I was a bit shocked when I learned that a new Gremilns animated series was in the works I was a bit shocked. As much as I liked The Gremlins movies, I felt it got lost as a part of the eighties with other pop culture touchstones that weren’t milked into oblivion. Gizmo would occasionally pop up, but the villains and the gremlins faded into obscurity. That makes a property a perfect time to rebuild it and make it something even better than what it was. Here is where Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai comes in. This story starts in 1920 Shanghai, where you get to see what Gizmo comes from, and ends up with a young ten-year-old boy named Sam Wing (Izaac Wang). Sam, who’s mother Fong Wing (Ming-Na Wen), is a respected doctor who goes on a shopping trip with his adventurous Grandfather (James Hong) and ends up finding Gizmo and is the person to tell Sam about the trouble that can happen with the Mogwai and how they need to get help get Gizmo back home. After a run-in with street thief Elle (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) that leads to the big bad of the series coming to light Riley Greene (Matthew Rhys), who wants the Mogwai for his own nefarious purposes, begins a grand adventure with Sam and Elle with Gizmo to get back to Gizmo’s home.
The show’s design is bright and inviting. The colors are warm, and the designs are different so that it looks unique and helps take it back to the origins of the concept from the beginning of the first movie, where Gizmo was from China. The show has fun takes on Chinese fantasy elements and figures that sometimes surprised me. What also surprised me was how high the stakes were in this series. I don’t know if the show is right for young children because bad things happen to people that aren’t reversed. Now this show isn’t gory, but you might have to explain some things if those kids aren’t at least a third grader. The gremlins themselves are wild and brutal, just as they always were, but I think it gets to be shown even more than those puppets in the Eighties did. Greene is also a fantastic over the top full-on, evil bad guy. He delights in his actions at all times and is always the most significant threat, he’s not redeemable at all, and man, do I love that. He’s not right, and you can’t defend what he does. It’s great to have a real bad guy.
As you can tell, I really liked this animated series, and it’s a standout show on the Max platform and one of the best things I’ve watched on TV this spring/summer so far this year. If you’re a fan of the Gremlins, you should really enjoy this show. Yet if you’ve never seen the movies and at most just know Gizmo from Multiversus, then that’s fine too. The show works for everyone, as all great shows do for audiences. I hope they give this show another run because it deserves it and would be a welcome reason to go to Max each week.
Score: A
