HBO Max's animated Scooby-Doo prequel/reimagining Velma was met with mostly middling reviews when it debuted on the streaming service, but despite that and an overwhelmingly negative response from fans, a second season is thought to be on the way.
That's supposedly down to high viewership numbers, though it's unclear whether those were a result of morbid curiosity or the fact a far less vocal number of people actually enjoyed watching Velma Dinkley (Mindy Kaling) embarking on her first mystery. The series seemed to have little love for Scooby-Doo, and this new Honest Trailer takes the show to task for that.
Highlighting the bleak, often nasty humour and the sheer disrespect Velma showed its beloved characters, the Honest Trailer team doesn't hold anything back, chewing this show up and spitting it out.
At one point, they even argue that it feels like a show written by an AI that "mixed Family Guy with blue check Twitter and somehow didn't kill itself."
Ouch.
The fact Scooby-Doo himself was M.I.A. is also highlighted as an issue here, but it all goes back to how bad the humour is, a point it's hard to argue with when those moments are highlighted throughout the course of this video.
Velma is described as an adult animated comedy series telling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. gang. An original and humorous spin that unmasks the complex and colourful past of one of America’s most beloved mystery solvers, executive producer Mindy Kaling will voice the titular character.
Along with her, the series stars Constance Wu, Sam Richardson, Glenn Howerton, Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Russell Peters, Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Ken Leung, Cherry Jones, Frank Welker, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Nicole Byer, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, Debby Ryan, Kulap Vilaysak, and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Check out Velma's Honest Trailer below.