My Thoughts on the Knights of Guinevere Pilot

There are a lot of things I haven't seen that I probably should have by now. I haven't seen The Owl House - probably one of the most well-regarded Disney Channel shows in recent years - nor have I seen The Amazing Digital Circus or any of the other shows Glitch Productions has produced. However, when Michaela Laws announced that she was going to be voicing Frankie in the pilot episode of "Knights of Guinevere", a Glitch Productions animated series co-created by the creator of The Owl House, I somehow got the feeling that this was something I just couldn't miss. At the time of me beginning to type out this blog post, the pilot episode finished its premiere on Glitch Productions' YouTube channel just a few minutes ago, and now, I'd like to give some of my dumb thoughts on it. Although there are some technical aspects that I want to bring up, I don't consider this a review (although I may consider doing a review of the full series if that ends up happening). Also, I will be going into spoiler territory, so I'd highly recommend that you watch the actual pilot before reading further. I'll leave Glitch's upload for it below this paragraph, so go watch it and then come back!

Okay, so, first of all, I'll admit that I didn't know exactly what the concept of Knights of Guinevere was before going in, but I will say that it's an interesting concept. Some parts of it aren't entirely original - although I haven't seen the currently-airing Gachiakuta, the setting of Knights of Guinevere kind of makes me think of what I've heard about that - but it does present its ideas in an interesting way. Also, the whole thing with each of the Guinevere androids apparently having shared memories among them all makes the end of the pilot where the Guinevere android Frankie found and fixed with Andi tells them that it's nice to see them again seem much sweeter than it would be otherwise, which would still make it pretty sweet! I kind of wonder if this Guinevere is the same one that Frankie and Andi met in the flashback sequence at the beginning of the pilot....

On that note, Frankie, the character Michaela Laws voices. First of all, despite watching the trailer and Michaela's voice role announcement video, I was somehow not aware that Frankie was going to have as major of a role as she did. Oops! Second, HOLY CRAP, SHE IS SUCH A GOOD CHARACTER. She is funny, has understandable goals for someone who might not fully understand how Park Planet actually is, and has some pretty fun chemistry with other characters, like Andi and Sparky. I didn't find Andi to be as fun of a character, but as someone who works as an engineer for Park Planet - well, worked, anyway - she provides a nice contrast to Frankie, who has the less thankful job of picking up the trash and scraps that falls from the park. (See why it reminds me of Gachiakuta now?) Plus, Michaela Laws and Zelda Khan Black give a great voice performance as each of them. Heck, although I don't necessarily like all of the characters, all of the voice actors do a pretty good job at their roles! (Yes, even ProZD. I know that he's kind of been under fire recently, but he's still a good voice actor!)

One last thing I'd like to mention is the animation. I don't know if this is on purpose, but there are some moments where it feels like some inbetween frames are missing from different animation sequences. For example, around the 12-minute mark, there is a woman who appears briefly on a futuristic cart with boxes on it, and as the cart moves....well, let me put it this way: it feels like she's in the original Nintendo Switch version of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with a crowd of wild Pokemon about. (Those who have played those games on the original Switch may get what I mean.) I know, it's kind of nitpicky for me to point that out, but there were multiple other animation sequences that were similar to that; it kind of bugged me. When the animation team does include those inbetween frames, though....oh, man, is the visual storytelling insane! One thing in particular that stood out to me was the very beginning, when Olivia is looking down at Park Planet and the lights from the park fade in and out in her eyes, with her eyes looking so dull and lifeless when the lights aren't there; it really says something about how she views things.

Overall, I think Knights of Guinevere is off to a very promising start, and with some tweaks to the animation style, I believe the full series could potentially be somewhere close to being a masterpiece. I know that the first season hasn't been officially greenlit yet, but from what I'm seeing of other people's reactions in the live chat from the premiere, there seems to be more than enough interest to get it going; plus, you can't just throw illustrations of Frankie and Andi wearing knight outfits in the end credits and then not have the opportunity for them to wear them in a full series! Dana Terrace already got screwed over by Disney cancelling The Owl House; please just let her, John Bailey Owen, Zach Marcus, and everyone else working on this show have this one!