Imagine taking a stroll through the fantasy paradise of a beloved theme park. It’s packed to the brim with cartoon superstars and fantastic locations. In order to maintain this precious illusion, you dish out premium dollars for carefully-branded food and knick-knacks. You embrace an endless kaleidoscopic tapestry of lights and sound while the magic of advanced lighting effects and pyrotechnics sweep you deep into the cradle of wonder and nostalgia.
A wave of euphoria washes over you…but there’s something beneath it…a pang of guilt tugging at the base of your spine.
You imagine refrigerated air pumping endlessly into an oppressive midsummer sky, misting chemicals keeping pests at bay, and the unyielding wear and tear on the gears, rails, and employees. Somewhere, fluid drains from a leaky pipe while an army of workers move unseen below the surface to keep ahead of the mess and maintain your illusion.
If you had an easy time mustering up an image of this sort of IP-driven dystopian nightmare, then you are more than ready to hop on board for the new sci-fi psychological thriller from creator Dana Terrace and independent animation studio Glitch Productions: Knights of Guinevere. In this new venture, Terrace immerses us in a sci-fi dystopia set on Park Planet: a devastated wasteland of a planet that is struggling to support the opulent floating amusement park that hovers high above the forgotten refuse on the surface.
Terrace, best known as the creator and showrunner behind Disney’s The Owl House, has spearheaded a vision that feels like a shot across the bow of her former employer’s cruise ship. In fact, every Disney adult who watches the pilot will clock the hidden Mickeys built into the design of the first amusement park attraction that appears on screen. It’s no secret that Terrace was never given a very satisfying explanation for The Owl House cancellation. Many fans remain frustrated about the decision, believing that the show was axed, at least in part, for its thoughtful and diverse representation and the grim aesthetic of its setting: The Boiling Isles, a land of demons and witches. Of course, despite the grim exterior, The Owl House was ultimately a sweet story about personal growth and found family.
Knights of Guinevere, on the other hand, is anything but Disney-friendly. Sure, the series opens with a fairy tale backstory, à la Beauty and the Beast, and sure, our “princess” may be trapped in a “tall, tall tower” – but she is no Rapunzel. She has been “locked away by complicated machines” that run “on blood and fear.” Additionally, the opening moments prompt viewers to wonder if the “princess” monologue is about Olivia Park, daughter of Park Planet’s creepy Walt Disney analogue, or her pet Guinevere droid, a personal companion modeled after the theme park’s line of princesses, who seems locked in a tortured state of constant “fixes” at the hands of Olivia. Perhaps both characters are equally trapped, but Olivia is the one who ushers this show over the threshold of mature content when she violently drags her droid by a bloody blue umbilical cord before it gains sentience and throws itself from the balcony.
After this dark introduction, the pilot episode doesn’t get much sunnier. We learn that our main protagonists are a couple of scrappy hacker-mechanics who have been struggling to make ends meet in the slums of Park Planet. By day, Frankie mindlessly stamps Guinevere logos onto mass produced bric-a-brac; by night, she works as part of a seedy salvage operation that survives by collecting and reselling amusement park scraps. Andi, on the other hand, has finagled her way into a programming/mechanic role for Park Planet. This is both a plum position, coveted by folks like Frankie, and a mark of shame; Andi is ridiculed and labeled a “crownie” for donning the uniform of Park Planet’s oppressive overlords.
When Frankie salvages the biggest score of her life – a discarded Guinevere droid – she and Andi are left to figure out whether this is a resource they can leverage to their advantage, or the opening salvo of a revolution.
Knights of Guinevere is a beautiful visual spectacle that feels like a labor of love for Terrace and fellow Owl House alums John Bailey Owen and Zach Marcus. From the opening credits that contrast a sanitary corporate IP-machine with the grimy and graffitied underworld it has spawned, to the mysterious battle droid slicing and dicing surprisingly goopy robots, this show is a feast for the eyes.
Unfortunately, fans of the series will have to wait for the next episode. Since the show is releasing under Glitch Productions’ unique model, the free YouTube pilot episode is also the launching point for a huge marketing campaign to fund the project’s future by selling high-end, detailed merchandise. Of course, even the marketing campaign reflects the fun and irreverent spirit of the series. In one ad, plushie likenesses of Frankie and Andi struggle to escape a commercial hellscape while ironically showcasing the full line of Guinevere merch.
While the marketing campaign is a bit ironic, it’s also refreshing to see a marketing model that aims to celebrate the artists and creators behind a work of art, and it’s certainly clear that Knights of Guinevere is a work of art.
While the premise for the show is interesting on its surface, the creative team elevates the world to a new level with unique and compelling lore and visual design. Most notably, the Guinevere droids designed to populate the amusement park are equipped with complex long-term memories to allow for unique histories and interactions with individual park guests. As a result of this technological detail, the Guinevere droid recovered by the protagonists sees Andi, Frankie and the world around her through a filtered overlay: Park Planet appears as a magical wonderland and the adult Frankie and Andi appear as eternal children. Since the recovered android is in a state of disrepair, and possibly struggling to maintain her own sentience, this contrast paves the way for jarring glitches that flip between the sunshine and roses vision of the world and the dark reality that our protagonists inhabit.
If you love painstakingly detailed 2D animation, and the corporate model of television is getting you down, Knights of Guinevere is a must-watch that will bring you joy and hope, despite its painful subject matter. Want to check out the series and support the campaign?
Catch the free pilot episode here:
