If you haven’t been watching ABC’s
new medieval musical comedy series Galavant,
then you’re missing what The Wall Street
Journal calls
“one of the oddest network shows, comedy or otherwise, in some time.” But there’s
more to Galavant than just campy, boisterous
fun.
The four-weekend show, which airs
back-to-back half-hour episodes on Sunday nights, centers on our hero Galavant
and his quest to rescue his fair Madalena from the king who stole her away.
Galavant, played by Joshua Sasse with just the right amount of self-mocking, is
a dashing but washed-up Lancelot with – as the theme song says – “square jaw
and perfect hair/cojones out to
there.” As for his lady love: we are told with a hint of Chaucerian bawdiness that
“he loved her to excess, thrice daily more or less.”
The show delights in turning
fairy-tale clichés on their heads; for example, Madalena (Mallory Jansen) is no
damsel in distress and in no rush to be rescued. Though she despises her
husband King Richard (the show-stealing Timothy Omundson), she is in love with the wealth and power
that accompany her crown – not to mention the fact that she’s having an affair
with the court jester. Meanwhile Galavant is taken aback when a gang of singing
squires reveals to him that, far from being an admired hero, a knightly prince
like himself is considered “nothing but a jackass in a fancy metal can.”
Along the journey, Galavant
encounters guest stars like John Stamos (who engages him in the funniest
jousting scene in TV and movie history), Ricky Gervais as Xanax the wizard, and
“Weird Al” Yankovich in a troupe of singing monks.
Galavant
drew favorable reviews and strong ratings in its premiere, but it’s not for
everyone. The comedy is unabashedly silly, the actors vamp it up – and then
there are the musical numbers, which may put off some viewers. I myself am
ordinarily no fan of musicals, but Galavant’s
energetic musical numbers include the show’s cleverest lines. The series stems from the same writing
and music team behind the animated movie Tangled,
which my daughters have correctly judged has the best songs of any Disney
princess film.
In a review sprinkled with
adjectives like “zany” and “daffy,” the Wall
Street Journal dubbed Galavant a
rare thing: “a broadcast series that diverges from the sacred sitcom
touchstones of work, relationships and family.” But the show is connecting with a different cultural
touchstone: it reaches down a long tradition that includes The Princess Bride, Camelot
and more, all the way back to the Arthurian tales told in medieval courts.
We are heirs of the Age of
Chivalry. We continue to be emotionally compelled by the Middle Ages in a way
that we aren’t by the Renaissance or the Enlightenment or any other period in
Western history. Twelfth-century troubadours virtually invented our
contemporary notions of romance. Twelfth-century knights virtually invented and
codified the chivalrous behavior that may be under assault in our time, but
which is still deeply ingrained in us. Time and again we return to the
touchstones of medieval legend and history for epic tales of romance and
heroism.
“Medieval” may be a synonym today
for “barbaric” (hence Ving Rhames’ memorable line in Pulp Fiction: “I’m about to get medieval on your ass”), and the
reality of it was indeed savagely violent. But the Middle Ages still wears a
mythic luster of romance and gallantry for us, and at heart we yearn to
reconnect with that, whether or not we are comfortable admitting it. We live in
a jaded time, after all. We protect ourselves with the armor of snark and
cynicism. We subvert that yearning through comedy, as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail – or Galavant. But underneath that playfulness are echoes of an heroic
age which still speak to us today.
(This article originally appeared here in Acculturated, 1/16/15)
