Season Review: Paranormal Action Squad Season One

Does the series deserve a second season?

Spoilers Below

Regardless if on TV or a streaming service, the ones that stick around definitely go for the dependable animated series at SOME point in the network’s debut. It worked for FOX and Comedy Central, and BoJack Horseman is a perennial favorite from Netflix. The last month or so saw Youtube Red’s effort in getting an animated comedy and it’s called Paranormal Action Squad.

Produced by Mike Rowe (Brickleberry/Family Guy) and featuring Youtube stars SeaNanners, Mr. Sark, and VanossGaming; while Youtubers TheSyndicateProject and H2O Delirious guest. For those worried that you were going to get a bunch of dudes trying to be voice actors, do not fear, as for the most part, everyone in the cast has done a super good job in their parts.

Unfortunately, I think’s in the overall premise that the show kind of went wrong. While earlier episodes had some very clever ideas like zombie elephants and a tea-bagging Sasquatch, I think a lot of that came to a head in the cliffhanging eighth episode that seems to imply we’re going to be spending some time in outer space and different dimensions, and I really just think that’s an area that is already taken up by other well-known franchises. I much preferred when the series featured ghosts and vampires because we got sort of a Scooby-Doo series for an older crowd and that was good enough for me.

The aesthetic of the show is really good. Nothing too out of the box, but I was quite surprised Youtube didn’t go the route of Youtube cartoons of yesteryear and just invest in a bunch of four-minute Flash-produced shows, instead Paranormal Action Squad is a good start for Youtube Red to build quality animated shows on and I hope the streaming service continues the trend. We definitely need to get some bolts tightened in the story department, but overall we got a franchise that I think can be a good standard-bearer for the young Red platform, just don’t expect a BoJack-level of quality just yet.

SCORE
7/10