Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Krapopolis’ On Fox, A Dan Harmon-Created Animated Series About A Very Flawed Ancient City

Fox has a lot riding on its new animated series Krapopolis, created by Rick and Morty‘s Dan Harmon. It delayed the premiere from this spring to make it a focus of its fall schedule — and likely to guard against anticipated strikes that ended up becoming reality. And then it liked what it saw enough to give it a second, then a third season, before any episodes even aired. That’s the kind of faith in a show that a broadcast network usually reserves for established hits. Did the first two episodes of the animated series live up to that faith?

KRAPOPOLIS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of an ancient city. A newsie in a toga yells “Vases! Morning Vases!”. The vases offer the news of the day in the form of stick figures that can basically mean anything.

The Gist: The newsie claims that Tyrannis (Richard Ayoade), king of the new city-state of Krapopolis, was voted “sexiest king,” but Tyrannis doesn’t buy it… sort of. He thinks the idea of a city, with farming, civilization and people settling disputes via conversation and diplomacy, will be the next big thing. His big — and we mean big — sister Stupendous (Pam Murphy) thinks otherwise, as she shows him the flaming head on a stick that was a “gift” from the neighboring cannibal horde, the Killassians.

She wants to teach the farmers to fight, but Tyrannis feels that if they fight, they can’t farm. “That’s how Big Cannibal wins,” he says.

His parents are the goddess Deliria (Hannah Waddingham) and a part-human, part-eagle, part-horse, part-scorpion, part-lion named Shlub (Matt Berry), who likes to have sex with his wife and pretty much anything else. Deliria has no idea why Ty wants to build this city, why he has no slaves, and why he’s not building a temple so everyone can worship her. After all, every other city has a temple to that “sweaty bitch” Athena (Amber Stevens West). Ty lashes back by saying that Athena gets those temples because she has “the slightest amount of human appeal!” Let’s say his relationship with his mother is complicated.

Ty’s fish brother Hippocampus (Duncan Trussell) is a scientist who gets bored creating things like a written language and would rather just blow things up with his new invention: The “bomb”, named after the two assistants whose bits he cleaned off his helmet after the experiments. Stupendous agrees that they should use the bomb to attack the Killassians, but Ty would rather use diplomacy.

Deliria bigfoots Ty as he’s trying to reason with the citizens of Krapopolis and everyone agrees to build her a temple, over Ty’s objections. Shlub, while trying to get permission from Ty to make love to a chicken, sees his son in some cut-rate armor and wonders why, if Ty is an expert at making deals, “Why can’t you deal with your mother?”

In the meantime, Stupendous and Hippocampus drag a Trojan horse full of explosives over to Killassian, hoping they assume it’s full of soldiers and they set it on fire. But the king, Asskill (Keith David), thinks it’s “gorgeous.” Hippocampus somehow convinces him that a good thank you would be to set it on fire, but his plan figuratively blows up when Asskill invites the Krapopolian pair to an impromptu ceremony where the horse will be lit up. That’s when they see that the Killassians are kinder and more civilized than they thought… but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t declare war on them.

Meanwhile, after the temple is built, Deliria gets the word from the gossipy Hermes (Michael Urie) that she’s back in the good graces of her social circle on Mount Olympus; she decides to leave Krapopolis and her mortal family and return to the family she thinks is more important, but an attack from the Killassians and a battle with Athena make her change her mind.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Dan Harmon created Krapopolis, but its pacing and character development feel more easygoing than his other significant shows, Community and Rick and Morty. We think of this more along the lines of Bob’s Burgers, except taking place in an ancient Mediterranean society.

Our Take: Krapopolis has a ton of potential to become a funny show with some well-thought-out characters that will eventually be able to generate situational, character-based humor. We imagine that’s what gave Fox the impetus to renew it for a second, then a third season before the first episode even aired (they delayed the premiere from this past spring, probably in anticipation of needing new shows if the writers and actors went on strike). The problem is that we don’t quite see what they’re seeing through the first two episodes. Not that we hated it, but something about the show feels like it could be better in all respects.

Maybe we were expecting something a bit more raucous, given Harmon’s previous successes, but we also get where he’s going with Krapopolis. He’s building up the characters and their relationships with each other, and Ty’s often futile attempts to bring civilization to a society that’s used to wilderness and battle. He’s a king with a belittling mother who can never die because she’s a goddess, so she’s constantly undercutting him. His father is constantly horny. His sister just wants to crack heads and his brother is a lazy genius. There’s a lot there, and the world in and around Krapopolis, as well as the various gods and goddesses that Deliria associates with, is ripe for side stories that will bring in an impressive array of guest voices.

But the first two episodes where surprisingly less funny than we thought they’d be. There are lots of gags, to be sure, but many of them felt forced. Given the main voice cast, especially Berry, Ayoade and Waddingham, the delivery of those lines was top notch. But it only made those gags marginally funnier.

However, we liked the stories from the first two episodes; in the second, Ty hosts an intercity competition that Stupendous wants to shine in, but feels restrained by her brother’s rules, and Shlub and Hippocampus track down a serial killer. Again, the stories were cohesive and had well-constructed arcs, but weren’t nearly as funny as we wanted them to be.

Sex and Skin: Lots of sex talk, especially from Shlub, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: After Deliria and Athena turned half of Krapopolis into snakes during their very personal battle, Deliria and Tyrannis apologize to the citizens. She turns the snakes back into people, and he gives them three days’ worth of mice, knowing from personal experience that it takes that long to get back to normal.

Sleeper Star: Some of the other guest voices on the series: Joel McHale, Susan Sarandon, Will Forte, David Cross, Daveed Diggs, Dave Franco, Jane Lynch, Ben Stiller, Stephanie Beatriz and Steve Buscemi.

Most Pilot-y Line: Tyrannis proposes to Asskill that instead of battling, they create an alliance and start an empire. “What’s an empire?” Asskill asks. “I don’t know yet. But it’s gonna be huge,” replies Tyrannis.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While Krapopolis could be funnier, there’s more than enough character and story, as well as good voice performances, to keep us watching. Fox had to have seen something to give the show three seasons… right?

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.