Trolls: TrollsTopia

This article was copied (instead of imported) from the now-deleted Terrible Shows & Episodes Wiki from the Wayback Machine.

Trolls: TrollsTopia
This is basically the Transformers: Age of Extinction of the Trolls franchise.
Genre: Fantasy Musical Comedy Running Time: 22 minutes (Pilot) 11 minutes (Segments) Country: United States Created by: Victoria Davis Distributed by: NBCUniversal Television Distribution DreamWorks Animation Television Starring: Skylar Astin Amanda Leighton Sean T. Krishnan David Fynn Fryda Wolff Kevin Michael Richardson Walt Dohrn Kenan Thompson Ron Funches Michael-Leon Wooley Kat Graham John Paul Karliak Jeanine Mason Vladimir Caamaño Anita Kalathara Megan Hilty Eric Lopez Lauren Mayhew Chuck DeWayne Seasons: 6 Episodes: 45 (89 segments) Previous show: Trolls: The Beat Goes On!

Trolls: TrollsTopia is an American animated television series based upon the events of the film Trolls World Tour.

Plot

The series focuses on the trial and error of TrollsTopia and the everyday events of the Trolls residing in the city. It covers the hurdles that face as each Tribe learns to get along with the other ones.

Bad Qualities

1. Despite being set after the events of World Tour, the real issue is that it's far from being an actual sequel series to Trolls World Tour. It instead feels more like a one man's bad spin-off series that somewhat doesn't have any charm, heart, or basically, anything that made both the first two movies, the holiday special and The Beat Goes On! great at all as this show has constant continuity errors that seemed to have contradicted the events of the first two movies as well as The Beat Goes On!.
2. Some of the plots and song numbers either have nonsensical writing or ended up dangerously came close to using the clichéd category respectively such as the Buddy System, Mouth Guitar, Bring It In, The Ballad of Holly Darlin, and especially Cloud Control, not to mention that some of the unused concepts for the show are very weird that it felt like they should be in another show rather than Trolls.
3. Just like the final two seasons of The Fairly OddParents, the characterization of the characters has become incredibly lackluster in comparison to the first two movies and The Beat Goes On, as if the franchise doesn't know how to handle it's focusing on the characters anymore:
   • Many of the secondary characters are either absent or receded to supporting/minor characters, however, the series took the inconsistent characterization on those characters way too far with the fourth season, where many of them getting very minor roles just so that the series would focus entirely on the new troll tribes without even giving any of these characters a chance to have their episodes. Here are four examples:
     • The rest of the Snack Pack aside from Poppy, Branch, Biggie, and Cooper, especially in the fourth season where DJ Suki got reduced to a background character, Smidge has only a hand full of lines, Satin and Chenille appear only once with lines in "Hair-aldine: The Musical", and Guy Diamond only had two episodes where he has a major role are in "Trollection" and Shiny Diamond.
     • King Peppy, Creek, and some characters from The Beat Goes On! barely get any screen time due to them getting cast as very minor roles.
     • Prince Gristle Jr. only appears as a cameo in one episode.
     • Many of the Bergens, most notably Bridget, are nowhere to be seen nor mentioned.
   • While Chaz and Tiny Diamond returned, most of the characters from the second film such as Delta Dawn, Queen Barb (aside from being mentioned), Riff, Prince D, King Quincy, Queen Essence, Hickory, Trollzard, and King Trollex don't get to appear in this show and are replaced with many similar characters.
     • While some DreamWorks movie-based series had a handful of characters from the films they based on in favor of newer characters (like The Adventures of Puss in Boots (which is understandable, since that series took place before Puss returns to San Ricardo), The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show, Turbo F.A.S.T, and The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants), at least the problem wasn't that extreme in those shows since there are new characters that can be likable or interesting additions to the cast of these shows, but this series was at its worst due to the absence of many characters who appeared from the sequel.
     • Because of this, some fans who saw the second film may have been confused over which canon characters from this series and Trolls World Tour are canon or not, thinking that the only events that the second movie has an impact on the series are Branch and Poppy meeting Chaz and none of the other trolls (including the 5 tribe leaders), Guy giving birth to Tiny Diamond, and that all 6 tribes got together as seen in the second film. However, the film series and the Christmas specials retcon that this series and The Beat Goes On! to be non-canon (aside from Val and Holly’s appearances in Holiday in Harmony).
       • By comparison, The Croods: Family Tree, another series based on a sequel of a DreamWorks film, at least has the sequel characters appearing and that was a year after this show.
4. This show is a massive kick-in-the-balls to the Trolls franchise, as well as its fandom because most of the new characters from the second film like Queen Barb were undoubtedly expected to appear in this show, but are later declined by DreamWorks and only two of them returned which are Chaz and Tiny Diamond, which is DreamWorks screwing everyone that liked the first two movies over.
   • It doesn't help that during the welcoming of the tribes in the first episode, Poppy reveals that Queen Barb would've been one of the few characters as well as the only tribe leader to appear as the other leaders getting replaced, but instead, Barb's replacement named Val Thunderstock appears here, which proves that the writers had lied to the fandom with this series.
5. False advertising: This show is said to be a sequel series to both Trolls World Tour and The Beat Goes On! when in reality, it's barely a sequel. It's a completely different thing from its original concept despite being part of the DreamWorks' Trolls franchise anyway.
6. This show is a terrible grasp of the first two movies and The Beat Goes On! since it has little-to-no connection to the first two movies and its TV prequel, making it feel like more of a stand-alone sequel that is created by people who never understood the first two movies or did any of their research.
7. The idea of a second series was pointless since The Beat Goes On! already has a good ending where Branch decided to move out of his bunker. Not to mention that this show existed was because Trolls World Tour made enough money on Video on Demand for a sequel series as well as the franchise can still be milked just for even more money.
8. Overuse of music genre stereotypes, unlike Trolls World Tour, whose stereotypes are avoided to make the new characters likable.
9. The chain of events is not remotely interesting. They only serve to pad out the running time of certain episodes of the show, which makes this show a filler show.
10. This show has no real impact on the Trolls franchise, as the events of the movie and the characters introduced are never acknowledged in the upcoming third movie. Aside from the aforementioned events that were carried over to Trolls: Holiday in Harmony, nothing of importance happens in this show that is necessary to understand any of the following special and the upcoming third movie.
11. Much like Trolls World Tour, this series has a lot of missed opportunities:
    • What's up with the Bergens not getting so much of a mention in this show despite being the main conflict in the first movie? Gristle Jr. and Bridget could have been helpful allies for the Trolls on their buildup for TrollsTopia, but nope, the former only appeared in one episode while the latter doesn't seem to exist in this series anymore.
    • Why out of all the characters from the second film have they returned Chaz and Tiny Diamond? Sure, Queen Barb was mentioned in some episodes, but even at that point, wouldn't most of the Trolls World Tour characters appear in this show? But due to the character restrictions on what they can do with them, the movie crew needed to think about the third movie to feature them. Worst of all, they were ever since replaced with newer characters that are far too similar to the ones from the prequel movie (especially Synth and Dante Crescendo whose designs were too similar to King Trollex and Trollzart). Are Chaz and Tiny somehow not that important that they wouldn't exclude them? If so, then this decision is completely nonsensical and hypocritical.
    • The idea of six tribes of trolls revolving around different musical genres living in the same city suffers greatly from this, especially since there are plenty more music genres out there, such as R&B and Gospel.
12. The show is the Trolls equivalent of Transformers: Age of Extinction, but at least this show didn't physically kill off the Trolls franchise despite the negative reception.
13. Strangely, despite The Beat Goes On! being a Netflix series, this series isn't released on Netflix at all as it was released on Peacock and Hulu too, which can confuse fans of the previous show.
14. A lot of subplots from The Beat Goes On! all ended up incomplete in this series, especially Smidge's subplot due to the absence of Milton Moss.
15. The way that the 6 Tribes were portrayed badly compared to Trolls World Tour, as, unlike the second film, the impression was that the 6 Tribes were much more distinct, but this series somehow managed to throw the second film's characterization of the tribes out the window for very weird characterization, for example in "Bring It In", only the Classical Trolls had issues hugging. At times, to simply put, the differences soon in the series compared to the movie's portrayal are superficial or visual. All Trolls are featured liking glitter in "Glitter Rush", and there are not as many cultural conflicts at times as to be expected with only a few conflicts occurring such as "Bring It In", in other words, much of the time the other Tribes can be barely different compared to the Pop Trolls.
16. The last five seasons were rushed as they lasted 6 to 7 episodes, especially compared to the first season which had 13 episodes.

Good Qualities

1. Some of the characters such as Queen Poppy, who had her personality from the first film and The Beat Goes On! restored after being flanderized in Trolls World Tour, and Branch. They were very likable as they were in the first two movies and The Beat Goes On!.
   • DJ Suki, who was absent in both Trolls Holiday and Trolls World Tour and while she isn't focused that much due to being a background character in Season 4, finally returns to this show.
   • The only characters who returned from Trolls World Tour are Chaz and Tiny Diamond (while filler), which is great for fans of the franchise, but also sadly they weren't focused that much as well.
2. The music from Alex Geringas is still very good and well varied, especially when it comes to showcase many musical styles in the show to represent each tribe.
   • In fact, some of the music he composed for The Beat Goes On! are carried over this series and can occasionally be heard in the background.
3. Some of the songs could be catchy, such as the theme song.
4. The animation and the art style are still nice to look at and have some improvements from The Beat Goes On! since the show was animated in Toon Boom Harmony by Atomic Cartoons, the studio behind 101 Dalmatian Street and Atomic Betty, compared to the traditional animation of Digital EMation and NE4U from the previous show.
   • The animation done in the Toon Boom Harmony software is fluid and very well-done for the most part.
   • Atomic Animation makes the characters designs look more appealing without getting loose and off-model. It even allows them to make some facial expressions that are funny yet appealing at the same time.
5. Great voice acting as most of the cast members from The Beat Goes On! reprise their roles.
6. The show started to slightly improve with seasons 2 and 3, before unfortunately going downhill in Season 4, due to many of the secondary characters like DJ Suki being reduced to minor roles.
7. Some episodes can expand to plot points, character development, and conflicts, as it was able to tackle new issues and directions that couldn't exist in Trolls: The Beat Goes On!.
8. The Christmas special, Holiday in Harmony, is a major improvement over the show, as most of the Trolls World Tour characters returning and many characters who get reduced to minor roles finally get a chance to shine.

Reception

Despite receiving positive reviews from critics and some audiences, the show received mixed-to-negative reviews from fans of the Trolls franchise alike, mainly for its writing (most notably in Cloud Control), the already established characters from the first two movies, and its previous show being dumbed down to minor roles, the portrayal of the 5 tribes featuring in the show, and the new characters that lead to the absence of many Trolls World Tour characters (aside from Chad and Tiny), though the songs, music, some parts of the story, and animation were praised.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the two users accused the show of being obsessive with the new characters while those traditionally who held larger roles in the franchise like Branch are reduced to a handful of appearances in response.

The series currently holds a 6/10 on IMDb.

Trivia

• The show came out the same year as Trolls World Tour.
• Notable returning staff from Trolls: The Beat Goes On! include Matthew Beans (executive producer) and Alex Geringas (composer and songwriter).

Comments

Loading comments...