Season Review: Adventure Beast Season One

 

 

Overview:

BTG is one of the world’s foremost field zoologists. He is on a mission to study and explore Earth’s most diverse environments. Joining him on the journey is his untrained niece and his anxiety-ridden assistant.

Together they traverse various terrains across the planet from Australia to the Congo. Their research investigates some of the animal kingdom’s most unique habits, including mating rituals and strange diets. Thankfully, even the experts have a lot to learn and share along the way.

 

Our Take:

Adventure Beast is the first of its kind and breaking ground for Netflix. Described as an adult animated educational comedy, the new series delivers laughs and facts. Following one of the world’s leading conservationists, this sitcom is a zoology lesson wrapped inside of a Family Guy clone.

Bradley Trevor Grieve (BTG) is at the centre of the series, a real-world adventurer, writer, and wildlife preservationist. The latter of which has led him to this passion project of sorts.  Adventure Beast offers BTG the chance to explore the natural world he loves through an animated version of himself.  

Of course, this ridiculous exploration of exotic biomes would not be complete without a couple of solid friends joining the rambunctious BTG. Along the way is his own beloved niece, Bonnie. On her first trip out with her uncle, becoming a field zoologist is a dream come true for her. Less could be said for Dietrich, BTG’s assistant, who constantly fears everything outside.

While the series works as a hilarious animated sitcom with a leading star with a penchant for dressing up like local animal life. Though it also works as a wildlife documentary, teaching animal facts and identifying their habits. There are plenty of new things to learn. However, Adventure Beast explores the things that the Discovery Channel would not touch. But this adult show is not afraid to educate the homosexual tendencies or murderous nature of the world’s creatures.

Unfortunately, the series does suffer from its mixed concept. Chiefly being, that wildlife documentaries primary draw is the visuals of real-world creatures in their natural habitats. The 2-D animation could never do justice to mother nature. 

Subsequently, the comedy sitcom suffers from the distraction of trying to be more. The stories and plots lack depth creating one-note energy that lasts for the 12-episode first season.

Conceptually, the idea is there. Educating and entertaining adults with strange facts and simultaneously encouraging conservation efforts. In practice, Adventure Beast is spread thin from trying to do too much at once. The show would serve better to put away with the character development and back story and focus its energies on stories that matter to the environment.

It will be interesting to see what audiences Adventure Beast attracts. Not quite an adult sitcom, not entirely a nature documentary; the show is carving out a specific demographic. It could be successful in finding a crowd. Unfortunately, Adventure Beast will likely be drowned out after being released on the same day as Inside Job, Netflix’s next big hit animated series.