The Legend of Vox Machina Season One (Spoiler-Free) Review
Hey there! Over the last several weeks, I’ve been reviewing each new batch of The Legend of Vox Machina’s first season. They’ve been dropping three episodes every week, and I’ve been reviewing those episodes in that fashion. However, I haven’t been talking about the season as a cohesive whole, which is something that I think is important to do now that it’s complete. So, I’m going to do two more Legend of Vox Machina season one review posts. One of them (this one) will be a spoiler-free review of the complete season while the last post, releasing this Wednesday, will cover all the things I want to talk about in a spoiler-filled fashion, for those of you who have watched the whole season!
So, in today’s spoiler-free post, let’s talk about the entirety of the first season as a complete whole: the good and the bad. If you’ve seen my prior reviews, you know how I felt about each episode in this first season, but how do I feel about the entire thing now that it’s over?
Looks
Throughout my reviews, I’ve commented on the look of the show. A few episodes stood out as not looking all that great while others were visually stunning, especially the last three. When you watch the entire season through, each episode back-to-back, those moments that seem to lack polish feel rare, but are still present—most obviously in the first two episodes, which felt the least polished.
Still, there are so many moments that make up for these more unattractive moments in the show that I think they can be forgiven. With the whole season over, I think that the appearance of the show, in total, is about average overall, since it fluctuates between being above and below average here and there. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way, especially toward the first couple of episodes. I love the way the final batch looked, though, with the final episodes being the best of them all in terms of the overall look. If they can keep the quality at about that level throughout the second season, I’ll have no complaints.
Characters
Much like the looks, there were some strong episodes and some weak ones when it came to the writing in the first season of The Legend of Vox Machina. However, when you look at the entire season as a whole rather than each episode, the writing mostly holds up (so long as we discount the first two episodes, where the writing is certainly at its weakest). The strongest writing in the series is focused on the characters. They did a good job establishing characters, relationships, motivations, and the way that their world works. Sometimes it was a bit hamfisted, but most of the time this was handled with care and expertise.
I’m going to say flat out that episodes one and two were the worst-written of them and leave it at that. In all fairness, they tried to shove a huge story into those two episodes, so the pacing was odd and inconsistent. Those were my least favorite of the season and I don’t really want to talk much more about them beyond that.
From episode three onward, though, the script is a lot more careful with how it handles the story and characters. For many of the episodes, they give us some solid in-character moments to establish personalities, relationships, and motivations. There are a few moments that greatly stand out to me in this regard, but my favorite two are in episodes four and ten. In the fourth episode, they split the party members into smaller groups and give each of them moments together by forcing them into a situation where there isn’t much to do but interact with one another. This was a really clever way to introduce us to the characters and showcase their relationships with each other.
This is done again in the tenth episode when they’re all walking together underground, through narrow passages that split them up a bit. Each small group has a brief moment together to continue establishing relationships and personalities, as well as strengthen the audience’s connection to the characters. In addition, they scatter a ton of character moments throughout the show that casually establish the characters and their relationships. This, I think, is the strongest aspect of the show.
There is one character moment that I didn’t find to be all that believable, however. I feel I’ll be diving into spoilers if I say too much about it, but there’s one character moment with Percy about halfway through the season that just doesn’t feel earned. I’ll be talking about that in my spoiler post, so keep an eye out for that on Wednesday if you’re curious.
Humor
Critical Role hits a ton of emotional notes throughout each of its campaigns. You laugh, you cry, you wonder, you fear, and you feel all sorts of other things. I was really hopeful for the humor in this show but, overall, many of the jokes didn’t land all that well. They didn’t feel clever, thoughtful, or shocking like much of Critical Role’s humor does during live play. Instead, much of it seemed like they just grabbed the low-hanging fruit and moved on. About halfway through the season, this really started to grow old for me, and I was pretty tired of it. Thankfully, the humor improves by about the seventh episode and, when we hit the final three episodes, it’s a lot more on-par with what I’m wanting.
This, I think, is really about personal taste. Some people have a different sense of humor than I do, and that’s fine. I just found that a lot of the humor in the show wasn’t my style until we hit the last three episodes, wherein I laughed at just about every joke they threw at us. Going back and watching through the earlier episodes after seeing that, the cheap humor is more noticeable. I hope that we can see some more cleverness in the second season, rather than easy humor.
Don’t get me wrong, there are laugh-out-loud moments throughout the show! I think I laughed at least once in every episode. But, for the first nine episodes, quite a bit of the humor just doesn’t land as it should. Especially with Scanlan, he was extremely one-note throughout much of the season. That sucked especially because I’ve seen a lot of people who have turned away from the show because of Scanlan; hopefully, those people will consider revisiting the show when they learn that The Legend of Vox Machina finds its footing with the humor by the season’s end.
Story
The Briarwood Arc, as it's referred to in respect to the original campaign, is a fan-favorite campaign arc for an incredibly good reason. This is an excellent story and was masterfully told in the original campaign. With the opportunity to tell it again in a more concise, refined manner, I think that Critical Role absolutely nailed it. This is a story arc that lends itself well to interpretation in this medium. Most importantly—for me, at least—is that it’s an excellent revenge story, which is my favorite kind of story. Percy’s tale of vengeance and self-discovery is simply remarkable and is well-told both in the original campaign and in this new animated series. They made a great choice when they picked this arc as their focus for the first season.
In some places, the story can be a little weak (again, those first two episodes are… not great), but the overall story from episode three onward is quite good. Despite a pitfall here and there, it’s ultimately excellent and I don’t have any significant complaints about the story beyond those first two episodes.
Not only is it compelling and filled with rich characters, season one of The Legend of Vox Machina has fantastic pacing. They make the most of the ten episodes that focus on the Briarwood Arc, and each episode stands out on its own—some as being outstanding, others less so, but altogether the cohesive whole is quite strong.
Overall Rating
This is what everyone scrolls down to—or skips ahead to if you’re watching the video version of this post—my final rating for the entire season. This is how I feel about the season as a whole, and unfortunately, that has to include those first two episodes that I really didn’t like all that much. Before I give my final rating for The Legend of Vox Machina’s first season, let’s look at my ratings for each individual episode, again.
Before we list these, I want to remind everyone (or tell newcomers) that I am trying to be extremely critical and honest here. This is my honest, critical opinion of each episode, and I do not give five stars lightly. Of all the reviews that I have done for books so far on this channel, I have given away three five-star ratings. Most of the time, I think something is just about average, which is a three-star rating.
Episode 1
Episode 3
Episode 5
Episode 7
Episode 9
Episode 11
Episode 2
Episode 4
Episode 6
Episode 8
Episode 10
Episode 12
With these ratings considered, and with thinking about both the strengths and weaknesses of this season, I think it’s incredibly close to perfect, but not quite there. Those first couple of episodes were enough to drag it down for me, which makes my overall rating a bit confusing. The last ten episodes, as a collective whole, are definitely five stars. The first two, though, are about two stars collectively. Combining them both, I’d give the entire season four stars, but that doesn’t seem fair?
So my official rating for season one is going to be four stars, but if we just discount the first two episodes and don’t think about them, then it’s five stars. Considering that the first two episodes are hardly part of the greater whole, I think this is a fair way to rate the season. You can pick whichever star rating works for you, but I’m going to just give Season One both four and five stars.
Season One (Episodes 1-12)
Season One (Episodes 3-12)
Weird.
Conclusion
So, there you have it! My overall review for the entirety of The Legend of Vox Machina: Season One. These have been my spoiler-free thoughts on the show, and this Wednesday I’ll be giving my spoiler-filled thoughts on it, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested. I am so excited for the second season; if it’s as strong as the last batch in this first season was, it’s sure to be remarkable.