For some strange reason whenever The Little Mermaid releases a new film into theaters it's very quickly followed up with an animated prequel TV series. With the recent remake not really being exception to this as both Disney have really just dropped the first eight episodes of this prequel animated show on both DisneyJR and Disney + and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the show that no one was asking for with the show in question being called simply just "Ariel" enjoy.
The plot of this show is Ariel and her friends go about there day to day lives in Atlantica and learn what means to not only be good friends but also be good people as well. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty not that bad. However that's also the same problem as the plot of this show wasn't all that good either as all it was was the typical kids animated show plot only with The Little Mermaid characters and nothing really new added to the plot to make it feel unique and different from all of the other kids animated that are out there and the show does suffer because of how predictable not only the shows plot is but also how predictable the plots of each of the episodes really are as well and while as a plot this show does work for it's target audience due to the characters that are being featured in this show it was also always going to get some adults watching the show as well and there's really nothing there plot wise to make them want to keep on watching the show in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this show is Mykal-Michelle Harris as Ariel , Taye Diggs as King Triton and Amber Riley as Ursula. Also starring in this show is Elizabeth Phoenix Caro as Lucia , Cruz Flateau as Fernie , Gracen Newton as Flounder , Kevin Michael Richardson as Sebastian , Parvesh Cheena as Ravi and Squid , Dana Heath as Ayanna , Jessica Mikayla as Alanna , Alanna Ubach as Cristina Cuttles , Yvette Nicole Brown as Aquatica , Melissa Villaseñor as Navi , Ron Funches as Delfino , Jeff Bennett as The Duke Of Clownfish , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows star Gary Anthony Williams as Hermès and Amari McCoy as Jewels.
Now then interms of what I personally thought /felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty not that bad. As it's quite clear that all of this shows cast members especially the young cast members are indeed trying to turn in a hood performance with the shows adult cast members mostly just phoning in there performances and while the child performers are indeed decent in this show they also have plenty of room to go as alot of the time they do turn so fairly average performances which is excusable as they are only kids after all the same thing really isn't excusable for the adult actors who really should know how to act by now and yet alot of the time it just comes across as them phoning in there performances with the same thing also being true for Kevin Michael Richardson who despite having played Sebastian in the Kingdom Hearts games here just sounds to old to be playing the character with the acting in this show not really being helped by the fact that the script for this show is just so bad as it gives none of the shows actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is there respective characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does effect the overall quality of the acting that's in this show.
Doing the animation for this show is the legends and the greats that are currently over at Wild Canary Animation. Now then interms of what I personally thought /felt about thew actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this show was in all honesty alot better then what it really had right to be as by all rights the animation in this show should have been really bad and yet what we get instead is a show that actually has some really good animation that does on times border on being feature film quality but the character designs in this show just don't look that good as Ursula just looks really laughably bad with her now having a weird looking hairstyle and being transformed from someone who could have a beauty when she was younger to instead looking like someone wouldn't be a beauty which does against the whole point of the character but the characters do have some really nice fluid animation to them tho and the whole ocean does look good in this show.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!
As you can no doubt work out by now this show does take some inspiration from the live action remake of The Little Mermaid. However it also takes inspiration from the 1989 original film as well which does leave you with this odd mish mash of ideas as you''ll get Ariel who blatantly looks like Halle Bailey and yet she's talking with sat Sabastian who looks like how did in the original film and then you have both King Triton and Ursula looking like new versions of the characters all of which just really doesn't work and it makes you wonder why the makers of this show chose to take inspiration from the 2023 The Little Mermaid movie as to a more main stream audience those takes on the characters really aren't going to be that well known instead it's the designs of the original films that really are more well known and as a result of that is the fact that it would have made alot more sense from a marketing perspective to have the characters look like how they did in the original film and make this show a prequel to both the original film and it's spin-off series as well.
The characters that they do create for this show that mainly being Ariel's friends Lucia and Fernie do seem like good characters. With Lucia having some magical powers to her which is a good idea as is the fact that shew looks up to Ursula but Fernie on the other hand despite him having alot of knowledge about fish which is a good way to get that knowledge across to the shows young kid audience that doesn't work is the fact that the character wants to a marine biologist a job which would require him to mostly be on land and would require him to capture things from the ocean to look at them an examine them so surely as someone who lives in the ocean he should want to do something that wouldn't effect ocean life instead of choosing something that would put ocean life and the life of the animals in danger let alone put his own life in danger and just straight up doesn't make sense as he lives underwater anyway and so he would have no where to store the fish that he did want to examine in the first place where Lucia's goal of wanting to be as good of a sea witch as Ursula does make sense for that world and it is something that could actually foreseeably happen at some point in the future where as Fernie's goal couldn't happen in the future.
Speaking of Ursula this show did her dirty as in both the original film , the 2023 remake and in The Little Mermaid: The Animated Series she was a villain. Yet for some strange reason in this show she's Ariel's fun aunt who is anything but a villain which is something that just doesn't work at all and it shows that the makers of this show just don't understand the character as this is a character who was evil because of the fact that her brother King Triton was named heir to the throne and that basically drove her mad and because of that she spent years trying to find ways to get revenge on Triton fort what she perceived as a crime against her and so when Ariel comes to her for help in the remake she sees that as her way of getting her revenge with her basically being a person who might have started out as a good person but became more evil and more twisted over the years and yet this is something that isn't present in this show and while the show does try to give her some personality by making the owner of a magic camp where she teaches students how to do magic it's still not enough to replace what was taken from an interesting character.
Now then each episode of this show has / had an exact grand total running time of no longer then twenty three minuets. With each episode being split up into eleven minuet episodes is something that in this case does work to the shows advantage as each of the individual plots for the episodes aren't strong enough to support an entire twenty two minuet episode but it is strong enough to support an eleven minuet segment of an episode tho and yet while all eight of this shows first batch of episodes do have some good running times to them at the same time tho none of the episodes that have been released thus far take the time that they really should have done to develop the shows characters and while the show can get away with not giving the legacy characters that much development as they do appear in the 2023 movie so they can kind of get away with it the show also doesn't take the time fully develop it's new characters and as a result of that is the fact that each episode does feel like that it's repat as nothing changes about the show and none of the characters grow and learn from there experiences either but I will admit that this show does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is a comedy that means that I gave to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty not that bad. As Flounder despite being the groups "fat one" and at times "dumb one" as well who is just obsessed with food and nothing more then that does get the odd good joke in this show with the same thing also being for Ursula as well but alot of this shows jokes just aren't that funny with the show at times coming across more as a drama then it is a comedy when everything about the show is designed to be a comedy and yet the makers of this show just don't give alot of the characters that many good jokes and while the shows target audience will find this show to be funny people who grew up with the original film or even with the 2023 live action remake won't find this show to be all that funny as the jokes that are in this show just aren't that good for the most part with alot of the shows jokes just falling flat in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!
Overall while this show might get better once more episodes are released these first eight episodes while there are a few good episodes in them aren't the best episodes to start this show off on as the show does very quickly fall into a formular where a character does whatever they want then ignores there friends and then when things backfire learns some sort of forced lesson that the audience has worked out near the start of the episode and that is something that really does bog the show down quite alot in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very show in this very review and as such that really does mean that this show really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Disney fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website that I personally preferred to use to get the images that I personally used in this very review being the wonderful the official Disney fandom wiki page since all of the images that are currently up and and featured / presented to us on the official Disney fandom wiki page are all fairly high in quality and as well as being fairly freaking high in definition.