Episode Titles: The Legend of Tal’Dorei – Part 1, The Legend of Tal’Dorei – Part 2
Directed by: Young Heller (Episode 1), Alicia Chan (Episode 2), Stanley Von MedVey (Episode 3)
Written by: Brandon Auman (Episodes 1&2), Eugene Son (Episode 3)
Original Music by: Neal Acree
Full Cast and Crew: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11247162/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm
Plot:
In the world of Exandria, the kingdom of Tal’Dorei is facing a new threat. Something evil, something powerful, something big, and so the kingdom is in need of heroes, but heroes are so difficult to find these days.
It seems that the kingdom’s only hope, rests upon the shoulders of one small group of ragtag misfits turned mercenaries for hire, who just so happen to be looking for their next big payday. These unlikely heroes love nothing more than to get paid, drink cheap ale, and have a brawl…among other things.
The team of heroes, known collectively as Vox Machina, consists of seven individuals, eight if you include Trinket the bear…which you should, all playing their part to create what is an unlikely, yet perfectly fitting group. There’s the twin half-elves, Vex’ahlia (Laura Bailey) and Vax’ildan (Liam O’Brien), the human Gunslinger, Percival or Percy as he is often called (Taliesin Jaffe), a third half-elf, this time a Druid called Keyleth (Marisha Ray), two gnomes, one female, a pious cleric known as Pike (Ashley Johnson) and the other gnome is a scandalous Bard known as Scanlan (Sam Riegal) and last but not least, the loveable Goliath outcast known as Grog (Travis Willingham). Together, these heroes will fight as one to help save the kingdom of Tal’Dorei, much to the surprise of many.
Story:
Season one kicks off with a great pilot that gives you pretty much all the information you need to understand the characteristics of the characters within the team of Vox Machina. Obviously, this is a show made for the fans of Critical Role, the web show from Geek and Sundry that came before, but in general, this pilot is easy enough to follow for any newcomers to understand also. As the story continues into episodes two and three, the show continues to be highly enjoyable, as the group continues their unruly shenanigans that often finds them in deeper trouble than they’d like. There are some great twists, some really powerful scenes and somewhat more annoyingly, some fantastic cliff-hangers, that leave you waiting eagerly and impatiently for the next episode(s).
Bursting at the seams with humour, action, gore and great storytelling, The Legend of Vox Machina is pretty much everything you could want from an adult high fantasy animated series. Scanlan the Bard also sings some absolutely brilliant songs, but for those of you who have watched the Critical Role campaigns, keep an ear out for the little references you’ll hear throughout the series.
Cast and Characters:
The original cast returned from Critical Role to voice their heroes. For those of you who don’t know and have not seen an episode of Critical Role (which by the way is available on YouTube), you may be familiar with the voice cast from other media, as there are some big names rolling the dice.
Besides the original Critical Role cast, there are some more cracking names providing their fantastic talent to the NPC’s of the series, the non-playable-characters that were originally all voiced by Matt Mercer as the DM of the Critical Role campaigns. Now though, these characters are brought to life using the voice talents of actors such as David Tennant, Stephanie Beatriz, Khary Payton, Indira Varma, Tony Hale, Bobby Hall (a.k.a Logic), and many more.
Art/Animation:
The animation is done by Titmouse, Inc. who is known for their legendary work on animated projects such as Metalocalypse, Big Mouth, and Star Trek: Lower Decks to name a few, as well as certain animated sequences within live-action projects such as Community, Freddy Got Fingered, and Loki, again just to name but a few.
The animation is eye-popping and really adds great detail to bring the show to life, be it with the character designs themselves, the beautiful scenic shots of the kingdom, or the little details to aspects of the show such as magic effects or the buckets full of blood that gets spilled throughout the series.
The motions are smooth making the action sequences feel as badass as they should, especially when facing a larger, and/or stronger, opponent.
Conclusion:
The Legend of Vox Machina is an animated fantasy show for adults in the world. Dungeons and Dragons is something that was once reviled and still greatly under-appreciated, as well as unexplored by so many, but in recent years the high fantasy genre seems to be something that is growing in popularity. Probably due to the fact that many celebrities, some of who people did not expect such as Vin Diesel, have admitted openly their love of the game, and so many other folks are now aware that they don’t have to hide their love of rolling the dice either.
There will be a rise once again in various mediums as fantasy takes over, and The Legend of Vox Machina is an excellent animated series that will help others similar to it thrive. It means so much to us fans of the web show and I can’t wait to see where the series will take us.
The Legend of Vox Machina is available to watch now on Amazon Prime!
Media Mallrat 
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