My first encounter with Mindy Kaling was as Kelly Kapoor in The Office, an always-funny, on-the-mark comedy that proved that even the mundanities of life can have a sense of humor about them. When she wasn't working in front of the camera, she was tirelessly working behind the scenes, writing and producing some of the show's highest moments and most entertaining episodes. In short, Mindy Kaling created a reputation for herself as a genuinely funny comedian... and, really, what more could you ask for? Gender and ethnicity don't matter to me when it comes to comedy; all that matters is the same basic question we ought to ask of every up-and-coming wannabe comedian: are you funny? And Mindy proved, during her time on The Office, that she was not only funny, but she was funny in fresh ways, and she was able to hit every mark and make some truly laugh-out-loud jokes.
Admittedly, I haven't followed much of Mindy's career outside The Office. It's my favorite TV show, after all -- not to mention one of the only sitcoms I can watch on repeat every day for the rest of my life. But hearing that Mindy had done a spinoff series of Scooby-Doo, a property I've grown to love throughout my childhood years and beyond (although more as a guilty pleasure these days), I was pretty intrigued. We have someone who is genuinely funny and has the full potential to truly breathe some fresh life into these characters in a portrayal unlike anything we've ever seen before.
And, to her credit, that's exactly what we got: something unlike anything else we've ever seen. But uniqueness alone does not a good show make. Remember, Yoko Ono is "unique" in her own right, but I highly doubt you're going to be streaming any of her records after reading this review.
Where do I even start to talk about Velma? It's the second massively disappointing project done with the Scooby-Doo property in the 2020s (with Scoob being a close second place). "Velma" showcases the creative ramblings of an out of touch comedian, someone who thinks she knows what the general public is going to find funny but ultimately misses the mark at every step along the way in her journey. The characters are so wildly inconsistent with any of the other entries in this massive, decade-spanning franchise that the very act of calling them by the names of beloved Scooby-Doo characters feels like blasphemy. The show is a parody, but the ultimate parody the show commits is parody against its own source material, which is never something you want to be doing. Velma is a show spun off from the Scooby-Doo media machine, yet it actively mocks the very material without which it would not exist, insulting the viewer for being -- or having been -- a fan of the source material along the way. Considering it was greenlit by Warner Bros., it's rather ironic that the company that nurtured this IP for so long is now actively allowing others to come in and mock their own cash cow. And yet, they're not only funding and enabling this... they're greenlighting a second season of this nonsense.
Profanity is totally fine in a comedy show for adults, however it feels rather tacky and distasteful to take an IP that was, first and foremost, made for kids and turn it into something that would be unwatchable by its original demographic. Further still, it's such a massive departure from everything that made the characters so endearing that, had the original creators of the franchise been here to witness this, they would've likely left feeling deeply disappointed and disrespected.
Most of the attempts at "humor" in this show are based solely on the cringe-factor. Much like The Office, this show seems to try to thrive on the "I-can't-believe-they-actually-said-that" comedy trope which, while pulled off in a genius way in The Office with the likes of Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, B. J. Novak, Jenna Fischer and, of course, Mindy Kaling, falls completely flat in Velma. Every attempt for a "fourth wall break" feel forced and unnatural, every attempt to show awareness that this IS, in fact, a show, caused my eyes to roll so hard they almost rolled completely out of their sockets. The scripts are weak and juvenile, the humor is not funny, the mystery is not engaging, the jokes (with very few exceptions) don't work, the characters are one-dimensional with no real development as the season progressed... from start to finish, this show was a disappointment.
This show reeks of a stale writing room, a large group of "yes-men" who think they're making some of the most evolved and relevant jokes that have ever been committed to screen... and people either too sycophantic or intimidated to speak their mind and say it's stupid. Nobody watching this show is laughing, except out of pity alone, except for the select few people sitting in that writer's room.
Perhaps the best question would be "why watch it, then?" Like a glorious trainwreck that one is victim to, unable to turn away despite wanting to do nothing but that very thing, we keep watching in the hopes that it would get better, holding on to the wish that this show would, somewhere along the way, manage to redeem itself. But it didn't.
And the fact that Warner Bros. Has officially greenlit a second season of this show (which, I think is safe to say, next to nobody is asking for) just goes to show how out of touch they've become with the very people who financially support and enable them to continue making content for all of us. If your content falls flat, it's time to rejuvenate it and find a better formula that will work financially and critically. You can't have one without the other. So, please, WB, give us an animated series in the Scooby-Doo universe. I even implore you to explore some territory that hasn't already been covered. But please keep Mindy Kaling as far away from it as you possibly can. She's not a good fit for this IP.
Admittedly, I haven't followed much of Mindy's career outside The Office. It's my favorite TV show, after all -- not to mention one of the only sitcoms I can watch on repeat every day for the rest of my life. But hearing that Mindy had done a spinoff series of Scooby-Doo, a property I've grown to love throughout my childhood years and beyond (although more as a guilty pleasure these days), I was pretty intrigued. We have someone who is genuinely funny and has the full potential to truly breathe some fresh life into these characters in a portrayal unlike anything we've ever seen before.
And, to her credit, that's exactly what we got: something unlike anything else we've ever seen. But uniqueness alone does not a good show make. Remember, Yoko Ono is "unique" in her own right, but I highly doubt you're going to be streaming any of her records after reading this review.
Where do I even start to talk about Velma? It's the second massively disappointing project done with the Scooby-Doo property in the 2020s (with Scoob being a close second place). "Velma" showcases the creative ramblings of an out of touch comedian, someone who thinks she knows what the general public is going to find funny but ultimately misses the mark at every step along the way in her journey. The characters are so wildly inconsistent with any of the other entries in this massive, decade-spanning franchise that the very act of calling them by the names of beloved Scooby-Doo characters feels like blasphemy. The show is a parody, but the ultimate parody the show commits is parody against its own source material, which is never something you want to be doing. Velma is a show spun off from the Scooby-Doo media machine, yet it actively mocks the very material without which it would not exist, insulting the viewer for being -- or having been -- a fan of the source material along the way. Considering it was greenlit by Warner Bros., it's rather ironic that the company that nurtured this IP for so long is now actively allowing others to come in and mock their own cash cow. And yet, they're not only funding and enabling this... they're greenlighting a second season of this nonsense.
Profanity is totally fine in a comedy show for adults, however it feels rather tacky and distasteful to take an IP that was, first and foremost, made for kids and turn it into something that would be unwatchable by its original demographic. Further still, it's such a massive departure from everything that made the characters so endearing that, had the original creators of the franchise been here to witness this, they would've likely left feeling deeply disappointed and disrespected.
Most of the attempts at "humor" in this show are based solely on the cringe-factor. Much like The Office, this show seems to try to thrive on the "I-can't-believe-they-actually-said-that" comedy trope which, while pulled off in a genius way in The Office with the likes of Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, B. J. Novak, Jenna Fischer and, of course, Mindy Kaling, falls completely flat in Velma. Every attempt for a "fourth wall break" feel forced and unnatural, every attempt to show awareness that this IS, in fact, a show, caused my eyes to roll so hard they almost rolled completely out of their sockets. The scripts are weak and juvenile, the humor is not funny, the mystery is not engaging, the jokes (with very few exceptions) don't work, the characters are one-dimensional with no real development as the season progressed... from start to finish, this show was a disappointment.
This show reeks of a stale writing room, a large group of "yes-men" who think they're making some of the most evolved and relevant jokes that have ever been committed to screen... and people either too sycophantic or intimidated to speak their mind and say it's stupid. Nobody watching this show is laughing, except out of pity alone, except for the select few people sitting in that writer's room.
Perhaps the best question would be "why watch it, then?" Like a glorious trainwreck that one is victim to, unable to turn away despite wanting to do nothing but that very thing, we keep watching in the hopes that it would get better, holding on to the wish that this show would, somewhere along the way, manage to redeem itself. But it didn't.
And the fact that Warner Bros. Has officially greenlit a second season of this show (which, I think is safe to say, next to nobody is asking for) just goes to show how out of touch they've become with the very people who financially support and enable them to continue making content for all of us. If your content falls flat, it's time to rejuvenate it and find a better formula that will work financially and critically. You can't have one without the other. So, please, WB, give us an animated series in the Scooby-Doo universe. I even implore you to explore some territory that hasn't already been covered. But please keep Mindy Kaling as far away from it as you possibly can. She's not a good fit for this IP.