Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (season 1)

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⭐ 6.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

So this is a recent Apple TV show about Monarch, which in the Godzilla universe, is the organisation that studies monsters and tries to stop them from destroying the world. As Weview's resident Godzilla fan, I was obligated to watch.

This show was actually an interesting study for me into what I think is good TV. This show has a massive budget, some household names (Kurt Russell), and a known IP that I enjoy. It explores the human side of Godzilla's destruction, which I think is great, and the script feels like a lot of effort went into it. Lots of twists, lots of complicated relationships, lots of interesting dynamics. This isn't like the recent Godzilla movies where it feels like the script is hashed out in one sitting. It avoids cliche, and explores some interesting ideas.

And yet... I never connected with this show. I'm not totally sure what it was besides that I found a lot of characters annoying, and their decisions often made no sense. There are interesting character dynamics, and then there are characters just being unnecessarily dramatic in order to create tension. They clearly tried to layer these characters and give them depth... but it just didn't always work for me.

But this show looks great, with lots of cool locations. There is very little of actual monster screentime, but when they are present, they look as good as any movie. I'm okay with limiting the monster screentime, and I get there are budget motivations, but I really do wish we got just a bit more. This show also has some nice musical themes, especially the theme song, but yeah, I feel like the parts never added up to a terrific whole.

It makes me sad because I'm happy when lots of money is spent on IPs I actually like, but if a second season comes out, I'm not actually sure I'd watch.


Who am I kidding... If there are monster fights, I will be seeing them.

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