With quarantine continuing, shows on platforms such as Netflix are being released quickly and regularly, providing people with continual streams of entertainment in what is quickly becoming the era of social distancing. One such show recently released by Netflix is called “The Midnight Gospel”.

     “The Midnight Gospel” was released on 4/20, and it deals with heavy themes with a healthy dose of animation and humorous subplots. Creating a combination for what turned out to be an incredibly good show. 

     The creators of the show include Pendleton Ward, who is known for his work on Adventure Time. The co-creator, Duncan Trussel is responsible for the podcast the show was based off.

     The show starts off with the main character Clancy entering a simulated universe to find someone to interview for his spacecast, which is a podcast but with the added perk of going into space. Him and the character he meets, and interviews go on wild shenanigans while Clancy interviews them. 

     The color palette for “The Midnight Gospel” is extraordinarily whimsical, contributing to the charm of the show. For a show rated MA, at first glance, it may seem rather childish, but that quickly is changed when the interviews for the spacecast start.

     The allure of “The Midnight Gospel” is less about the animation and more about the content. It makes for good background noise, because of this. The dialogue of the show is heavily reliant on real world problems and ideals. 

     All in all, “The Midnight Gospel” is just the right mix of theology and philosophy to create a very powerful show. Telling it through animation with funny episode-specific subplots makes the content easier to digest and easier to relate to.

     Critics have had positive reviews to the show, with an 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 93% audience approval from the same site. 

     The world created around Clancy’s adventures- and misadventures resonated deeply with people, and the ability for Clancy to enter new universes through his technology invited the opportunity to meet and therefore interview- new people. 

     Sadly, there were only eight episodes of “The Midnight Gospel” in the first season, with each episode being about half an hour long, there was approximately four hours’ worth of content, which is great for series with a plot line over the course of the episodes, and “The Midnight Gospel” does have a plot that progresses, cliffhangers are the bane of my existence and I was too emotionally invested in Clancy’s character for an ending that is unsatisfying. 

     It is unknown if “The Midnight Gospel” will return for a second season, but it is a good show that deserves ten out of ten stars because of its deep themes and how the show handled them.