It has only been a couple of days since Scooby-Doo animated spin-off series Velma made its mark on HBO Max in the wrong way, but it has been revealed that a second season of the Mindy Kaling-led series could already be in the works. The first day of release brought a mixed blessing to Velma, being the most-viewed debut of any HBO Max original animation but seeing its audience reviews freefall to a current 7% approval rating.
Velma was meant to be a quirky R-rated take on the human characters from Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo cartoons, but as the latest in a long line of recent attempts to diversify the casting and characters of older IPs and modernize a popular franchise, Velma has felt the full force of audiences annoyance at the trend. While there have been many comments made about Velma among the thousands of negative reviews that pummeled the audience approval rating into single figures, the main focus of the backlash has been changing the ethnicity of three of the four leads and the removal of Scooby-Doo from the equation. In addition, many reviews note that the series would have been better served as a brand-new show rather than “shoehorning” well-known characters into its narrative.
According to the Entertainment Identifier Registry, Velma Season 2 episodes are already listed as being in development outside the season 1 episodes. Whether this changes in light of the recent wave of negativity around the series is unclear, but much could be reliant on how the rest of the series delivers in terms of viewing figures.
Has Velma Really Got Everything So Wrong, Or Are Nostalgic Memories to Blame for Negative Reviews?
There are very few remakes or reboots of popular franchises that don’t have a rough ride. When those new versions take away a central character and make significant changes to the majority of those characters that remain, then the initial knee-jerk reaction is usually always going to hurt.
However, very few new takes on old franchises have suffered the complete annihilation that Velma has been given on its arrival on HBO Max. So the question to be answered is, has Velma really delivered something as terrible as its reviews suggest, or has it been unfairly treated due to its decision to completely re-image one of the best-known cartoon franchises of all time as an R-rated adult show?
Although the negative reviews mostly focus on what has been done to the iconic Scooby-Doo characters, the universal love of the Scooby-Doo franchise makes it almost impossible to ignore the changes made not only to the character’s appearance but also to their character traits and interactions with each other. With only two episodes having been released so far, there will likely be more reviews to come for Velma. However, it seems unlikely that viewing numbers will continue to remain high now that most of those tuning in for the series debut have made their feelings very clearly felt.