On Sept. 19, Glitch Productions premiered the pilot episode of the animated psychological thriller “Knights of Guinevere” on YouTube. The show was created by Dana Terrace, John Bailey Owen and Zach Marcus, who are all known for their work on the Disney series “The Owl House.”
Glitch’s description for the pilot reads: “Knights of Guinevere is a psychological thriller that welcomes you to a planet-wide theme park in the clouds! … And the shadows below, where a broken Princess Android is two dreamers’ tickets to better lives, or the end of them.” The episode is a packed introduction to a very believable sci-fi world that leaves much to unpack.
The first five minutes of the episode deliver a quick exposition: Guinevere is an android, created by a theme park corporation to serve as its monarch. The original Guinevere android was lost, but the corporation mass-produced her image as the head of its planet-wide theme park sitting atop the clouds, known as Park Planet.
A time skip introduces the protagonists and childhood friends Frankie and Andi, working at varying levels for this corporation that dominates nearly every aspect of life. Frankie and Andi live in a run-down techno-fantasy world, where nothing is as glittering or perfect as the unattainable theme park that glides over their heads. Andi works as an engineer in the labs, helping test and design the automatons for the theme park. Frankie works in a factory, mass-producing Guinevere-themed products such as mugs and keychains. Despite their occupations, Frankie seems to be an engineering genius while Andi struggles in her position. Frankie is an understated, kind-hearted soul, while Andi is well intentioned but hotheaded. Certain lines of dialogue imply that a romance might spark between the two.
The plot kicks off as Frankie finds a broken-down Guinevere android in a shipyard where her boss has sent her to look for scraps to sell to the factories. She and Andi sneak back to the shipyard at night to steal the Guinevere in an attempt to save her from being sold for parts. An altercation with Frankie’s boss, Sparky, forces them to return the android after they restore it. Walking through the labs that Andi used to work at, they have a clash with a massive automaton that seems to want the Guinevere android. The broken android comes to life and mysteriously kills the larger automaton offscreen. They reach the lab they were trying to get to and begin trying to fix the droid. The episode ends with Guinevere successfully rebooting and facing the two protagonists.
On my first watch of this pilot, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and worldbuilding thrown my way. I did not know much regarding the premise of the show going into it, and the pilot is packed with information and questions about the world that I only understood after a second viewing. After my initial reaction, however, I was able to settle in and really come to enjoy the feast of animation that lay before me.
The pilot throws the viewer into a sci-fi world almost reminiscent of the world of “Nimona” with an art style distinctly more mature than that of Terrace’s work on “The Owl House.” Characters make exaggerated, swift motions across the screen. They wear dramatic facial expressions and detailed costumes, and the background of every shot feels busy, though not in a distracting way. Rather, the world of KoG feels lived in. The characters have effects on this world, and this world has effects on them. For instance, graffiti and advertisements are used in combination with characters to tell the story of Park Planet, showing the dominance of the corporation while revealing the characters’ resistance to it. Every worker we meet seems to be connected to this large corporation at some point, for better or worse. However, despite their hatred for the way the Park has ruined their living conditions, characters like Frankie show that there is still an element of magic and wonder connected to the character of Guinevere. Frankie ultimately still holds an attachment to the joy she experienced when she met a Guinevere android, which has inspired her to continue engineering.
The metaphor for Disney’s prevalence in modern media is not subtle. By its very nature as a show made by an indie animation company, with its pilot free to view on YouTube, the show stands directly in opposition to Disney’s signature methods of price hikes and mass appeal. The world of Park Planet forces us to hold a mirror to our own society; are we willing to maintain the glittering, idyllic world of Disney if it means our living conditions will only worsen?
On a technical level, the animation and production of KoG were both stunning. I felt particularly drawn to the music choices and lighting techniques. The music alternated between deep, haunting, synth-like tones during moments of horror or mystery, and bright, exciting, medieval-sounding strings during lighter moments. This combination of violas and mandolins, coupled with electronic synth beats, made for a unique soundscape that matched the outlandish world of KoG. The lighting brought to life an otherwise two-dimensional animation style. From the blue lights in Guinevere’s eyes to the fiery explosion at the end of the episode, lighting effectively helps tell the story of the pilot.
All in all, the “Knights of Guinevere” pilot offers a strong, if slightly overpacked, premise for a unique story critiquing consumerism and the existence of large media conglomerates. The characters feel alive in a sci-fi world that holds a mirror up to our own in a colorful, grotesque way. I, along with many others — as of writing this, the pilot episode has around 1.3 million likes on YouTube — hope that this show gets greenlit for a full season soon.
Author
About the Author
