Always Be Ready for an Adventure / Never Take a Tour / Never Use Double Negatives / Always Bring a Toothpick / There’s Always a Fortune in the Cookie Factory

The animated prequel to the 80s movie classic returns for more adventures as Sam and Elle continue their quest to stop Gremlins from taking over the world.

One of my small screen highlights of 2023 was without doubt the first season of the animated prequel Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai. It was witty, well-voiced, good looking and told an enjoyable family-friendly tale of Mogwai/Gremlin shenanigans over half a century before the action depicted in Joe Dante’s 1984 original movie.

So, do the first five instalments of this second series live up to expectations? Well, almost. It’s still fun, it’s still witty, the voice acting is fine (although I miss Matthew Rhys), it’s still eminently watchable, but there are a few niggles.

Where Secrets of the Mogwai had a clear through-line, The Wild Batch struggles a bit with focus. About half way through, I lost track of what it was Sam and Elle were trying to achieve. One minute they’re looking for mystic portals under the streets of Shanghai, the next, they’re battling Zombies on Alcatraz, the next, Algernon Gremlin aka Noggin (George Takei) is trying to live the American dream by becoming an educated crime boss and take over San Francisco’s Chinatown. Meanwhile, Elle (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) is searching for her mother, to whom all sorts of weird stuff has happened off-screen and in the past.

It’s a bit all over the place.

Nevertheless, the episodes are short and it’s great to hear Simu Liu as Chang, Sam and Elle’s new partner in Gremlin-catching, although he introduces yet another set of objectives which only serve to muddy the waters even more.

Verdict: Gremlins: The Wild Batch is perfectly fine, especially if taken on an episode-by-episode basis, just don’t expect the series to hang together as a whole. 7/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com