Poppy (Amanda Leighton) teases Branch (Skylar Astin) in the opening of the show when they sing their theme song “Hair in the Air.”
Credit: @Trolls
DreamWorks Animation debuted its new animated television series “Trolls: The Beat Goes On” on Netflix as a sequel to the 3D animated movie “Trolls,” featuring Poppy (Amanda Leighton) and Branch (Skylar Astin), originally played by Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake.
The show is based on the movie “Trolls” that was released in late 2016. The movie followed optimistic Poppy and the loveable, pessimistic, worrywart Branch as they try to rescue their village from being eaten by the Bergens. They accomplish this by helping the Bergens recognize that happiness comes from within a person and not from eating someone.
So, the show starts off with the Trolls celebrating with their new-found friendship with the Bergens at a party. Branch and several of the other trolls in the village are apprehensive about the idea of celebrating with their previous enemies so quickly, mostly because the Trolls still fear that the Bergens may eat them and believe that they are too different to get along. As the show progresses, the Trolls and Bergens begin to change their point of views of one another.
One of the ways that the show progresses the story is through the music, which is heavily prevalent throughout the show. Two songs from the soundtrack of the show are played within the first episode to demonstrate how the Trolls are ecstatic to celebrate that the Bergens will no longer try to eat them. Despite the fact that Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick are not voicing their characters in the show, Skylar Astin and Amanda Leighton give the audience the same amount of emotion in their music as the original voice actors did in their initial performance. The songs are written by Jeannie Lurie, Mia Minichiello and Matias Mora, and Da Fonseca.
In DreamWorks Animation and their Netflix original series, they can either be procedural or serial. “Trolls” seems to be a procedural show where all the episodes within the series are self-contained from what has been shown to the audience. One of the problems with having a procedural show is that it does not carry as much depth to the story as a serial show which has an overarching story throughout the season. Serial shows allow for more growth in the characters than a procedural show might be able to do. These problems are present in “Trolls” because there isn’t as much character growth as there could have been. This might be because there was so much emphasis put upon the music within rather than the entirety of the content itself, which may have harmed the show as a whole.
Overall, the show is decent. There isn’t any growth to the characters from the first to the last episode of the season, which makes the characters feel a lot more static rather than well-rounded and fleshed out characters. However, most viewers will probably watch the show just for the music because the songs are well done. The direction starting off is acceptable for the standards of a TV show, but it can improve further just from the quality of the music that has been presented already.
Rating: 3 out of 5 paws
