Krod Mandoon has fun mocking the fantasy genre

When the show is making cheap jokes at the expense of its sole female character (a reason is contrived for her to perform a pole dance, sheesh) and its gay characters, it comes off like a tiresome imitation of Meet the Spartans, which was itself a juvenile parody of 300 and other pop-culture staples. But a good deal of the humor in Krod Mandoon is a little more subtle than that.

Despite its glorious title, Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, this new fantasy-comedy series is unfortunately not that funny. For starters, the title character is an American even though he played by a real-life British hunk (Sean Maguire). This bothers me. British actors have a tendency to get a little cheesy when morphing into Americans.

I see the most potential with Chancellor Dungalor because Lucas is a winner. His inflection in itself is hilarious. Don't get me wrong; there were moments where I laughed. But Krod Mandoon seems to dumb everything down too much; the writing in general needs improvement. The incessant arguing between Aneka and Krod is tiresome. And I want better lines for Lucas. And Krod, while they're at it. Sometimes I wonder if Maguire is a little too over-the-top and off with timing.

Here's the deal: it's trying to be Monty Python silly but it's not coming across. Later episodes have some funny moments that could keep me watching, and you do have to allow shows to grow. There's potential here - I just hope they're not targeting a 13 year-old boy demographic ... and nobody else.

Although the setup has potential and the preview looks promising, the show relies heavily on one-liners throughout the episode, leaving audiences waiting for the next quick laugh every few minutes or so. Modeled after a British style of humor, the show's laughs are mostly based on overly silly actions taking place in awkward situations, which makes for big hit-or-miss jokes as some scenes are quite entertaining while others seem either lacking or simply unfunny.

However, the show does show some promise, particularly dealing with Dongalor, whose complete disregard for humanity makes for some very entertaining dark comedy.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for all of the characters. Overall, Krod has potential, yet is painfully lacking.

Sean Maguire Interview

An interview with Sean Maguire, who plays the title role of Krod.