Galavant: Can ABC Pull Off a Musical?

With NBC pulling off musicals The Sound of Music and Peter Pan with a fair amount of success, maybe Disney-owned ABC felt it was falling behind.  Of course, the creators of tonight's Galavant could have just as easily been watching The Princess Bride and Monty Python given what they have created.  Pitched as a "Medieval Musical Fairy-Tale," it is not too far from the other fairytale shows on ABC, such as Once Upon a Time (we will not talk about Once Upon a Time in Wonderland).  

The trailer for this new series shows plenty of song and dance to keep everyone engaged.  It is the age old story of lost love, as ABC explains: 

Once upon a time, the dashing hero, Galavant (Joshua Sasse) lost the love of his life, Madalena (Mallory Jansen), to the evil King Richard (Timothy Omundson). Now, our fallen hero is ready to take revenge and restore his “happily ever after.” But it won’t be without a few twists and turns along the way.  

With composer Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast) and lyricist Glenn Slater (Tangled) on board, we should hear a few decent songs as well.  And to mix things up, the show guest stars include Hugh Bonneville, John Stamos, Weird Al, Rutger Hauer, and Ricky Gervais.  It will last for only eight episodes over four weeks, but I expect we will see more if it does well.  In the meantime, you can sing along with this clip as you learn more about the series.

Robert Lloyd's review in the Los Angeles Times did not give it high praise, but merely declared it watchable:

The plot, though made of recycled parts, is just twisty enough to pull one along. And as the premise inclines toward a resolution, and the story involves a journey, which also implies an end, perhaps four weeks of comedy extravaganza will be just enough.

David Wiegand in The San Francisco Chronicle was somewhat more impressed with what ABC was able to put together:

Many of the performances are top notch, and Omundson is even better than that, creating a perfectly credible and delectable mix of childishness and unrepentant evil in Richard’s character. Sasse is great as the self-admiring Galavant, and equally fine performances are delivered by Youngblood, Vinnie Jones as Richard’s dumb-like-a-fox henchman Gareth and Darren Evans as Richard’s Chef, constantly worried that one bad figgy pudding will mean the end of his sorry life. 

I am interested in seeing what ABC has created and will be among the viewers tonight.