I already do and made me and other appreciate some of the lesser ones that didn't get enough love or credit, as while they may not be perfect, they still are much more worthwhile and credible than whatever the heck this show was. Its not even worth hate watching because even that gives the ones in power the wrong idea, and regardless of whether season 2 is somehow a miraculous course correction which I highly doubt, Velma is a Scooby entry that we could all definitely Doo without!

2/10

What do you think of Velma?

And if my review wasn't enough, here is my friend joshvirgin and his similar thoughts regarding "Velma"....

Hey Again Here Is My Review Of “Velma” Enjoy.
“Velma.” “Why Did They Make This Show?”
I’ll Be Honest Folks. I Really Don’t Want To Talk About This Show. I Really Don’t. The Only Reasons I Am Is For My Friend Cyber Since He’s Reviewing This As Well And Because I Am A “Scooby Doo” Fan So I Am Obligated To Do So. So Here Are My Thoughts On The HBO Max Series “Velma.”
Before I Can Get Into The Show Proper Permit Me To Go Back For A Moment To The Original Show. Back In 1969 Up Until 1970 There Was A Show Called “Scooby Doo Where Are You?” A Cartoon Show Featuring 4 Kids And Their Talking Dog That Went Solving Spooky Mysteries. The Gang Consisted Of…
Norville “Shaggy” Rogers The Skinny Cowardly Hippy Character And Frequent Food Hound.
Scoobert “Scooby” Doo The Gang’s Mascot And Great Dane Who Could Talk And Usually Had To Be Coaxed Into The Mystery Solving Via “Scooby Snax.”
Daphne “Danger Prone” Blake The Beauty Of The Group And Occasionally Intuitive In Some Aspects.
Fred “Freddy” Jones The Leader Of The Group And He Supplies “The Mystery Machine” The Gang’s Van.
And Velma Dinkley The Most Intelligent Member Besides Freddy Despite Frequently Loosing Her Glasses And Ending Up Either In The Wrong Place Or Face To Face With The Monster Or Villain Of The Episode.
Some Thing Interesting I Noticed The More I Think Back Is That Despite The Quirks Each Of The Gang Members Display They Usually Know How To Work Together In Spooky Situations Thanks To Their Friend Ship Team Work And Ability To Uncover The Truth Behind A Supposed Supernatural Occurrence. When You Think About It That’s A Surprisingly Mature Theme Which Shows In Most Other Adaptations Over 50 Years Later. And Given “Velma” A Prequel Series That Was Announced To Be The First Adult Adaptation Of “Scooby Doo” You’d Think They Could Find A Way To Make That Work And Effectively Show Mystery Inc. In More Adult Situations While Still Leading To Them Becoming The Group Of Mystery Solvers We Know Today… They Do Not. Instead What We Get Is Some Crude Mean And Unfunny Humor Mixed With Uncharacteristic Portrayals Of The Teen Sleuths We Knew And Loved To The Point Of Them Being The Characters In Name Only (More On Them Later.) And Meta Humor That Ultimately Doesn’t Work As They Do The Thing They’re Making Fun Of Any Way (More On That Later.) Or Usually Is Some Thing No Human Being Ever Would Say In Real Life. On Top Of That Half Of This Takes Up An Episode Leaving No Time For The Overarching Mystery To Shine Through Which Was Usually The Best Part Of Any Scooby Series Episode Or Movie. Any Way Let’s Get Into The Good (What Little There Is.) The Bad (Which There’s A Lot Of To Discuss.) And The Overall. Starting With The Good Just So That Way I’ll Have That Done And Out Of The Way.
“The Good.”
This Isn’t Going To Be A Long One But I’ll Try And Name Some Of The Good Things As Little As There Is. First The Idea Of An Adult “Scooby Doo” Series Is An Intriguing One To Be Sure. Most Versions Up Until This Series Have Been Aimed At Kids With The Possible Exception Of The First Live Action Movie Given It Was PG At A Time When It Meant You Needed Parental Guidance To See It And The More Teen Rated “Scooby Apocalypse” Comic Series By DC. (And To Some Extent “Scoobynatural.”) In Fact Those Of You Following Cyber Know By Now Of His Idea For An Adult Scooby Show Called “The Faux Ghost” Which I Occasionally Help Out With. All In All Taking The Franchise In That Direction Is A Unique Idea But We’ll Get Into What Happens With It Here. Next Good Point Would Be The Animation. Well At Least For The Hallucination Scenes Some Times. Those Scenes Are Usually The Parts That Are Best Animated And Genuinely Awesome To Look At And Gives Velma A New Layer To Her Character. Speaking Of Which One Of The Over Arching Mysteries Velma Is Out To Solve Is What Happened To Her Mom Who Disappeared Under Mysterious Circumstances. But Any Time She Tries To Find Out More It Triggers A Hallucination Like The Ones I Spoke Of Earlier Which Causes Her To Have A Panic Attack. The Second Mystery Involves A Killer Who Is Removing Brains From People (Mostly Women.) Around Town. That Is At Least Some Thing New To “Scooby Doo.” There Aren’t Many Murder Mystery Concepts In Most Incarnations And It Leaves Way To Different Suspects With Different Motives. Some Of The Voice Actors Are Alright With The Stuff They’re Given Even If Most Of It Isn’t Good. Glenn Howerton Is Decent As Freddy And Seems To Be One Of The Few Actors Trying To Make His Character Work To Some Capacity. Incidentally Despite Some Negative Aspects I Have On Him Like Him Being A Man Baby Half The Time (Which Is More So Due To How His Parents Treat Him.) He Oddly Enough Has The Best Development And Is The Closest (Well One Of The Closest At Least.) To Being A Good Character And The Most Sympathetic. Ironic Given How The Show Wants You To Feel About Him Which I’ll Cover Later. Sam Richardson As “Norville” (Yeah They Don’t Call Him Shaggy For Some Reason.) Is For The Most Part Good Despite Sounding Nothing Like Shaggy And For A While Is The Most Likable Character. Frank Welker Appears As Freddy’s Dad And Despite That His Character Is A Dick Frank Does The Best With What He’s Given. Granted He Always Does His Best In Any Scooby Property Even When He’s Not Scooby Or Freddy Respectfully. Even In Lesser Content. Weird Al Yankovic Also Occasionally Appears As This Nerdy Character With Curly Hair (Type Casting Much?) And Glasses Named Dandruff Tuba And Despite Not Getting Much To Do It’s Nice To See Weird Al In More Scooby Content After “Scooby Doo And Guess Who?” Speaking Of Which Wanda Sykes Makes Her Second Appearance In The Franchise Since “Guess Who?” As One Of Daphne’s Adoptive Moms And One Of The Detectives In Crystal Cove. While I Don’t Care For How Her Character As Well As Her Character’s Partner Is Represented As Bad Detectives (They Even Say So.) Wanda I Would Say Is One Of The Few Voice Actors Doing Good With What They Have Along With Jane Lynch. Gigi Is One Of The Few Good Characters In The Show And A Better Love Interest For Norville Than Velma. And Lastly Some Of The Easter Eggs And Call Backs To Past Scooby And Hanna-Barbera Media Are Nice And Welcome Touches Such As Posters Of Old School Scooby Villains Occasionally Being Found Norville’s Chat Having References To Other Scooby Characters Like His User Name Being Blue Falcon And Some Like Scrappy And The Hex Girls Being Referenced. One Of Which Also Being A Nod To Late And Great Creator Joe Ruby As “Rubyj.” The Spooky Eyes From “The New Scooby Doo Movies” Intro Appear During Velma’s Hallucination Scenes. The Hallway Door Gag Appears In One Episode Plus The Classic Scooby Chase Music In One Of The Few Scooby Like Moments In The Show And A Reference To The Disguise Gags. The Mystery Machine Appears And Gets Some Love. (Aside From Two Tasteless Jokes Which I’ll Get To.)
Okay Now With The Good Out Of The Way Let’s Discuss The Nitty Gritty.
“The Bad.”
First Off Let’s Discuss Velma Her Self Voiced By Mindy Kaling. I Do Not Like This Take. At All. She’s Narcissistic Mean Bitchy She Almost Never Says Any Thing Nice Or Funny She Always Has Some Snarky Ass Comment For Every Body She’s Racist She Gas Lights Every One To Do Stuff For Her And Is Mean To Norville Who Is Usually Nice To Her Despite Every Thing And Over All She’s Just A Horrible Person. And Just When It Seems She Might Redeem Her Self She Spits In Every One’s Faces. Bottom Line She Is Nothing Like Velma Besides Sort Of Looking Like Her And Having The Same Name. Also Mindy Sucks At Acting. There Are Times Where She’s Clearly Emotional (Like When She Appears To Be Yelling And/Or Crying.) But The Take They Use Sounds So Bland. Worst Yet Is The Fact There Are Moments Where She’s Screaming In Terror At Some Thing And It’s This Weak Ass Scream That’s Like The Vocal Equivalent Of A Weak Piss. And They Use It For Every Moment Where Velma Is Supposed To Be Screaming In Fear. Like Mindy Couldn’t Do A Better Take Of Her Screaming Worth Shit. I’ve Heard Many Say This Is Mindy’s Self Insert Disguised As A Scooby Property And I Can’t Say That I Don’t See That. I Don’t Know Mindy Kaling Personally But I Haven’t Heard Many Good Stories About Her As A Person Especially One Uncomfortable One Regarding One Of Her Co Stars She Kissed With Out Consent And That Supposedly This (“Velma.”) Was A Spite Driven Project Just To Piss People Off. I Would Believe It. And Despite That She’s Supposed To Be The Quirky Relatable Character We’re Supposed To Root For/Sympathize With When Stuff Goes Bad. But She Does Nothing To Earn That. Hell They’ll Even Have Bad Stuff Happen To Her To Try And Earn Sympathy From Us But We Feel Nothing For Her. If Any Thing We Want Bad Stuff To Happen To Her. Hell Every One’s Favorite Moment (And Perhaps The One Funny Scene In The Show.) Is When The Sheriff Rams Into Her With His Car. If Every One Universally Agrees Seeing A Character You Made Get Injured Is Their Favorite Scene Then You’re Fucked. And It’s Funny Too Because Mindy Claims She Loved The Original Show And Related To Velma The Strongest Of Them All. And Yet This Feels So Insincere As A Tribute (If You Could Even Call It That.) To Scooby Doo And To The Characters. Velma Also Has Inconsistent Feelings Towards Freddy Through The Show. At Certain Points She Notes She Has A Crush On Him But Then Later When She Suspects Him To Be The Killer She Then Goes Out Of His Way To Shame Him For Being White (Yeah They Also Race Swap Velma Daphne And Norville Which Isn’t That Big Of A Problem Aside From Them Constantly Calling Attention To It.) And Having A Tiny Dong. (No. Seriously.) And This Comes Up A Lot During The Second Episode And They Always Draw Attention To It. It Doesn’t Help That He’s A Minor In This Series. Then When Freddy Actually Sees Women As People And Not Objects (Which Has More To Do With His Shitty Dad And His Upbringing.) She Doesn’t Find Him Hot Despite Him Being Less Of A Jerk Later Down The Road. But You Know What The Funniest Thing Is? Despite Velma Believing She’s The World’s Best Detective She Barely Solves Any Thing And Freddy Does Most Of The Work. Can We All Agree Freddy Is The Best Thing About This Show? Hell Even His Dick Head Dad Figures Out What’s Going On Before Velma. Even Freddy’s Dad Is A Better Detective Than Velma. How Do You Mess Up That Badly? Then There’s Daphne Voiced By Constance Wu. Definitely Not The Best Voice Choice Though I Guess It’s Lucky Grey Griffin Isn’t Voicing This Take. This Would Be Beneath Her. In Fact She Even Tweeted About The Show Being Garbage. Back Onto Daphne Her Self. She’s Made Into The Stereotypical Mean Girl Trope We’ve Seen Done To Death 100 Times Before. Although One Positive I Guess Is Next To Freddy She Has The Best Development Later On To Some Degree In Trying To Find Her Birth Parents. Now On Paper That’s Not A Bad Idea But The Key Word Is “On Paper.” The Way The Show Executes It Is She’s Dealing Drugs In School Under Cover From Her Moms To Raise Money (Some How.) To Find Them. And I Heard About This From Another Friend Of Mine Before I Watched The Show (Which I Say Loosely. I Watched It Through Reaction Videos.) And Already I Didn’t Like That. I Mean It’s Not Like Daphne Was 100% Perfect In Other Shows. She Had Flaws But On The Whole She Was Perky Nice And In Some Essence The Emotional Support. But This Is Just Such A Grotesque Departure From The Character We Know And Love. It Doesn’t Help The Drugs Are Named After Scooby Catchphrases Like “Zoinks!” “Jeepers!” And “Mystery Machine.” The Bitch Even Stabs People At One Point. What A Psycho! Her Introduction In This Series Isn’t Much Better As She’s Going To Shower With Other Girls (But Not Before Seeing Two Cockroaches Humping. *Really Mindy?*) And Is Completely Naked. This Is Also Where One Of Several Forced Meta Jokes That Ultimately Fall Flat Make Their Way In. Case And Point Daphne Comments “You Ever Notice How Much Sex And Nudity Is In The Pilot Episodes Of Shows Then There Is In The Whole Series?” And The Girls Chime In With How Dumb That Is While Being Naked Them Selves. This Is Followed By Daphne Violently Fighting Some Body Over The “Riverdale” Pilot Having This Happen And Dunking Some Chick’s Head In Water. (That’s A Sentence I Just Typed.) Also The Fact They Sexualize The Girls Who Are Said To Be 15 In More Than One Instance Is Pretty Disgusting. To Quote The Angry Video Game Nerd “What Were They Thinking?” Also Velma Straight Up Attacks Her Violently. Yeah Great Introduction To Our Lead. Have Her Nearly Kill Some Body. Then There’s The Forced Romance With The Two. Now I’m Not Exactly What You’d Call A “Daphne X Velma” Shipper In Any Other Continuity In Scooby Media But Even That Group Of Shippers Deserves Better Than This. This Is The First Instance In Which They Kiss And It Doesn’t Feel Earned Because Both Of Them Are Awful In Their Own Way. It Doesn’t Help This Is Going On At The Same Time In Which Norville Is Going Out Of His Way To Do Romantic Stuff For Her. Hell She Uses Norville To Make Her Laugh In Order To Stop Her Hallucinations By Making Him Tell Her How Much She Means To Her. Not To Mention Despite Norville Having A Healthy Relationship With Gigi He Still Leans Back On Velma Even Though She’s A Nasty Bitch To Him. Gigi Even Sort Of Disappears Towards The End. It Also Hurts Norville’s Character When You Realize Not Only Is He A Nice Guy Trope But He Much Is A Pathetic Loser. (Shaggy Went From Basically Being A Meme God To This Dumb Ass. Why?) Back On To Velma And Daphne’s Relationship In The Show. Most Of Their Relationship Is Borderline Abusive. In Fact Here’s A List Of The Crap Velma Throws At Her Just To Name A Few.
1. Her Attacking Daphne In The Showers I Mentioned Earlier.
2. During A Fight Training Bit Which Proves Nothing Velma Steals Daphne’s Diary And Reads It Out Loud And Daphne Rightly Kicks Her Ass.
3. Velma Manipulates Her Into Going To The Woods By Claiming Her Hallucinations Returned.
Also Daphne After She Does Meet Her Parents Pretty Much Becomes Useless After A While Unless The Episode Needs Her. (Ironically They Said That Of OG Daphne While They Hypocritically Do The Same Thing With Her On Top Of Making Her A Mean Girl Trope.) Her Parents Turn Out To Be Crooks Who Dress As Captain Caveman (For Some Reason.) In An Underground Theme Park. It’s Worth Noting This Plot Line Was Stolen From “Mystery Incorporated” (Along With Crystal Cove Being The Town The Gang Are In.) Where Freddy Has A Similar Arch. Speaking Of Which Freddy Was Done Perhaps The Most Dirty Of Them All Being The Designated Punching Bag. I Already Sort Of Mentioned How Freddy Is Made To Be A Man Child Though He Has The Better Character Arch Out Of All The Characters In The Show So He Kind Of Gets A Pass. Which Is More Than Can Be Said For His Parents Especially His Mom By The End. His Dad Is Just As Bad Since He Encourages Freddy To Be A Douche So That He’ll Take On His Family’s Business. The Animation And Character Designs Aren’t Too Great Either Especially With The Stiff Movement (Imagine A Show From The Late 60s Having Better Animation Than This.) And CalArts Style To The Character Designs And Them Looking Flat Aside From When They Use Certain Lighting Like During The Hallucinations. Which I Might Add Once They Stop That’s When One Of The Better Qualities Is Gone. Also Velma’s Whole Character Arch Is Around Her Finding Her Mom Which Has Potential To Be Good But She Chews Out Daphne’s Moms For Not Finding Her While Norville Does All The Work. There Are A Lot Of Tasteless Jokes That Feel Like They’re Offensive Just To Be Offensive. Like They’ll Make Up Some Stereotype On Every Possible Race Gender Or Sexuality Possible And Some Border On Tastelessness. Like Daphne Tries To Make Velma Laugh To Stop Her Hallucination With An Imitation Of Her Aunt Who Is A Widow Which Is Disgusting On Every Level. Then There’s Ways They Reference The Mystery Machine And It Usually Has Some Sexual Theme To It Like It Being “Freddy’s Sex Van” Or It Being “A Windowless Pedo Van.” (That’s A Real Joke By The Way.) Also Going Back To The Callbacks While Being One Of The Few Times There’s Any Thing Good Going For The Show It Really Does Come Off As Trying To Win Fans Over Out Of Desperation When All It Does Is Remind Us There Are Better Scooby Shows We Could Be Watching. Hell The Audacity They Have To Later Do The Classic Scooby Chase Gags After 7 Episodes Of Our Time Being Wasted Is Honestly Insulting. Plus When It Seems They Might Actually Show A Little Respect They Try To Remind Us “How Dumb The Old Show Was” With The Meta Humor. Yeah. “Thanks Guys.” One Other Thing Before I Go Into The Last Thing Wrong With The Show Is Scooby Doo Is Not In The Show And This Stirred An Uproar Among Fans. This Has More To Do With Licensing Rights Though From The Current Handlers And Because They Couldn’t Fit Scooby In Because He’s Too “Kiddy” For An Adult Show. (Honestly It’s Lucky He’s Not In It.) Some Thought That Gigi Would Be Scooby Especially With A Project Brought Up Later Called “SCOOBI” Which Is A Very Contrived Acronym. Lastly The Twist Doesn’t Add Up The Least Bit With Who The Villain Is Since She’s Given Little Screen Time To Support The Reveal Leading Up To The Unmasking And There Isn’t A Lot Of Evidence To Support It. It Ends Up Being Freddy’s Mom Who Due To Her Son Being Incompetent Was Trying To Recreate The SCOOBI Project To Get A Better Brain Into Her Son’s Head. There Are Too Many Plot Holes With Most Of This So I’ll Leave That To You To Decide If You Want To See The Show To Get An Idea Of How Convoluted It Is. Oh And Also Freddy’s Mom Gets Killed Via Norville Hitting A Rock That Crushes Her And Velma Twerks In Front Of Her Corpse While Freddy And The Rest Look On In Horror. Yeah That Sums Up The Show. This In Turn Leads To The Gang Being Separated. Not That We Care Any Way Since They Are Actively Awful People So We Wouldn’t Give A Shit If They Did Get Back Together. We Get Some Stingers To Season 2 Including One Where The Sheriff Is Killed Off Camera By A Ghost. Incidentally The Sheriff Is Modeled After OG Scooby Guest Star Don Knotts Of “The Andy Griffith Show” Fame. Perhaps One Of The Few Nicer Details And They Kill Him. Because This Show Couldn’t Go 6 Seconds With Out Shitting On The Original Show.
“Overall.”
So All In All “Velma” Had The Potential To Be A Good Adult Scooby Series And There Are Good Elements But In The End It’s An Insincere Effort At A Scooby Show And It Does Nothing For Animation Fans (They Even Make Fun Of Adults Who Watch Cartoons.) Or People Looking For Good Adult Content And/Or Animation. The Characters Are Nothing Like Their Original Counterparts To The Point Of Being Mean Spirited Unlikable Portrayals Of Them. The Jokes Aren’t Funny And The Meta Humor Is Annoying. And Aside From Some Decent Animation And Voice Acting I Can’t Recommend This For Any Body Interested In It. I Would Give It A 0/5 Or Even A -100/5 Because It’s That Bad But For The Few Redeeming Elements I Give It A 1/5. But For Now This Is One Scooby Show I’m Not Getting Jinkie With.
What Do You Think?

And even though I do wish this review series ended on a higher note, I do have to say that this journey really helped me in showing perspective on my passionate Fandom of this franchise. And it was nice to look back at these shows and see some where my feelings on most stay the same and some that I founded new appreciation for and no matter which series in Scooby-Doo I prefer, each one can provide something unique and interesting from one another that I enjoy them for and help me to craft my own vision with those things each series gives.

And no matter what horrible show butchering it's legacy and name comes, nothing will stop me from loving Scooby-Doo and it will forever hold a special place in my heart where it is there to stay.

So join me and hopefully Josh next time as I give the grand finale to Scooby's cartoon retrospective series with my ranking of all 13 of the Scooby-Doo shows.

(Spoilers: this is dead last)

Description

Velma (2023-)
Seasons: 2 (confirmed)
Episodes: 10 (for now)
Network: HBO Max

Ever since its debut in 1969 with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! , the Scooby-Doo franchise has since evolved into one of the most recognizable and iconic franchises in media for 50 plus years with numerous shows, many direct to video movies, a few theatrical films live action and animated, video games, books and a lot of merchandise. Scooby-Doo in spite of its formulaic nature is a series that is able to reimagine and find new ways to stay relevant for each new generation and not only has been one of the biggest icons of Hanna-Barbera but also a long time icon for fans who grew up watching Scooby and his friends on their various adventures throughout the years and loving them throughout their lives, and I happen to be one of them as Scooby-Doo is a franchise that is near and dear to me in terms of favorite cartoons, as recently shown with my reviews of the Great Dane's shows throughout his 50 plus year history. But yet, the franchise was missing something, and what could that missing piece be?

OH Yeah! An unnecessary adult Scooby-Doo spinoff show without Scooby-Doo, which brings us to the subject of today's review....

HBO's Velma
(internally screaming in anguish)

When it was announced that they were doing an adult spin off show revolving around everyone's favorite bookworm of the Scooby-Doo gang, I was intrigued by the idea and what kind of show it could possibly be like at first. While others had conflicting to say the least things to say about the subject, mainly on the actress playing Velma in the show Mindy Kaling and it being a Scooby-Doo show without Scooby-Doo and potentially being a woke show (typically par for the course with the internet), I was willing to keep an open mind but the future of it past that started to give me immediate regret.
Then the first image dropped and gave us our first look at Velma and a rather gruesome image of a girl with her head cut open and brain missing and the internet went crazy and while I too was a bit skeptical, I still tried to give the show the benefit of the doubt that the show itself will be better than what the tease indicated. Then the first teaser trailer dropped and depicted a very condescending and self aware in the worst ways version of Velma as a surrogate for those who critiqued the show and the internet fire of hate was just beginning but I even then I still believed that the show could be better than the teaser would lead us to believe.

Then literally the day before the show released on HBO Max, an official trailer was dropped and things got even worse with the comments section turned off and the trailer itself showcasing some very discouraging to say the least content and that moment, my faith in the show was quickly fading and that the show actually will be bad but still tried to hold on to a sliver of hope that the show could at least be entertaining for how bad it is or at least could maybe could be "so bad its good."

But as quickly as you can say "and I would have gotten away with it if not for those meddling kids," reality smacked me in the head to the harsh truth.....

Velma is abysmal!

Now is it the worst show ever made in the history of TV? No, I'm sure there are other shows that I'm not aware of that might be worse but even taking this show as is, this show as a part of the Scooby-Doo franchise, is a new low for the franchise that is insultingly bad in more ways than not and is not only undoubtedly the worst show in Scooby-Doo's legacy as the time of this writing but is also one of the rare instances where the internet says something is awful and I find myself agreeing with the loud majority, maybe not as dramatically or as vitriolic as people online usually do but I do think this show overall is genuinely awful and an utter insult to not just Scooby-Doo and its fans but cartoon fans as well.
But before I get into ripping this show apart, let's address the few positives this show has because its not all bad and though they do not save the show from being terrible, they are at least something where I have to give credit where its due....

Positives:
The animation and visuals of the show are decent. The show's style while a bit generic in spots with some of the character designs, the animation has its visual highlights especially whenever the show wants to go for a more foreboding and spooky mood with its lighting background design and another big highlight in the animation are the freaky and nightmarish hallucinations Velma has which are nicely detailed and animated and whenever they do pop up, it does make the show in those bits more interesting to watch. The visuals aren't like the most amazing work I've seen but if there's anybody who did their jobs really well here, its the animation team.
While the cast for the most part is one of the biggest detriments of the show, there are a couple of okay to decent characters here and there such as Gigi and a few others like Sophie who while not the most interesting are definitely on the more tolerable side, especially when compared to the main four characters which we will get into.

Some of the voice acting is fine especially some of the ones like Frank Welker as Fred's dad and Cherri Jones as his mom and a few others like Weird Al Yankovic, Yvonne Orji, Jane Lynch and Wanda Sykes, and I will give that Glen Howerton of the four main leading VAs does do good for this take on Fred, which is the one bone I will give to this show especially as compared to the other members of the Scooby gang besides Scooby, he's easily the best one of the four (more on that in a bit). Again nothing that I haven't heard better from other shows, but they do adequately enough in spite of the hopeless dialogue and material they're given except for one but again, we'll get to that.

Some of the ideas and concepts with the season's main mystery were interesting on paper and if the writing wasn't so abysmal and the mystery was better developed and fleshed out with the revelations, the show potentially could have been something of higher merit....

But unfortunately the show we ended up with is a colossal dumpster fire in nearly all aspects and this is where the positives end and I'm not mixed on anything, as from here on out, we're tearing this show a new ass for what feels like the hundredth time.

Now before then, I want to address that no matter how I feel about a show or movie and no matter how bad it is, I have no personal ill will or disdain toward anybody involved as they are still people who were just doing their job and should not be threatened or attacked just because their product is garbage. Just be considerate as I civilly criticize the work they've done but know I have nothing against them as people and I encourage you to not go after people for anything like this, as while their product might be terrible or might tick some people off, attacking them doesn't make you any better. Just be civil, now on to the show...

Negatives:

Basically everything else...

This does not at all feel remotely like a Scooby-Doo show and not just because Scooby himself is not in it outside of a few ill fitting references and a thankfully false rumor outside of the show that Gigi was to be a female genderbent human Scooby, but his absense is the least of the show's problems.

This show actually goes out of its way to lambast and insult the very franchise its acting as an "origin" to and I say that very loosely with jokes regarding a white van shown towards the end of the season that is clearly going to be the Mystery Machine being called a "sex van" or some other suggestive terms and is given some tasteless jokes in its regard, Velma saying that putting on a disguise during a chase is stupid as if the show is ashamed of being a cartoon, and the show downplaying how insulting it is by having one of the characters say "playful reimagining of a beloved cartoon."

Sorry, No! Be Cool, Scooby-Doo is much more worthy of that description than you will ever be!

This show doesn't even feel remotely like a Scooby-Doo show and feels more like just another low rate adult cartoon / teen drama with the Scooby-Doo IP merely as just a mask and just there to make the show familiar and more marketable than if it were its own original series. I already mentioned the ways the show insults the very brand with its humor but how the show misrepresents the four main members of Mystery Inc. is the most egregious in that aside from the clothes and names, they act nothing like the characters they're supposed to be to the point where they are unrecognizable.

Starting off with the least troublesome of the gang and working our way to the worst of the gang,

Fred starts off as a bit of an annoying and dimwitted manchild with parental issues regarding his rich parents who look down on him for not living up to their expectations and is mainly just used to make low hanging jokes about privileged rich white males and him having a tiny dick but there Given how bad his relationship with his parents, he ironically has more sympathy and development than Velma (the main character), which is why he's easily the best of the gang here by a country mile.

Norville (Shaggy) as far as the main four characters go is passable on account that he seems like a nice guy but his giant flaw is that the show makes him into a beta simp for Velma and even when he gets with Gigi, he still has a thing for Velma and even after he finally tells off Velma with the truth and stands up for himself, he then immediately backtracks back to her through contrived circumstances.
Daphne is just an alpha bitch mean girl and the show does try to give her a story arc regarding finding her biological parents which doesn't last long or go anywhere and is just a very inferior version of Fred's story arc of the same thing from Mystery Incorporated and her having a very poorly handled romantic "will they/won't they" with Velma but by the end, she is the one the show has no idea what to do with.

And then there's the worst of the four, our main titular character Velma. Jinkies! Where do I even start with her?

Well, how about that this is Velma in name only as this has to be the worst and most ill-conceived version of the character yet. She's bitchy, condescending, judgemental, selfish, conceited, not even a genius, racist, and overall just an unpleasant and despicable person, made even worse by the fact that she's our lead character and so it is difficult if not impossible to root for her or sympathize with her when she's an intolerable bitch to everyone even to those who are supposed to be friendly with her like Norville who she treats like a doormat.

And despite claiming to be a good detective and being the real person to bring the gang together, she barely does any of the investigating of the main mystery, only relying on others finding the clues and her taking the credit or the clues to the mystery oh so conveniently coming to her, which makes her claims come off as utterly pretentious and phony and only adds to her feeling like an absolute writer's pet.

And throughout the season, she doesn't change or grow out of those negative traits, she starts off the season unlikable and ends the season unlikable and any attempt to try to get the viewer to feel for her like she's someone worth rooting for and supporting just feels artificial and insulting. How can you make a character that we are supposed to sympathize with and follow and yet you make us despise her? I know Velma always had a bit of a snarky edge to her in previous versions and can come off a bit bitchy at times like in Mystery Incorporated, but this is on a whole new level and at least those versions of Velma are way more likable than this faux Velma who is literally just Mindy Kaling whose delivery and dialogue for Velma makes her annoying to listen to and when your main character is the worst character in your show and played by someone who clearly disrespects and misrepresents the classic character most fans adore and that she claims to connect with the most, it just rubs salt in the wound.

Also it occured to me that this show is also a comedy? Which is news to me because this show is painfully unfunny and almost every joke or attempt at humor falls on its face. And its two types of humor, there's cheap shock humor and overreliance on meta humor.

The shock value side of things involves very uncomfortable and disgusting showcasing of sexualized girls who are minors and even having that be the first scene in the show as well as such very gratuitous instances of violence including one very horrific one in the last episode.

The meta humor is the type the show loves to over use and run into the ground with a character usually Velma or Daphne acknowledging or pointing out a cliche and making it seem like they're clever or subversive with their humor or claiming "if this were a show, this would happen but this is reality so what are the chances of that happening," which not only is not funny as they are essentially doing the very thing they just said they wouldn't but it also takes you out of the immersion and unable to connect with any of the characters who keep acting all self aware and winking at the audience, because people do not talk or act like that and the jokes feel uninspired and artificial. And I am not against meta humor and think that it can be pretty effective and funny depending on how well written it is, and this show is NOT it.

Oh and let's not forget that insulting "420/Adults Watch Cartoons" joke. Do I really need to explain what is wrong with that?

But what about the mystery? I mean that's one of the big factors of Scooby-Doo are the mysteries and this show certainly has one and like I said, the idea was certainly there and on paper, it was cool and interesting idea but execution felt incredibly underwhelming as the show barely even focuses on it to where it feels like an afterthought in most of the season. And even when we get development on the bigger mystery at hand of who the identity of the killer removing the girls' brains is and how Velma's missing mother is involved, the execution is messy and needlessly convoluted and even when we get to the reveal of who the villain is, which is actually Fred's mother (Spoilers, I'm saving you the trouble), it just raises even more questions and in the grand scheme of things, the person they picked to be the mastermind behind the case, does not make for a satisfying reveal due to who they picked barely being a character and the whole mystery falls flat and it leaves you with blue balls by the end of the season when the payoff to the mystery is very disappointing and the reveal feels like a twist for the sake of a twist.

I really hate ranting, really I do, because I wanted this show to be good and even if I came to face the music and knew it was going to be bad, I at least was expecting better than this or to be a part of the minority of people saying, "its not that bad," but in reality, it is that bad. As someone who is a huge fan of Scooby-Doo and has been for as long as I can remember and will continue to love the franchise despite this show's stain of the IP, this show at best confuses me on who this is even made for and at worst, insults me as a fan of the IP and of animation. Velma will forever go down as one of the most ill-concieved reboots in recent memory and likely if not for the fact that it had the Scooby-Doo IP, it would not be talked about and lambasted online as much as it is and despite the loud majority of the show's reception being negative, HBO proudly holds this show as their most watched new show because of the attention its gained regardless of it being negative and have a season 2 currently in the works. Oh joy....

I am usually somebody who believes that everyone who makes a piece of media, be it a show or movie, intends to make something good as I never understand why anyone would intentionally make something bad, and even if their product doesn't fully come out as good as they hoped, the least I could do is commend or acknowledge the effort and passion they at least had or give the show credit for some of the stuff it does do right, and I always want to support that creators intend to make something good. However Velma is one of those instances where I find it very hard to tell if its failings were by mistake or on purpose because even the most casual Scooby-Doo fan would look at what this show does and immediately be like, "that is a horrible idea, what are you doing?!" Even when the creators of the show are shown saying that they are fans of Scooby-Doo, the way the show presents them just feels disingenuous and feels like an insult more than a loving tribute and aside from being the first adult series in the Scooby-Doo franchise, Velma has next to nothing new to offer or bring to the table as most of the stuff its tries and fails to do are things that previous Scooby-Doo shows have already done and done much better, which makes this show not only unremarkable but pretty much worthless at the end of the day and a show that I will never watch again willingly now that I'm done talking about it.

Final Thoughts:

This is a show that still baffles me to this day with how dreadful it ended up being. I genuinely tried to like this show and wanted to give it a chance but Velma was just an absolute failure of a show and outside of the animation and some of the voice acting and some neat ideas on paper, there is little to nothing of worth here and is overall an ill-concieved series that fails miserably as a Scooby-Doo series and just simply fails as a show in general and just begs the question of who is this for and why would I choose to watch this over the other much better Scooby-Doo shows we have? Really the one positive thing I could say about this show is that it made me appreciate the past Scooby-Doo shows much more than I already do and made me and other appreciate some of the lesser ones that didn't get enough love or credit, as while they may not be perfect, they still are much more worthwhile and credible than whatever the heck this show was. Its not even worth hate watching because even that gives the ones in power the wrong idea, and regardless of whether season 2 is somehow a miraculous course correction which I highly doubt, Velma is a Scooby entry that we could all definitely Doo without!

2/10

What do you think of Velma?

And if my review wasn't enough, here is my friend joshvirgin and his similar thoughts regarding "Velma"....

Hey Again Here Is My Review Of “Velma” Enjoy.
“Velma.” “Why Did They Make This Show?”
I’ll Be Honest Folks. I Really Don’t Want To Talk About This Show. I Really Don’t. The Only Reasons I Am Is For My Friend Cyber Since He’s Reviewing This As Well And Because I Am A “Scooby Doo” Fan So I Am Obligated To Do So. So Here Are My Thoughts On The HBO Max Series “Velma.”
Before I Can Get Into The Show Proper Permit Me To Go Back For A Moment To The Original Show. Back In 1969 Up Until 1970 There Was A Show Called “Scooby Doo Where Are You?” A Cartoon Show Featuring 4 Kids And Their Talking Dog That Went Solving Spooky Mysteries. The Gang Consisted Of…
Norville “Shaggy” Rogers The Skinny Cowardly Hippy Character And Frequent Food Hound.
Scoobert “Scooby” Doo The Gang’s Mascot And Great Dane Who Could Talk And Usually Had To Be Coaxed Into The Mystery Solving Via “Scooby Snax.”
Daphne “Danger Prone” Blake The Beauty Of The Group And Occasionally Intuitive In Some Aspects.
Fred “Freddy” Jones The Leader Of The Group And He Supplies “The Mystery Machine” The Gang’s Van.
And Velma Dinkley The Most Intelligent Member Besides Freddy Despite Frequently Loosing Her Glasses And Ending Up Either In The Wrong Place Or Face To Face With The Monster Or Villain Of The Episode.
Some Thing Interesting I Noticed The More I Think Back Is That Despite The Quirks Each Of The Gang Members Display They Usually Know How To Work Together In Spooky Situations Thanks To Their Friend Ship Team Work And Ability To Uncover The Truth Behind A Supposed Supernatural Occurrence. When You Think About It That’s A Surprisingly Mature Theme Which Shows In Most Other Adaptations Over 50 Years Later. And Given “Velma” A Prequel Series That Was Announced To Be The First Adult Adaptation Of “Scooby Doo” You’d Think They Could Find A Way To Make That Work And Effectively Show Mystery Inc. In More Adult Situations While Still Leading To Them Becoming The Group Of Mystery Solvers We Know Today… They Do Not. Instead What We Get Is Some Crude Mean And Unfunny Humor Mixed With Uncharacteristic Portrayals Of The Teen Sleuths We Knew And Loved To The Point Of Them Being The Characters In Name Only (More On Them Later.) And Meta Humor That Ultimately Doesn’t Work As They Do The Thing They’re Making Fun Of Any Way (More On That Later.) Or Usually Is Some Thing No Human Being Ever Would Say In Real Life. On Top Of That Half Of This Takes Up An Episode Leaving No Time For The Overarching Mystery To Shine Through Which Was Usually The Best Part Of Any Scooby Series Episode Or Movie. Any Way Let’s Get Into The Good (What Little There Is.) The Bad (Which There’s A Lot Of To Discuss.) And The Overall. Starting With The Good Just So That Way I’ll Have That Done And Out Of The Way.
“The Good.”
This Isn’t Going To Be A Long One But I’ll Try And Name Some Of The Good Things As Little As There Is. First The Idea Of An Adult “Scooby Doo” Series Is An Intriguing One To Be Sure. Most Versions Up Until This Series Have Been Aimed At Kids With The Possible Exception Of The First Live Action Movie Given It Was PG At A Time When It Meant You Needed Parental Guidance To See It And The More Teen Rated “Scooby Apocalypse” Comic Series By DC. (And To Some Extent “Scoobynatural.”) In Fact Those Of You Following Cyber Know By Now Of His Idea For An Adult Scooby Show Called “The Faux Ghost” Which I Occasionally Help Out With. All In All Taking The Franchise In That Direction Is A Unique Idea But We’ll Get Into What Happens With It Here. Next Good Point Would Be The Animation. Well At Least For The Hallucination Scenes Some Times. Those Scenes Are Usually The Parts That Are Best Animated And Genuinely Awesome To Look At And Gives Velma A New Layer To Her Character. Speaking Of Which One Of The Over Arching Mysteries Velma Is Out To Solve Is What Happened To Her Mom Who Disappeared Under Mysterious Circumstances. But Any Time She Tries To Find Out More It Triggers A Hallucination Like The Ones I Spoke Of Earlier Which Causes Her To Have A Panic Attack. The Second Mystery Involves A Killer Who Is Removing Brains From People (Mostly Women.) Around Town. That Is At Least Some Thing New To “Scooby Doo.” There Aren’t Many Murder Mystery Concepts In Most Incarnations And It Leaves Way To Different Suspects With Different Motives. Some Of The Voice Actors Are Alright With The Stuff They’re Given Even If Most Of It Isn’t Good. Glenn Howerton Is Decent As Freddy And Seems To Be One Of The Few Actors Trying To Make His Character Work To Some Capacity. Incidentally Despite Some Negative Aspects I Have On Him Like Him Being A Man Baby Half The Time (Which Is More So Due To How His Parents Treat Him.) He Oddly Enough Has The Best Development And Is The Closest (Well One Of The Closest At Least.) To Being A Good Character And The Most Sympathetic. Ironic Given How The Show Wants You To Feel About Him Which I’ll Cover Later. Sam Richardson As “Norville” (Yeah They Don’t Call Him Shaggy For Some Reason.) Is For The Most Part Good Despite Sounding Nothing Like Shaggy And For A While Is The Most Likable Character. Frank Welker Appears As Freddy’s Dad And Despite That His Character Is A Dick Frank Does The Best With What He’s Given. Granted He Always Does His Best In Any Scooby Property Even When He’s Not Scooby Or Freddy Respectfully. Even In Lesser Content. Weird Al Yankovic Also Occasionally Appears As This Nerdy Character With Curly Hair (Type Casting Much?) And Glasses Named Dandruff Tuba And Despite Not Getting Much To Do It’s Nice To See Weird Al In More Scooby Content After “Scooby Doo And Guess Who?” Speaking Of Which Wanda Sykes Makes Her Second Appearance In The Franchise Since “Guess Who?” As One Of Daphne’s Adoptive Moms And One Of The Detectives In Crystal Cove. While I Don’t Care For How Her Character As Well As Her Character’s Partner Is Represented As Bad Detectives (They Even Say So.) Wanda I Would Say Is One Of The Few Voice Actors Doing Good With What They Have Along With Jane Lynch. Gigi Is One Of The Few Good Characters In The Show And A Better Love Interest For Norville Than Velma. And Lastly Some Of The Easter Eggs And Call Backs To Past Scooby And Hanna-Barbera Media Are Nice And Welcome Touches Such As Posters Of Old School Scooby Villains Occasionally Being Found Norville’s Chat Having References To Other Scooby Characters Like His User Name Being Blue Falcon And Some Like Scrappy And The Hex Girls Being Referenced. One Of Which Also Being A Nod To Late And Great Creator Joe Ruby As “Rubyj.” The Spooky Eyes From “The New Scooby Doo Movies” Intro Appear During Velma’s Hallucination Scenes. The Hallway Door Gag Appears In One Episode Plus The Classic Scooby Chase Music In One Of The Few Scooby Like Moments In The Show And A Reference To The Disguise Gags. The Mystery Machine Appears And Gets Some Love. (Aside From Two Tasteless Jokes Which I’ll Get To.)
Okay Now With The Good Out Of The Way Let’s Discuss The Nitty Gritty.
“The Bad.”
First Off Let’s Discuss Velma Her Self Voiced By Mindy Kaling. I Do Not Like This Take. At All. She’s Narcissistic Mean Bitchy She Almost Never Says Any Thing Nice Or Funny She Always Has Some Snarky Ass Comment For Every Body She’s Racist She Gas Lights Every One To Do Stuff For Her And Is Mean To Norville Who Is Usually Nice To Her Despite Every Thing And Over All She’s Just A Horrible Person. And Just When It Seems She Might Redeem Her Self She Spits In Every One’s Faces. Bottom Line She Is Nothing Like Velma Besides Sort Of Looking Like Her And Having The Same Name. Also Mindy Sucks At Acting. There Are Times Where She’s Clearly Emotional (Like When She Appears To Be Yelling And/Or Crying.) But The Take They Use Sounds So Bland. Worst Yet Is The Fact There Are Moments Where She’s Screaming In Terror At Some Thing And It’s This Weak Ass Scream That’s Like The Vocal Equivalent Of A Weak Piss. And They Use It For Every Moment Where Velma Is Supposed To Be Screaming In Fear. Like Mindy Couldn’t Do A Better Take Of Her Screaming Worth Shit. I’ve Heard Many Say This Is Mindy’s Self Insert Disguised As A Scooby Property And I Can’t Say That I Don’t See That. I Don’t Know Mindy Kaling Personally But I Haven’t Heard Many Good Stories About Her As A Person Especially One Uncomfortable One Regarding One Of Her Co Stars She Kissed With Out Consent And That Supposedly This (“Velma.”) Was A Spite Driven Project Just To Piss People Off. I Would Believe It. And Despite That She’s Supposed To Be The Quirky Relatable Character We’re Supposed To Root For/Sympathize With When Stuff Goes Bad. But She Does Nothing To Earn That. Hell They’ll Even Have Bad Stuff Happen To Her To Try And Earn Sympathy From Us But We Feel Nothing For Her. If Any Thing We Want Bad Stuff To Happen To Her. Hell Every One’s Favorite Moment (And Perhaps The One Funny Scene In The Show.) Is When The Sheriff Rams Into Her With His Car. If Every One Universally Agrees Seeing A Character You Made Get Injured Is Their Favorite Scene Then You’re Fucked. And It’s Funny Too Because Mindy Claims She Loved The Original Show And Related To Velma The Strongest Of Them All. And Yet This Feels So Insincere As A Tribute (If You Could Even Call It That.) To Scooby Doo And To The Characters. Velma Also Has Inconsistent Feelings Towards Freddy Through The Show. At Certain Points She Notes She Has A Crush On Him But Then Later When She Suspects Him To Be The Killer She Then Goes Out Of His Way To Shame Him For Being White (Yeah They Also Race Swap Velma Daphne And Norville Which Isn’t That Big Of A Problem Aside From Them Constantly Calling Attention To It.) And Having A Tiny Dong. (No. Seriously.) And This Comes Up A Lot During The Second Episode And They Always Draw Attention To It. It Doesn’t Help That He’s A Minor In This Series. Then When Freddy Actually Sees Women As People And Not Objects (Which Has More To Do With His Shitty Dad And His Upbringing.) She Doesn’t Find Him Hot Despite Him Being Less Of A Jerk Later Down The Road. But You Know What The Funniest Thing Is? Despite Velma Believing She’s The World’s Best Detective She Barely Solves Any Thing And Freddy Does Most Of The Work. Can We All Agree Freddy Is The Best Thing About This Show? Hell Even His Dick Head Dad Figures Out What’s Going On Before Velma. Even Freddy’s Dad Is A Better Detective Than Velma. How Do You Mess Up That Badly? Then There’s Daphne Voiced By Constance Wu. Definitely Not The Best Voice Choice Though I Guess It’s Lucky Grey Griffin Isn’t Voicing This Take. This Would Be Beneath Her. In Fact She Even Tweeted About The Show Being Garbage. Back Onto Daphne Her Self. She’s Made Into The Stereotypical Mean Girl Trope We’ve Seen Done To Death 100 Times Before. Although One Positive I Guess Is Next To Freddy She Has The Best Development Later On To Some Degree In Trying To Find Her Birth Parents. Now On Paper That’s Not A Bad Idea But The Key Word Is “On Paper.” The Way The Show Executes It Is She’s Dealing Drugs In School Under Cover From Her Moms To Raise Money (Some How.) To Find Them. And I Heard About This From Another Friend Of Mine Before I Watched The Show (Which I Say Loosely. I Watched It Through Reaction Videos.) And Already I Didn’t Like That. I Mean It’s Not Like Daphne Was 100% Perfect In Other Shows. She Had Flaws But On The Whole She Was Perky Nice And In Some Essence The Emotional Support. But This Is Just Such A Grotesque Departure From The Character We Know And Love. It Doesn’t Help The Drugs Are Named After Scooby Catchphrases Like “Zoinks!” “Jeepers!” And “Mystery Machine.” The Bitch Even Stabs People At One Point. What A Psycho! Her Introduction In This Series Isn’t Much Better As She’s Going To Shower With Other Girls (But Not Before Seeing Two Cockroaches Humping. *Really Mindy?*) And Is Completely Naked. This Is Also Where One Of Several Forced Meta Jokes That Ultimately Fall Flat Make Their Way In. Case And Point Daphne Comments “You Ever Notice How Much Sex And Nudity Is In The Pilot Episodes Of Shows Then There Is In The Whole Series?” And The Girls Chime In With How Dumb That Is While Being Naked Them Selves. This Is Followed By Daphne Violently Fighting Some Body Over The “Riverdale” Pilot Having This Happen And Dunking Some Chick’s Head In Water. (That’s A Sentence I Just Typed.) Also The Fact They Sexualize The Girls Who Are Said To Be 15 In More Than One Instance Is Pretty Disgusting. To Quote The Angry Video Game Nerd “What Were They Thinking?” Also Velma Straight Up Attacks Her Violently. Yeah Great Introduction To Our Lead. Have Her Nearly Kill Some Body. Then There’s The Forced Romance With The Two. Now I’m Not Exactly What You’d Call A “Daphne X Velma” Shipper In Any Other Continuity In Scooby Media But Even That Group Of Shippers Deserves Better Than This. This Is The First Instance In Which They Kiss And It Doesn’t Feel Earned Because Both Of Them Are Awful In Their Own Way. It Doesn’t Help This Is Going On At The Same Time In Which Norville Is Going Out Of His Way To Do Romantic Stuff For Her. Hell She Uses Norville To Make Her Laugh In Order To Stop Her Hallucinations By Making Him Tell Her How Much She Means To Her. Not To Mention Despite Norville Having A Healthy Relationship With Gigi He Still Leans Back On Velma Even Though She’s A Nasty Bitch To Him. Gigi Even Sort Of Disappears Towards The End. It Also Hurts Norville’s Character When You Realize Not Only Is He A Nice Guy Trope But He Much Is A Pathetic Loser. (Shaggy Went From Basically Being A Meme God To This Dumb Ass. Why?) Back On To Velma And Daphne’s Relationship In The Show. Most Of Their Relationship Is Borderline Abusive. In Fact Here’s A List Of The Crap Velma Throws At Her Just To Name A Few.
1. Her Attacking Daphne In The Showers I Mentioned Earlier.
2. During A Fight Training Bit Which Proves Nothing Velma Steals Daphne’s Diary And Reads It Out Loud And Daphne Rightly Kicks Her Ass.
3. Velma Manipulates Her Into Going To The Woods By Claiming Her Hallucinations Returned.
Also Daphne After She Does Meet Her Parents Pretty Much Becomes Useless After A While Unless The Episode Needs Her. (Ironically They Said That Of OG Daphne While They Hypocritically Do The Same Thing With Her On Top Of Making Her A Mean Girl Trope.) Her Parents Turn Out To Be Crooks Who Dress As Captain Caveman (For Some Reason.) In An Underground Theme Park. It’s Worth Noting This Plot Line Was Stolen From “Mystery Incorporated” (Along With Crystal Cove Being The Town The Gang Are In.) Where Freddy Has A Similar Arch. Speaking Of Which Freddy Was Done Perhaps The Most Dirty Of Them All Being The Designated Punching Bag. I Already Sort Of Mentioned How Freddy Is Made To Be A Man Child Though He Has The Better Character Arch Out Of All The Characters In The Show So He Kind Of Gets A Pass. Which Is More Than Can Be Said For His Parents Especially His Mom By The End. His Dad Is Just As Bad Since He Encourages Freddy To Be A Douche So That He’ll Take On His Family’s Business. The Animation And Character Designs Aren’t Too Great Either Especially With The Stiff Movement (Imagine A Show From The Late 60s Having Better Animation Than This.) And CalArts Style To The Character Designs And Them Looking Flat Aside From When They Use Certain Lighting Like During The Hallucinations. Which I Might Add Once They Stop That’s When One Of The Better Qualities Is Gone. Also Velma’s Whole Character Arch Is Around Her Finding Her Mom Which Has Potential To Be Good But She Chews Out Daphne’s Moms For Not Finding Her While Norville Does All The Work. There Are A Lot Of Tasteless Jokes That Feel Like They’re Offensive Just To Be Offensive. Like They’ll Make Up Some Stereotype On Every Possible Race Gender Or Sexuality Possible And Some Border On Tastelessness. Like Daphne Tries To Make Velma Laugh To Stop Her Hallucination With An Imitation Of Her Aunt Who Is A Widow Which Is Disgusting On Every Level. Then There’s Ways They Reference The Mystery Machine And It Usually Has Some Sexual Theme To It Like It Being “Freddy’s Sex Van” Or It Being “A Windowless Pedo Van.” (That’s A Real Joke By The Way.) Also Going Back To The Callbacks While Being One Of The Few Times There’s Any Thing Good Going For The Show It Really Does Come Off As Trying To Win Fans Over Out Of Desperation When All It Does Is Remind Us There Are Better Scooby Shows We Could Be Watching. Hell The Audacity They Have To Later Do The Classic Scooby Chase Gags After 7 Episodes Of Our Time Being Wasted Is Honestly Insulting. Plus When It Seems They Might Actually Show A Little Respect They Try To Remind Us “How Dumb The Old Show Was” With The Meta Humor. Yeah. “Thanks Guys.” One Other Thing Before I Go Into The Last Thing Wrong With The Show Is Scooby Doo Is Not In The Show And This Stirred An Uproar Among Fans. This Has More To Do With Licensing Rights Though From The Current Handlers And Because They Couldn’t Fit Scooby In Because He’s Too “Kiddy” For An Adult Show. (Honestly It’s Lucky He’s Not In It.) Some Thought That Gigi Would Be Scooby Especially With A Project Brought Up Later Called “SCOOBI” Which Is A Very Contrived Acronym. Lastly The Twist Doesn’t Add Up The Least Bit With Who The Villain Is Since She’s Given Little Screen Time To Support The Reveal Leading Up To The Unmasking And There Isn’t A Lot Of Evidence To Support It. It Ends Up Being Freddy’s Mom Who Due To Her Son Being Incompetent Was Trying To Recreate The SCOOBI Project To Get A Better Brain Into Her Son’s Head. There Are Too Many Plot Holes With Most Of This So I’ll Leave That To You To Decide If You Want To See The Show To Get An Idea Of How Convoluted It Is. Oh And Also Freddy’s Mom Gets Killed Via Norville Hitting A Rock That Crushes Her And Velma Twerks In Front Of Her Corpse While Freddy And The Rest Look On In Horror. Yeah That Sums Up The Show. This In Turn Leads To The Gang Being Separated. Not That We Care Any Way Since They Are Actively Awful People So We Wouldn’t Give A Shit If They Did Get Back Together. We Get Some Stingers To Season 2 Including One Where The Sheriff Is Killed Off Camera By A Ghost. Incidentally The Sheriff Is Modeled After OG Scooby Guest Star Don Knotts Of “The Andy Griffith Show” Fame. Perhaps One Of The Few Nicer Details And They Kill Him. Because This Show Couldn’t Go 6 Seconds With Out Shitting On The Original Show.
“Overall.”
So All In All “Velma” Had The Potential To Be A Good Adult Scooby Series And There Are Good Elements But In The End It’s An Insincere Effort At A Scooby Show And It Does Nothing For Animation Fans (They Even Make Fun Of Adults Who Watch Cartoons.) Or People Looking For Good Adult Content And/Or Animation. The Characters Are Nothing Like Their Original Counterparts To The Point Of Being Mean Spirited Unlikable Portrayals Of Them. The Jokes Aren’t Funny And The Meta Humor Is Annoying. And Aside From Some Decent Animation And Voice Acting I Can’t Recommend This For Any Body Interested In It. I Would Give It A 0/5 Or Even A -100/5 Because It’s That Bad But For The Few Redeeming Elements I Give It A 1/5. But For Now This Is One Scooby Show I’m Not Getting Jinkie With.
What Do You Think?

And even though I do wish this review series ended on a higher note, I do have to say that this journey really helped me in showing perspective on my passionate Fandom of this franchise. And it was nice to look back at these shows and see some where my feelings on most stay the same and some that I founded new appreciation for and no matter which series in Scooby-Doo I prefer, each one can provide something unique and interesting from one another that I enjoy them for and help me to craft my own vision with those things each series gives.

And no matter what horrible show butchering it's legacy and name comes, nothing will stop me from loving Scooby-Doo and it will forever hold a special place in my heart where it is there to stay.

So join me and hopefully Josh next time as I give the grand finale to Scooby's cartoon retrospective series with my ranking of all 13 of the Scooby-Doo shows.

(Spoilers: this is dead last)