Plot: Meet the team behind the biggest multiplayer video game of all time. But in a workplace focused on building worlds, molding heroes, and creating legends, the most hard-fought battles don’t occur in the game—they happen in the office.
Review: At launch, AppleTV+ had multiple marquee dramas available for subscribers. From period dramas to sci-fi to horror and melodrama, the platform had a lot of serious fare with the lone comedy being the Hailee Steinfeld led Dickinson. With every service needing at least a couple solid sitcoms, Apple has turned to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia creators Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day whose Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet wants to be a cross between The Office and Silicon Valley but with more geek credibility and a little more profanity. The result is a series that is just fine but nowhere near as funny as McElhenney and Day's FXX series.
Mythic Quest is at it's core a workplace comedy. Like any office-set series, you have characters from every department ranging from Danny Pudi's CFO Brad to developer Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) as well as the out of touch writer C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham), manager David (David Hornsby) and the self-centered CEO Ian Grimm (McElhenney). All of these personalities clash in funny yet expected ways. All of the story centers around the long anticipated DLC for Mythic Quest called Raven's Banquet. The game, reminiscent of MMORPGs like Warcraft, is a worldwide hit but Grimm has been delaying new products because he needs everything to be perfect.
Each episode gives us a hilariously skewed look at how video game companies work from the motion capture to monetization as well as the impact that YouTube influencers can have on the success of a game. Clearly not set in the real world, the series does take a somewhat grounded approach to the business side of things with characters who are brimming with foibles and quirks that will seem familiar to viewers of pretty much every network sitcom from the last ten years. What works best is the cast is full of talented and funny performers, especially Always Sunny vets McElhenney and Hornsby who go out of their way to land each joke. The problem is the jokes are very familiar and the show feels a few years late.
One of the best things about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is that it feels like Seinfeld if it were written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There is an edginess to the humor and nothing is safe. With Mythic Quest, the show feels overly produced and often, despite free use of profanity and sexual language, the show feels like it belongs on a traditional network like NBC. Many funny sitcoms still air on traditional networks but they have a conceit or a tone that sets them apart. Mythic Quest is just too safe to feel like anything we haven't seen before. Even Silicon Valley managed to turn the less than glamorous world of app development and computer programming into something hilarious thanks to a more serialized, season long narrative arc. While Mythic Quest does have a narrative through line to it, each episode is formatted to present an obstacle for the team to overcome on their way to the next episode (hey, kind of like a video game!).
Over the first season, there are some nice guest stars that pop in and some subplots (like the burgeoning romance between testers Dana and Rachel) but the best part has to be F. Murray Abraham. The Oscar winner is best known for his dramatic work but he is the breakout character here, much like Danny Devito on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. His out of touch antics and non sequitirs will have you laughing more than most of the storylines which involve gaming conventions, white supremacists, non playable characters and much more industry lingo. It is also surprising that HALLOWEEN and Eastbound & Down director David Gordon Green helmed the first episode which doesn't really have any distinct visual look at all.
Mythic Quest is not a bad show but it is also nothing special. Having already been renewed for a second season, creators McElhenney, Day, and Megan Ganz can tighten the tone and style or even take things across some boundaries that the first season pushed on but never crossed. If you are going to tell dick and Nazi jokes, you might as well go all in. Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet as a lot of potential and a great cast but the first season is just not funny enough to keep viewers coming week after week. As a binge, the show works but as a season-long commitment it falls short.
Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet premieres February 7th on AppleTV+.