After being prompted by a friend and hearing mixed feelings about the show, I decided I should check out Bojack Horseman, one of Netflix's new original series, an animated show about a washed up 80's actor and his life post-stardom, starring an anthropomorphic horse and a whole star-studded cast of comedy cold.
In the weird world of Bojack Horseman, we follow our title character (voiced by Will Arnett), a delusional ass-hat who starred in a late 80's, early 90's sitcom like a Full House or Step by Step situation, but has been pretty much out of work since, due to his attitude and behavior. We follow Bojack and his friend/unofficial roommate Todd (Aaron Paul) as Bojack puts off writing a book he has promised Penguin Books until they convince him to get a Ghostwriter (voiced by Alison Brie.) From there, the show is watching Ghostwriter Diane try to capture Bojack's life while she befriends him and he continues to be a mess.
Between this we also meet Princess Carolyn, a cat voiced by Amy Sedaris that is both Bojack's agent and his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Pinky Penguin, voiced by Patton Oswalt as his book publishing agent who is in dire need to have Bojack finish his book, and Mr. Peanutbutter, voiced by Paul F. Tompkins, an anthropomorphic dog who starred in a show just like Bojack's that is also dating Diane. The cast is wonderful, the world is weird and it's hard to describe why exactly I liked it.
Thematically, the closest I think you get to a show like Bojack Horseman is like Archer or Bob's Burgers, but it's definitely not the same. While all three shows trade insults and jokes at lightning speed, Bojack is a lot darker than either of those too and takes a different approach to storytelling. Bojack Horseman follows a serialized pattern, meaning after the first couple episodes, they all fall into place with one another to tell one story, and each episode is a continuation of the last. That's one way the show is different from most animated adult shows of it's type, it's trying to tell one singular set of stories episode to episode, instead of each episode being self-contained. Another thing is that it's way more of a drama than a comedy towards the back half of the season, but still contains funny moments.
I think Bojack fits in with the other good matieral Netflix has decided to support, as it's just as hard to classify as one of those things. Take a look at Orange is the New Black, you can't call that show just a Drama, certainly not a Comedy, but it has a mixture of both that probably fits that moniker "Dramedy" as well as switching narratives and episode formats a lot. While Bojack focuses primarily on this one set of characters, it does expand out to tell the stories of other characters as well as telling a serious story with jokes instead of a funny story with some serious moments.
Bojack Horseman is actually fairly bleak. I've head a lot of people have problems getting past the first episode, some people don't get into it until episode 4-5, and that's when the narrative really picks up speed and the show switches up style. While the first four episodes further the overall narrative, they work as standalone episodes of the show that try and contain their whole story arc in 25 minutes. From episode 5-12 however each episode follows the other and ties into this overarching story and I think this is when people get hooked. Starting with episode five we find Bojack falling in love with his ghostwriter Diane, who is dating his longtime rival and Bojack finds out his old best friend is dying of cancer. Two very serious subplots with very serious repercussions.
I'm not going to spoil the show because it's still pretty new and a lot of people haven't seen it yet, but I think what gets people hooked with these subplots is how human they really are. Bojack reacts in an exaggerated yet truthful way to finding out the girl he is in love with is going to get married to a guy he resents and the situation with his old friend dying of cancer is a very believable and true-feeling one.
I think the conceit of Bojack Horseman is that it's telling a very human story through the guise of this cartoon anthropomorphic world so people take it less seriously, but it's darker than most animated shows I have seen, and that is part of what I think makes it so great. There are also great light-hearted moments, like director Cameron Crowe being realized as a Raven that people mistake for a Crow because of his name, or Neal McBeal the Navy Seal (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who called dibs on a box of muffins, which Bojack ignores and it spirals out of control into this idea that Bojack hates the troops because he didn't respect the guy's dibs. I like the animation style, the voice work by Arnett, Paul, Oswalt, Brie and the rest of the crew is exactly what the show needed, and the into song (written by half of The Black Keys) and the outro song are tonally great and fun.
Overall, I really enjoyed Bojack Horseman, and I recommend people who either haven't started it or haven't gone past the first few episodes to make it to episode 5-6 and see if they still don't like it. It seems to be polarizing overall, and I know at least one person who never ended up liking it despite watching all the way through. All I can say is to give it a chance and you might find it as rewarding as I did.
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