It's Like Magic

When I commented on the first season of this show, I did admit that I have a lot of time for Yulin Kuang's work - I saw her early shorts years ago and was very much taken by her voice and style, and have kept with her since. I also noted that the first season of this show was okay, albeit not much more than that, but that I had hoped the second season would seize on the strengths and work out the weaknesses. Really disappointing to see it do very little of that but instead become something much safer and by-the-numbers.

It is hard to describe quite what it does, but it certainly feels constructed by committee. The first season had a certain raw energy and voice that I enjoyed, even if it felt like it wasn't as strong in the whole as I would have liked. The second season sees some characters retained, but essentially it is rebooted into a whole new setting and set of scenarios. The new setup is that Ella and Tim are a couple (as they were) working at a transport company, Sasha is an aspiring actress, and Ella writes fan-fiction involving characters from a network TV show. From here it goes through relationship drama, and tv fanship, but it does it in a way that is much less informed than I would have expected, and offers much less energy than the first season. And this is the crux for me - it seemed to lack spark, or a sense of joy behind it - it always felt very safe and a bit like it had been done by committee to the point that there wasn't a specific creative force or vision behind it.

The songs are mostly 'meh', which is a big problem for a musical series. The first season had several clever and catchy tracks, but here they mostly tend to sound the same, with romantic tones and similar melodies. There are only a couple of songs that standout because they are clever, catchy, and have some teeth - "Watching You" and "Everyone Dies" are those songs, but they are too far ahead of the others to make for a consistent approach. The performances match this, because they are mostly quite ordinary and unmemorable; I don't think it is the fault of the cast, but the writing limits what they have to work with, and it feels like they aren't into what they are saying and doing. This is fair enough, because I wasn't sold on any of the romances or characters, and found myself watching and not really caring about anything that was going on - whereas in the first season I had enjoyed hanging out with the band and shared what they were doing.

It isn't awful, it is just quite bland and disappointing as a season. There are good ideas in there, and lots of elements which I should have been able to connect to, but ultimately it lacks a spark or a hook.