![]() ![]() Join them as they encounter surprises and obstacles on their journey through the wood. With the help of a wise old Woodsman and a foul-tempered bluebird named Beatrice, Wirt and Greg must travel across this strange land, in hope of finding their way home. And that's a lesson more TV shows could learn from.Two brothers, Wirt and Greg, find themselves lost in the Unknown a strange forest adrift in time. ![]() We might feel their absence, but the story has brought them to an appropriate place and left them there. Every question isn't wrapped up neatly, but it feels like the time spent with Wirt and Greg is over. When the last episode fades to black, the story does too. It isn't hard to spare the two hours (depending on snack breaks) it will take to watch the entire miniseries.Įven though television stories are often designed to draw out infinitely, Over the Garden Wall is part of the medium's renewed fascination with sprawling but self-contained narratives. Not everyone is a great binge watcher, but anyone can finish Garden Wall in a single weekend. The color palette, like the topic, is somber. McHale uses desaturated colors to create his world, and it sets the tone for the characters' concerns about whether or not they will ever get home. Their clothing is precisely drawn, and their faces show more nuanced emotions like worry and anxiety, instead of only the drastic lines of fear. Wirt and Greg are not the squiggly-lined, brightly-colored characters of the Adventure Time world. The characters look different from those on other Cartoon Network shows. The world the brothers explore is so carefully constructed that as each episode ends, it's easy to feel a fleeting moment of dread that the grey will take over, and the mystical characters won't reappear. Many of the frames are vignetted, and the wooded setting allows for McHale to set his characters' moods with gray skies and looming trees. It may not be a lofty goal, but it's a worthy one. " I just wanted to have fun, change the world, and make it a better place," Greg says early in the series. He's supposed to be young and oblivious, but one of the beautiful things about McHale's characters is that everyone - no matter how seemingly silly - has hidden depth. Consistently, Greg is the one who leads the two further away from home, gets lost, or leads them into danger. Greg, the younger, stranger brother, wears a teapot on his head and carries around a frog whose name is constantly changing. He quotes lines and lines of poetry and occasionally speaks in iambic pentameter. Wirt is a teenager, and throughout the series, his girl troubles and self-consciousness make him incredibly relatable. Wirt is the eldest sibling and displays many of the stereotypical behaviors of an older child: he worries, he nags, and he sees himself as the protector of Greg. The heroes of the show are Wirt and Greg, two brothers who are lost in the woods. ![]() Overall, it's a brilliant mixture of sharp wit and the deep dark fears we hide from ourselves. There are action sequences, but the show speeds past them to take its time on emotion. It's an overwhelming task, since the entire show is packed full of allusions to famous literary works, Broadway numbers, and many, many, many fairy tales. There are musical numbers. Over at i09, alliterator attempted to find as many of the references to other works as possible. Over the Garden Wall masks it beautifully with smart, whimsical humor. The name of the show, as io9 has discussed, may come from a children's rope-skipping chant that goes:īut don't let that potentially creepy core scare you off. The miniseries frequently suggests the main characters are dead, then asks the audience to ponder whether that's true. Early in the series, a talking bird asks the boys, "Y ou two are lost kids without purpose in life, right?" Over the Garden Wall is a story about two brothers - a teen and a young boy - trying to find their way home through a mystical, mysterious kingdom. ![]() Here are a few reasons to take the binge: 1) The show is dark, but funny But Over the Garden Wall has a subtler form of humor - and a darkly existential core that will leave you thinking. McHale has worked on Adventure Time, and the sweetly absurdist comedy of that show carries over. As such, it makes the perfect binge-watching project for a cold weekend. It tells one full story over its 10 episodes, coming in at a running time of about two hours. The 10-episode animated miniseries was created by Patrick McHale for Cartoon Network. Part musical, part sibling drama, and part complete absurdity, Over the Garden Wall is a story that might be about death and is definitely about brotherhood. ![]()
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