The Villains of Valley View

I am so totally not the audience for this show, I'm not a kid and haven't watched any of the precedents. I'm just watching it because I subscribe to Disney Plus, it isn't about punching people and I thought the premise sounded cute. The humor is predictable and snarky but what strikes me most is the art direction -- both costuming and set decoration are just weird. Do kids really dress like that? Why would villains bring abstract art sculptures to Texas? I watch people on sitcoms behave incomprehensibly badly to one another all the time but in this one the writing gives them an excuse to be a-holes, they're villains. Overcoming their villainy could offer a very powerful message to the right group of youngsters but can't they do it without the horribly ugly presentation?

Let me just say that I was definitely one of the skeptics when it came to this show. I thought it would be bad considering how Disney Channel (at least in the last 7-10 years) has had a track record of releasing really bad shows that last no longer than 2 seasons. For example Coop and Cami Ask The World, Shake It Up, So Random, etc. Villains Of Valley View seriously surprised me. The jokes were funny, the characters were interesting, and the costuming was a major step up for Disney Channel. People say this show is a shameless rip-off of The Thundermans (which wasn't that good of a show to begin with) but as someone who's watched both, they certainly have similar premises but VERY different executions. Villains Of Valley View, to me, just seems like a nice callback to older shows people have loved before and repurposing it for the newer generation. Give Villains Of Valley View a try if you want a feel of old Disney Channel, it may surprise you.

It's on par with shows like Henry Dranger and the Thundermans. They all have similar ratings which should be no surprise.

Like them, this show has quirky ideas and potentially fun scenes and stories. The only thing in the way is the profound lack of nuance that all these shows have.

Comedy is best paired with a little bit of seriousness. These characters need to be fleshed out more and in ways logical to the story. For example, "the overly friendly do gooder becomes best friends with the punk rock villain next door" is extremely intriguing. But they don't do it well. Its rushed over and forced. This could've been something that develops over the course of the show but they rush it in favor of easily forgettable gag plots.

I want that intriguing situation.

"The Villains of Valley View" is a sitcom about this family of supervillains who now have to live out an "ordinary lifestyle" I'll be honest, I somehow randomly saw an ad for this show. I decided to check out the show, and I actually enjoyed it! A lot of people have been comparing this show to Nickelodeon's "The Thundermans" but reversed. I can definetly see why they are. The jokes are actually pretty good. Not every joke hits, but there were some surprisingly funny jokes. If you like supervillains, or a quick laugh, I'd check out "Villains of Valley View."

Like all of the post 2000 Nickelodeon and Disney Situation Comedies, it has a few different layers to it. The layer I enjoy is the dry-sarcastic language humor which has nothing to do with the storyline. All of these shows could (and are) about anything, but its the dry-sarcastic responses between characters that conveys the humor. The storylines are just generic vehicles for the language humor. People don't realize these shows are all written by people generally in their mid to late 40's and they write stuff that makes them laugh. I know I would have never found the humor in these shows as a kid, you have to be over 40 to catch the humor. It's humorous to me when people think just because a show is on one of these networks, it must be a stupid kids show. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I know its hard to get over that hump at first to accept that these shows are every bit as adult as the shows on other networks. The plots are not the draw here, all sitcoms have been using the same 30 storylines since the 1960's. Its all in the sarcasm that has absolutely nothing to do with plots.