Season Review: Birdgirl Season One

 

Overview:

Meet Judy Ken Sebben! The world’s newest CEO to a major corporation who also just so happens to masquerade as the dependable superhero, Birdgirl. Judy has spent years cutting her teeth as a crimefighter, but taking over the reins of the family business, Sebben & Sebben, from her father introduces a new level of anxiety that there’s no super serum to cure. Judy slowly finds her voice and builds her independence as she steers Sebben & Sebben towards a bright future, but also does it in her own unique way. 

Judy wrestles with these two extreme sides to her personality and relies on the assistance of her faithful “Birdteam” of coworkers that try to reduce the amount of madness that bombards them on any given workday. Birdgirl and her team are ready to take on whatever danger threatens the city, but HR reports, overtime slips, and holiday benefits are a fresh level of bureaucratic hell that’s another story.

 

Our Take:

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law was one of Adult Swim’s flagship programs during its inception that helped establish the acerbic and satirical tone of the late-night programming block. It’s no exaggeration to say that the success and innovation of Harvey Birdman helped Adult Swim slowly grow into the powerhouse incubator of avant garde comedy and animation. Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter, the creators behind Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, said everything that they had to over the course of four seasons and a fairly recent one-off special, but a slight pivot over to the supporting Birdgirl character allows a very different story to be told.

Ouweleen and Richter are back for Birdgirl, but it’s truly unfortunate for Birdgirl that it’s greatest asset will also inevitably be viewed as its largest obstacle for Harvey Birdman fans to get over. Birdgirl is not Harvey Birdman and it makes this clear right from the start and only further doubles down on its distinctions in each new episode. Viewers may lament the abandonment of Hanna-Barbera fixtures in favor of surreal corporate shenanigans, but Birdgirl never promised to be an unnecessary carbon copy of its predecessor. Audiences may find Birdgirl’s premise more simplistic or less challenging than Harvey Birdman’s, but those that are willing to examine it as a fresh entity are likely to have a lot of fun with this insane animated series.

A major hurdle that Birdgirl addresses and remedies early on is that Judy Ken Sebben’s Birdgirl was a pure force of adrenaline in Harvey Birdman, which works when she’s just a supporting character. It’s considerably more difficult to maintain that chaos when they’re the protagonist, especially when Birdgirl doubles Birdman’s quarter-hour runtime to a half hour. Birdgirl goes get toned down in some regards as a result, but her neuroses never stop running rampant. Paget Brewster’s unrestrained delivery as Birdgirl was a highlight of the original series and thankfully Brewster returns and sounds just as ultra-caffeinated as ever.

Birdgirl installs a strong cast of supporting characters around Judy that become fantastic foils that shoulder her mania and make the series’ tempo feel more natural. Birdgirl takes some time for these supporting characters to find their footing and establish themselves beyond broad caricatures, but this first season puts in the work and it’s impressive how much chemistry these individuals have by the final episode. Despite the absurdist nature of Birdgirl’s scenarios and characters, it still generates actual pathos for these characters and makes their personal struggles feel real, which is a level of emotion that was arguably never accomplished–or desired–on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. There’s also every single frame that involves Birdcat, who can do no wrong, and in a perfect world there will be a “Birdcat” spin-off that follows in Birdgirl’s footsteps a decade after its conclusion.

Birdgirl has confidence in its charming supporting cast, but it also fearlessly tells some sufficiently strange stories that occasionally even feel like a lot for Adult Swim. Birdgirl is at its best when it doesn’t just defy expectations, but completely redefines the rubric and doesn’t worry about judgment. It’s the same brave freedom that inspires Judy to be her best self and it’s a true joy to watch each episode of Birdgirl better find its voice as it goes for broke. One sub-plot that involves a Gulliver’s Travels-esque island of sentient foreskin is easily one of the strangest things that I’ve seen on Adult Swim in years. A gonzo story of that nature is proof alone that Birdgirl deserves more than six episodes to experiment and go nuts.

Adult Swim has developed a habit where debut seasons for new series only have six episodes, which can be exceedingly little time depending on the complexity of the series. Birdgirl works hard to establish themes and mild continuity that develop over the season, but each installment also feels markedly different and tackles different genres and ridiculous corporate subversions. Season one of Birdgirl flies by, but it’s deceptively compact and showcases more variety than a lot of shows manage to do in six episodes. It’s not easy to have a television show where anything feels possible or a storyline can evolve in a completely unexpected manner, yet Birdgirl accomplishes this and makes sentient buildings, killer toilets, and energy drinks just the tip of this eccentric iceberg.

Birdgirl’s debut season does provide a sense of closure by its ending, but it’s clear that there’s a lot more to this story and that this is really just the beginning of these superhero antics. Birdgirl has absolutely proven that it deserves a second, longer season where it has an even longer leash to explore these ideas. The season concludes with the official formation of Birdgirl’s Birdteam and it feels as if the balance between corporate problems and superhero woes might flip in a second season. Judy has finally found her footing in the corporate world, but now it’s time for her team to build their confidence as superheroes. 

It’s a fresh enough twist that doesn’t fundamentally change Birdgirl’s structure and allows an even greater alchemy between its two extremes. Several characters, like Evie and her ability to communicate with atoms, have such potential, yet Birdgirl intentionally holds back and doesn’t try to bite off more than it can chew. It leaves the audience with the perfect level of familiarity with the Birdteam, yet if these characters return it wouldn’t at all be jarring to see a more accomplished version of the Birdteam in action. If Birdgirl does embrace the superhero angle more in a second season then it’d also be very satisfying to see the dangerous Baltimo material return in a more permanent capacity as Birdgirl’s own Kryptonite. Birdgirl is fortunately left with a lot of options of where to take this story.

Birdgirl may not be for everyone, but it’s a program that marks a fresh step forward for Adult Swim as they attempt to establish themselves for a new generation. Birdgirl doesn’t lean too hard into nostalgia, lazy superhero tropes, or reboot culture and it manages to navigate through this minefield relatively unscathed. It’s an animated series that benefits most from an open mind and zero expectations. There’s something weird and special in Birdgirl that absolutely deserves time to grow.

Ha Ha! Grow…