Will at a New Low

Last night brought the finale of the Willow series. I was one of the five or six people who watched it. Last week's episode actually got a little interesting, at least there were a couple of creepy moments in an inn and in the weird empty city. But the finale was just the usual empty light show.

The saddest thing is that Warwick Davis was clearly as good as, if not better than, he's ever been. But they had to make him a supporting-supporting character on his own show, seemingly just because they couldn't think of anything for him to do except feel vaguely sorry he's not a more powerful sorcerer and to give Elora Danon pep talks.

Once again, we have a fantasy series from Disney with a heroine who starts out wide-eyed and a little clumsy only to abruptly become a stonecold badass at the end. In this case, it's two characters, Kit and Elora. Kit was promising in the first couple episodes but, after several episodes of just being a cursor, her role in the final episodes is to stand around looking stunned while Jade and Madmartigan's disembodied voice tell her how great she is. Then she's suddenly a great sword fighter for the climax.

Madmartigan's voice, by the way, is provided by Val Kilmer's son, Jack Kilmer, who doesn't really sound like him at all. Jack Kilmer is the son of Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley, the woman who plays Sorsha, wife of Madmartigan and mother of Kit and Airk. So why the hell Jack Kilmer wasn't cast as Airk, I don't know, especially since Warwick Davis got his own daughter onto the show.

The costumes continue to look terrible. Elora wears a denim-ish jacket that appears to even have zippers. It looks like something from a '90s JC Penney catalogue. There's no explanation as to why her hair changed from blonde to red. One of the supporting characters, Prince Graydon, shaved his van dyke in one episode and in the next episode it randomly appears and disappears from shot to shot. The show's inappropriate use of rock music culminated in the worst choice yet, to use Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing". Unless it was a reference to how much people got paid for this show proportionate to the work they put in. Too many people involved with this show just didn't care.

Willow is available on Disney+.