My Review of Dead End: Paranormal Park · 12:24am March 25th
My TV Show Rating Score:
5/5: It is an awesome show!
4.5/5: it is a great show albeit not perfect
4/5: It’s a good show with minor flaws
3/5: It’s overall okay/guilty pleasure
2/5: It’s bad but not awful
1/5: Look, up in the sky! It’s super bad!
0/5: MY EYEEEESSS!!!
Greetings, folks! This is Mr. J back with another TV show review for tonight. This evening, I will be reviewing a Netflix animated series entitled “Dead End: Paranormal Park” which aired on the platform in 2022. This show has a pretty interesting premise and engaging concept that highlights some social issues young people face as well as embracing its horror elements within the story.
This show is about two teenagers and a talking pug who work and reside in a spooky amusement park where all sorts of mysterious things occur. Norma, Barney, and Pugsley not only learn more about the mystery that surrounds the park but also themselves.
To put it simply, I enjoyed this show for its compelling story structure and interesting narrative. Norma and Barney both suffer from issues that emotionally affect their interaction with other characters.
Norma has social anxiety and autism which impairs her ability to understand social cues. Barney is someone who has a grudge against his parents for not standing up for him against his grandmother. Both young people learn to trust each other and respect each other’s boundaries…which eventually develops into friendship.
Courtney herself is a pretty decent character at best although I don’t exactly find her to be totally interesting or anything of that nature.
As for Pugsley, he was the character I was most interested in…given the fact he’s a talking dog due to magic and having a bit of Temeluchus in him. I loved his banter with the other characters and his chemistry with Barney. It sucks we’ll never get a full answer of where he is after he sacrificed himself to save his friends.
Speaking of flaws, the only issues I have with this show is the way they pace the episodes in both seasons 1 and 2. Season one focuses on the buildup of demons whereas season two focuses on angels’ rising up.
While I like season one more due to its consistent focus on the overarching plot, season two feels rather boring with the number of filler episodes it contains. It does have some episodes that cover its own overarching plot with Fingers, but the filler made it feel like it wasn’t much important.
The pacing feels off, and the demon antagonists are not fully fleshed out in terms of characterization. The ones I’m referring to are Temeluchus and Zagan; they were rather one-dimensional at first until they got slightly interesting in season two.
Unfortunately, due to the cancellation of this show, their resolution is never paid off. So as it stands, they were characters who had a lot of potential to be something greater than their previous portrayals but never had the chance to shine more.
While the horror element was used faithfully in both seasons, its comedy element was sadly dull and lacking. I can see the attempt, but it just wasn’t enough for me.
Those are what I find to be problematic in this series. Otherwise, it’s a pretty underrated show with a great animation style and fairly good voice acting.
This show even took the time to properly represent LGBTQ+ characters: Norma is bisexual, and Barney is gay and transgender. While the latter’s relationship with Logs is cute, I especially appreciate the fact they actually addressed Norma dealing with her crush on Badyah and the latter girl not returning the same feelings for her.
We need to realize that some people will not always return the same romantic feelings for others due to personal reasons. I hate how almost every cartoon I’ve seen often has main characters develop feelings for the others until the latter group suddenly return the same affection with no buildup.
So it was really refreshing to see a main character like Norma not in a relationship with someone, especially after they were politely “rejected” by their crush. In my opinion, she’s not fit to be in a relationship with anyone— considering her own problems. They wrote the conflict in this show very well.
Overall, “Dead End: Paranormal Park” is heavily flawed due to the negative factors I’ve already outlined, but it is still an enjoyable show that can appeal to both young and old audiences alike, especially the demographic who have a thing for the horror genre. Maybe one day, it will get a satisfying conclusion in a graphic novel or something. Therefore, it gets a 4/5: a lively beginning.
Peace!
If there’s one thing I hate about Hollywood, it’s cancelling series and franchises before they get a proper ending.