There seemed to be plenty of reasons to be excited for Mindy Kaling’s Scooby-Doo spinoff, Velma. For one thing, the writer/actor/producer has proven herself over the years, with creations including The Mindy Project, Never Have I Ever and The Sex Life of College Girls. The series also boasts a stellar supporting cast of Sam Richardson, Constance Wu and Glenn Howerton to round out the Mystery Inc. gang, and the titular character was finally getting queer storyline. With the release of the first two episodes on HBO Max, however, Velma is getting slammed by fans and critics alike, with accusations of a childhood favorite being ruined.
A lot of changes were made to the characters so many of us grew up watching for Velma, with one of the more perplexing decisions being to remove Scooby-Doo altogether. Kaling said she faced backlash when it was announced she would voice Velma, but much of the criticism surrounding the series’ release centered around the beloved characters’ personalities being unrecognizable, rather than the changes in their race. Rotten Tomatoes user Jess B was apparently thrown off by the whole thing, commenting:
Basically a fanfic insert which not only changed the characters looks but their personalities completely. It would have been better if they made their own original show with original characters. Childhood nostalgia got old yellered.
That viewer was one of many on Rotten Tomatoes to question why developer Charlie Grandy didn’t just create an original animation, rather than make such drastic changes to existing IP. The series had compiled an audience score of just 8% on the review-aggregation site as of this writing, and the viewers didn’t hold back when it came to sharing their opinions. More of the comments read:
- I don't care about the race changes, but they're not the same characters... at all. There's not an ounce of reverence for the source material. It's got as much to do with scooby doo as the Clue board game does. This show isn't for scooby doo fans. – Kyle S
- I saw the clips so I tried to watch some of the first episode. Too awful for a hate watch. Why was this even made? Did the people in it not realize it was so awful? Very confusing. – Sean O
- I grew up with the orginal Scooby-do, but it appears the writers never did. – Rikwin d
- Think of the worst thing you have ever seen or can remember (from your entire life). This is like that, but with someone constantly slapping you in the face and shouting laugh now, laugh now, laugh now. – Steve P
- A Scooby-Doo show without scooby-doo. It's exactly what I expected. Terrible. – Cabbage
It wasn’t just the fans that took issue with Velma, but the critics did too. And while the critical score was a much higher 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, the reviews weren’t exactly complimentary. Joshua Alston of Variety emphasized it’s not the change to the characters’ race or the LGBTQ+ storylines that are the issue. Rather he calls the characters “unpleasant” and questions how this belongs in the Scooby-Doo universe, saying:
Many of those jokes are genuinely funny, which is unsurprising coming from seasoned comedy writers. But the jokes could belong to just about any contemporary sitcom, so what exactly makes Scooby-Doo the ideal canvas for this vision as opposed to any other property? That never becomes clear in the eight episodes of Velma screened for critics, which are absent even a wisp of genuine reverence for the source material... The biggest mystery of Velma is why it needs to exist.
Angie Han of THR says that while Velma clearly has affection for the classic character, it’s snarky to a fault, and the abundance of meta humor gets in the way of its heart. Some of the humor doesn’t hit as intended either, as the critic notes:
For every solid crack (‘Ranking hot girls is exactly how the Trojan War and Facebook started!’), there’s an observation that feels like a repurposed Twitter draft from some harried screenwriter’s folder. ‘I speak truth without a filter, like every comedian before #MeToo,’ declares Velma, never mind that the line doesn’t make a ton of sense coming from a proud feminist teenager in 2023. Amid the semi-topical snipes at teen rom-coms, yass-queen feminism, hairy Brooklynites and, for some reason, the movie Serpico, the future Scooby-Doo gang and their peers can come off less like individuals than joke-delivery machines.
The first two episodes of Velma are available for streaming now with an HBO Max subscription, with Episodes 3 and 4 coming on Thursday, January 19. Be sure to check out our 2023 TV schedule to see what other premieres are coming soon to TV and streaming.
