This season of Apple TV's Mythic Quest has been quite a bit different than any other of the usually hilarious series. It turns out that F. Murray Abraham's departure was just the first of some big changes coming for the show that was supposed to focus on video game development. One of the biggest changes, especially in season 3 is that the focus has been much more on the characters' backstories, and almost no attention has been paid to creating video games. What has been especially frustrating about this season is that there was a way to do this where a fine line could have been walked. Instead, the people behind Mythic Quest have gone all in. It appears they got bored writing about video game problems and having their characters solve them. That's a bit of a problem, considering it is supposed to be the focus of the entire series.
"Mouse Hunt," the eighth episode of this season, was more of what has been the same this particular run. That's especially frustrating after the series seemed to be having a bit of a return to form over the last three episodes of Mythic Quest. "Mouse Hunt," in fact, did everything that didn't work in some of the previous installments. There was the fact that a 20-minute episode was trying to tell two very different stories and that one of those stories didn't need to be told at all. Everyone was in different places for much of the show, and there was almost no mention of any video game development at all.
Mythic Quest's Side Quests Bore
The formula for "Mouse Hunt" especially doesn't work coming on the heels of last week's episode of Mythic Quest, "Sarian." That episode, which focused on the upbringing of both Ian and Poppy, was a fantastic side-quest. But the return to the regular storylines should have included a return to the formula that works and what hooked the audience in the first place. Instead, they came back and at the end of the episode, decided to offer up another bummer finish. After the seventh episode of this run being a real tearjerker at times, it felt like unbridled fun should have been the name of the game. Instead, viewers got strife and a weirdly annoying bit with Brad and Jo.
It feels as though someone at Apple TV desperately wants to give Jo and Brad their own spinoff at some point. Maybe they actually will be featured in Mere Mortals. The problem is that while they were quite funny in small doses, their inability to interact like regular humans is getting increasingly boring and annoying. It's important to remember that when Brad first appeared in the series, he was actually the most normal of the bunch and often looked down his nose at the weirdness that Ian and David and Poppy were always generating. Perhaps to give him a bigger role, they've made him quite a bit weirder. That's culminated this season where he's a janitor who wants to turn every job into some sort of secret mission. In short, Brad was much better before his recent heel turn. He was the cool guy in a sea of weird nerds. Now he's the weirdest guy in the office and it just doesn't work.
Messing Up The Dynamics
it seems as if most of the characters' changing into something else near the end of season 2 and throughout season 3 of Mythic Quest has been the show's attempt at "character growth." The only character where that's worked at all is David, who has been more of a parental figure than he was in the debut arc. He even tends to be the guy with the cool head, though he returns to his roots from time to time, including running away from a rat and putting Jo on the job.
There has also been a dynamic shift between Ian, Poppy, and Dana that just wasn't as fun and funny as the first two seasons of Mythic Quest. When Ian and Poppy were being horrible to the testers, it was funny to laugh at how pompous they were while thinking they were somehow superior. They weren't actually "superior" but the shift this season and again this episode has made Dana a mother figure. It's worth pointing out that it's still not clear what Dana does at Grimmpop and that makes the show seem even more obvious that she's there only to take on that role when the two main programmers can't get along. It's funny now and then, it just comes off as weird in "Mouse Hunt."
Finally, there is the shift between Ian and Poppy that starts with some funny bits. The back and forth about how long it takes Poppy to go to the bathroom and how she's clearly not drinking enough water was vintage Mythic Quest. However, it appears the show wants the audience to be worried about the two deciding they need to go their separate ways. That's not any fun nor is it a great plot point, even if there were plenty of people who assumed Grimmpop would be a failure in one way or another. Perhaps because last week's episode was such a bummer (even though it was really good) another episode that isn't all that fun is even more of a bummer (in a bad way.) That there were only tangential mentions of actually doing work on video games only makes it worse.
There are two episodes of this season of Mythic Quest left. Then there's a whole other season at least and an offshoot series. The show is going to have to find its footing and get back to what made it one of the best series on television. Season 3 has been good but not great and that in itself is quite a bummer.
New episodes of Mythic Quest are available on Apple TV+ every Friday.