Velma, the adult-oriented animated series based on the long-running and much-loved Scooby-Doo franchise, first premiered on HBO Max earlier this month. The spinoff was marketed as “an adult animated comedy series telling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. gang.”
A reboot of a classic piece of kid’s entertainment, catered towards its now-adult audience with mature humor and a strong cast of voice actors, sounds like it has the makings for a hit show.
Unfortunately, Velma did not live up to its potential.
With only 6 of the 10 scheduled episodes released so far, Velma has already gained notoriety. Since its release, the show has been under fire for infringing upon the legacy of a beloved childhood cartoon with lackluster reimaginations of iconic characters, socio-political dissonance, and bad jokes.
Velma has become the worst-rated animated television series in IMBd history, having received an average score of 1.3 out of 10 stars. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it received a 42% on the Tomatometer and a startlingly low 6% audience score. Viewers and critics alike have come to the consensus that the show is, put simply, not good.
So what went wrong?
The problem is that people view the show through the lens of nostalgia and compare it to every other entry in the Scooby-Doo canon, only to conclude that the show seems to be about Mystery Inc. in name only. According to Forbes, it is “so far removed from Scooby-Doo that viewers have speculated that the show might have been conceived as an original concept that had a popular IP slapped onto it at some point during production.” Velma’s deviation from its source material—demonstrated by poorly-written characterizations of the gang and the absence of the talking dog himself—serves only as an affront to expectant fans.
On top of what audiences perceive as a disrespectful divergence from the source material, the show’s attempts to be contemporary have angered both sides of the political spectrum. Conservative audiences attack the show as “too woke” for changing the races of established characters, but progressive audiences also denounce this diversity as forced and poorly written. Abusive language, nudity, and the sexualization of 15-year-old characters have also drawn criticism.
With adult humor falling flat as it’s forced upon an uninspired reinterpretation of the iconic franchise, Velma just doesn’t seem to understand its own intent let alone its audience.
Surprisingly, though, the potential for a successful reboot isn’t entirely wasted.
In spite of the initial backlash surrounding the reimagining of Velma as South Asian before the show even aired, people still tuned in—Velma was reportedly HBO Max’s biggest premiere of any original animated series. Even now, despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, people are still watching the show. It has more than maintained an audience, experiencing an unexpected, critic-defying increase in viewership that secured the ranking as the second most in-demand new show. This places Velma above even HBO’s The Last of Us, another popular television adaptation that, unlike Velma, has received universal praise from both viewers and critics.
It remains to be seen if and when audiences should prepare for another season of Velma. HBO Max has not yet made any official announcements regarding the future of the show, but with such high viewership, a season renewal wouldn’t be unexpected.
Colleen Benison
Author
