High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

S1E1 "The Auditions"

by Amanda Ashley

I am a former theater kid. When I say former, I mean, I’m not currently in theater productions...but I can still sing every lyric to Rent, Hamilton and Beetlejuice The Musical. Once a theater kid, always a theater kid. So when Disney Plus on day one offers me a mockumentary based on High School Musical, my inner Sharpay came alive. (Side note: we can all agree that Sharpay Evans is the true hero of the HSM franchise.) With two episodes now released, the series remains a weird little bright spot on this new platform. There’s a lot to unpack about High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It’s honestly a sheer insanity of a concept, but I can’t help that I love it. The best way to describe it is a mash-up of Glee meets The Office with the exact archetypes. There’s your Rachel and Finn mashed with the Jim/Pam/Roy triangle that forms our core teenagers, and the drama teacher Ms. Jenn is if Michael Scott and Will Schuester incubated a baby. The entire show is based at the real East High where the original HSM was filmed, but this East High has never staged a production of the musical based on the film so Ms. Jenn is here to fix that. Like I said, it’s a lot to unpack. The worst part like all high school set shows is Ms. Jenn. I’m not sure why writers think we want to know about the tragically trying-to-be-hip teachers, but here we are again. Maybe Ms. Jenn’s storyline could be interesting. There are hints at major money problems for her, but they are being treated a sad asides not a point to her character. (Which makes me wonder is Ms. Jenn in the local teacher’s union? I need an answer to this, Disney. Thank you.) She’s incredibly chaotic and constantly reminding her cast that she was a backup dancer in the original movie. It’s exhausting. I fully expect to see her bust out a Fortnite dance move for a TikTok just so we can get a reaction shot of her students rolling their eyes at how weird adults are. The brightest spot are the main three teenagers: Ricky, Nini and EJ. There are lots of side characters, but the love triangle is the focus as of now. All three actors are talented, and I’ve enjoyed the musical performances we’ve seen from them thus far. They feel like real theater and theater-adjacent kids I know. Theater is the closest you can get to joining a weird cult in your teenage years, and the show definitely gets that. There’s even a joke about it in episode 2. Ricky and Nini’s personal lives are also very flushed out for Disney series characters - in a post-Andi Mack world, Disney needs to continue to evolve. Ricky’s parents are clearly on the road to divorce, and Nini’s parents are a very doting lesbian couple. EJ is our new Zac Efron eye candy for Gen Z because everyone needs their sexual awakening to come from a Disney character. It will be interesting to see where the show goes. The series has already scored a season 2 renewal before Disney Plus was available so execs really have faith in the show. The cast is very diverse and not strictly populated by cis-het white characters. They will easily tap into the Tumblr stan crowd much like the original cast did all those years ago. With their massive Descendants trilogy ending, you can tell that Disney is more than ready to make this new crop of actors their new chosen ones with lots of Buzzfeed type interviews already all over YouTube. I will definitely keep tuning in, but I also own a signed copy of Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure...so we all know I was showing up anyway. We’re all in this together.

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is now available exclusively on Disney Plus. New episodes are on Fridays.

The Mandalorian

S1E2 "Chapter Two: The Child"

Haikus Inspired by the Episode:

Child of olive skin

Gazed upon me with pained eyes

Reached out to heal me

We require the egg

Bring us the forbidden egg

Golden bliss within

This place is my home

Soon I will help the stranger

Bluurg, I have spoken

The Mandalorian is now streaming on Disney Plus. 

Gargoyles

S1E1 "Awakening, Part 1"

Disney's Gargoyles are socialists.

This is my thesis that I present to you, the reader, upon watching the pilot to this underrated Disney Afternoon cartoon.

As a kid I always thought that Gargoyles was a ripoff of Batman: The Animated Series and that's not wrong. The show was definitely created in a vain effort to reach that market of kids who were obsessed with the Burton Batman movies. But while Batman isn't quite a hero of the proletariat, the eponymous gargoyles definitely can be interpreted as such. Most of this episode takes place in medieval age Scotland where we learn that the gargoyles protect the Scottish peasantry from the Viking hordes. However, the gargoyles are feared by the aristocracy who paint them as monsters and troublemakers. Only one of the gargoyles is named in the episode, Goliath, a name given to him by the humans as a sign of respect. The other gargoyles don't have names because they consider themselves part of a friendly collective. The gargoyles are not evil but can be aggressive towards humans because they are labeled as monsters and frequently treated as such. The military eventually betrays Goliath and lets the Vikings destroy his comrades while he is distracted.

There's a lot of strong Marxist-Leninist ideology within the show whether intentional or not. Medieval Scotland is a metaphor for the "old country" of feudalist Europe and the gargoyles represent the organized working class. Goliath and his comrades could also be interpreted as a metaphor for Lenin and his Bolshevik colleagues who broke away from the militaristic wing of the Menshevik party. The gargoyles want to protect the lower class but are dismissed as monsters to them by the upper class echelons of society. The Vikings represent the forces of creeping fascism which are more acceptable to the military and aristocracy than the socialist gargoyles. It's also worth noting that the gargoyles are a democratic collective with an appointed representative to the humans (Goliath).

This might be too deep of an analysis for a kids show but the creator Greg Weismann has a history of producing content with at least liberal/leftist themes (see Young Justice, Rebels) . It's not out of the realm of possibility to recognize that the gargoyles deserve to be socialist icons even if they are owned by a massive corporation. Methinks it's time to reclaim these characters and do a deep dive into this series to uncover its progressive themes and stories.

All 78 episodes of Gargoyles are available on Disney Plus.

Welcome + The Mandalorian S1E1 "Chapter One"

Welcome to Disney Plus One, your one stop blog for EVERYTHING on Disney Plus and beyond! My name is Colonel Nemo and I'll be your Ghost Host as I will surely die or abandon this project before I reach the end. Reviewing everything on Disney Plus (and beyond!) will be an arduous task but I will do my best to give you a window into the soul of a man under streaming services. Will the Disney Vault swallow us whole? Would this blog be better as a podcast?? Is there a point to any of this??? We'll find out in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.

WANTED: Submissions are accepted! No one person can watch everything so send me your reviews, critiques, praises, opinions, essays, artwork, scathing Twitter threads, or general attitude to anything from this new generation of streaming services whether it be Disney Plus, Apple Plus, DC Universe, or the upcoming HBO Max (Netflix, Prime, and Hulu also accepted but please keep it to their originals).

And with that I'll kick it off when the first thing I watched on Disney Plus:

THE MANDALORIAN S1E1 "Chapter 1"

I wanna talk about Werner Herzog in Star Wars.

The Mandalorian (Mando for short) is not what you'd expect. It's less a Disney Presents The Boba Fett Adventures Starring Boba Fett and more a sci-fi version of the 1970s television show The Virginian. It doesn't feature characters from any of the other movies (only familiar aliens like Rodians and Transdoshans and Salacious Crumbs) and all of the locations/planets are so far unnamed much like the title character. It also features Werner Herzog.

In a pivotal scene, Herzog, who intensely delivers all of his lines while SITTING DOWN, is flanked by unwashed Stormtroopers (the Empire has fallen on hard times since this is post-RotJ). He's frankly more threatening than the title character who is covered head to toe in armor and weapons. He gives our hero (antihero?) a mysterious bounty with the promise of a huge reward. It's an incredible scene and I realized while watching that this scene never would have happened in one of the main Star Wars films.

Don't get me wrong. This pilot definitely does not pull punches in the money department. There's a gigantic walrus monster that attacks Mando's ship at one point in a scene lovingly reminiscent of that Boba Fett cartoon from the Star Wars Holiday Special. Nick Nolte shows up as a Yoda-esque Ugnaught which uses a new puppet technology that is absolutely wild. This episode is actually chock full of interesting characters such as Carl Weathers' gruff bounty guild boss, Greef Carga (my current favorite dumb Star Wars name). Most importantly, Pedro Pascal acts his ass off behind a mask with very light dialogue for the entire 40 min run time. Pascal's Mando is an extremely likable character maybe more so than any new Star Wars protagonist not named Rey. There's a particularly humorous chemistry he has with Taika Waititi's droid character who is sadly not IG-88 but instead one of his droll cousins, IG-11.

There's a lot of action in this episode and it's very physical and gritty. There's no lightsabers to be had here but based on the episode's cliffhanger twist there's bound to be some Force shenanigans in the show's future. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't a few disembowelments. Mando has an arsenal that doesn't always rely on blasters and you see him use a wide variety of gadgets such as ropes and electric sticks like a sci-fi Batman. 

Overall, it's a very strong start to a promising show and the attention to detail is astoundingly well done. The first episode is directed by Dave Filoni who is no stranger to the Star Wars mythos having directed and produced quite a few seasons of the cartoon shows (the show vibes a lot with Rebels, probably the most underrated piece of Star Wars ephemera). There aren't sweeping words about Empires or Alliances or wide shots focused on teens dreaming about going into space. This is ultimately a show about a guy and his job and that makes it a bold new direction for Star Wars visual media. And did I mention Werner Herzog is in it? 

The Mandalorian is available exclusively on Disney Plus. Episodes will be released weekly on Fridays starting with the second episode on November 15th.