The fourth episode of Mongrels showed moments of improvement, signs that the programme was living up to the potential its premise promised. The first three episodes may have been lacklustre and embarrassing, but the fourth, while having the juvenile, obvious humour expected, did raise some laughs. The fifth episode, airing 20th July 2010, continued on the trend of potential being realised, actually having some genuine chuckles but the sixth, airing on the 27th July 2010, took a few steps backwards, underwhelming and generally being uninteresting.
A Bunch of Critters
Mongrels revolves around a group of talking animals, including Nelson, the sophisticated metrosexual fox (Rufus Jones), Destiny, the pompous dog (Lucy Montgomery), Marion, the wild cat (Dan Tetsell), Kali, the sadistic pigeon (Katy Brand) and Vince, the more animalistic fox(Paul Kaye). The fifth episode sees Nelson get a visit from his penfriend, which ends with the former fearing he has contracted rabies. Meanwhile, Destiny meets an attractive fellow Afghan, who she finds out is really a whore. In the sixth episode, Nelson falls in love with a filthy vixen in heat, Destiny tries to use her fleas to win a dog show and Kali finds herself cared for by Destiny’s owner.
The two episodes are generally more enjoyable to watch than their predecessors, but that is probably because the stories focus more on Nelson and Destiny, who are the programme’s better characters. Destiny even finds herself in a more sympathetic situation in the fifth episode than she was in its predecessor. The tales of that fifth episode are particularly amusing; Kali’s plan to create a fox-pigeon hybrid by having intercourse with Nelson or Vince is one of those ideas that is so stupid it turns one hundred and eighty degrees and becomes genius, and one scene where Kali tries to seduce Vince by wearing bondage gear is so ridiculous, it is hilarious.
Sadly, there is still a tendency for these stories to fall back on the tired crude humour and Family Guy-style cutaway jokes, the sixth episode in particular relying heavily on feces and urine as jokes. The constant references to bodily functions do help remind the viewer that these characters are animals, but the writers could have thought of a better way to bring out their animal side.
Wild Life
The puppetry is as excellent as always, the characters’ expressions and movements being fluid and lively. When Kali becomes obese, it actually looks natural. New one-off characters, like the filthy vixen and Destiny’s fleas, have pleasing designs as well. Sadly, they don’t make the jokes or the script any better; there have been terrible films with good special effects, after all.
The voice acting for the characters is still generally good. Lucy Montgomery brings Destiny to life with an amusing Miss Piggy-esque voice, and Nelson has that beautifully sophisticated air courtesy of Rufus Jones. Katy Brand doesn’t do as well as Kali, but the character is meant to be unlikable. Marion isn’t prominent in these episodes, seemingly playing the role of Nelson’s sidekick, but Tetsell is serviceable.
Mongrels has improved, and has become a decent show, but it isn’t one of BBC’s best and is unlikely to be remembered as such. It amuses some of the time, but may have viewers groaning the rest of the time.
Gareth Barsby - I am a recent graduate and aspiring writer with a love of movies and a lot of drive. I specialise in reviewing film and television, but am ...
Join the Conversation