So we have a Scooby Doo show for adults, but without Scooby Doo himself. That sounds a bit odd, but any idea can work depending on the execution. Unfortunately, the execution here is completely garbage. Let me get my one positive out of the way, and that's with the animation. It's bright, colorful, and is really fluid. Visually, this show looks amazing. Everything else is bad, and that's for one reasons. Almost all the characters are unlikable. The titular Velma is a cynical, spiteful, hypocritical jerk who thinks she's smarter than everyone else and expects her to bow to her. I wouldn't mind this so much if she were properly called out for this behavior, but every time she is, she either ignores it or is forced to become better because the plot demands her to. Daphne and Fred are also pretty horrible. Daphne can be spoiled and vain in other incarnations, but she's not supposed to be this uptight mean girl who treats people like dirt. Fred is a privileged, entitled man child who can't take care of himself and only remembers girls if they're hot. Any attempts to give them depth, like Daphne wanting to find her biological parents or Fred trying to be mature, are also pretty forced. Norville/Shaggy is the least bad out of all of them since he actually has a moral compass. However, he doesn't have much in the way of depth and it's obvious that the writers want to drug jokes with him. Everyone else in the supporting cast is either too unlikable or too one note to get a proper reaction out of me. Even if this show improves later on, it can't escape the tainted reputation of those early episodes. I'm glad Scooby Doo wasn't put in this series. At least he won't be subjected to the awful writing that everyone else is going through. I like some of the more divisive Scooby Doo shows like Be Cool Scooby Doo, but this is a show that's not worth your time.
Review of Velma
