HBO Max's Velma has only just premiered, but the Scooby-Doo reimagining has already found its fair share of critics.
Rotten Tomatoes has rounded up the animated series' first reviews, with the consensus being mostly mixed on whether Velma is a breath of fresh air or another creative misfire for the 54-year-old franchise. While some critics enjoyed the risqué humor and visual gags, others found the meta approach to Velma frustrating. Complaints were also aimed at how the title character is a weak point of the series overall and how it suffers in comparison to Harley Quinn, another HBO Max adult animated show that garnered critical acclaim from both critics and fans over the course of its first three seasons. At the time of writing, Velma has a 50% score from 14 critics and an 11% audience score from 349 users.
Velma is an adult animated comedy series that received a straight-to-series order in February 2021, with Mindy Kaling -- best known for her role as Kelly Kapoor in the NBC sitcom The Office -- attached as the voice of the title sleuth, Velma Dinkley. The new take on the popular Scooby-Doo franchise reimagines Mystery Incorporated, with Velma now of East Asian descent and Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. van nowhere to be found.
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Velma is the first Scooby-Doo series to be geared exclusively toward an adult audience, with trailers for the HBO Max show featuring actual murders and drug references. Although the series will focus on "telling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and under-appreciated brains" of Mystery Inc., Velma will also feature Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, Fred Jones and Daphne Blake, with Sam Richardson, Glenn Howerton and Constance Wu providing their voices, respectively.
The rest of the Velma voice cast includes Frank Welker -- the longtime voice of Scooby and Fred -- as William Jones, Fred's father; Cherry Jones as Victoria Jones, Fred's mother; Russell Peters as Aman Dinkley, Velma's father; Sarayu Blue as Diya Dinkley, Velma's absentee mother; Jane Lynch as Donna Blake, one of Daphne's two mothers; Wanda Sykes as Linda Blake, Daphne's other mother; Nicole Byer as Blythe Rogers, Shaggy's mother; and Gary Cole as Lamont Rogers, Shaggy's father.
Other cast members include Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Ken Leung, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, Debby Ryan, Kulap Vilaysak and NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns.
The first two episodes of Velma are now streaming on HBO Max, with two new episodes dropping each Thursday until Feb. 9.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes