The Mighty Nein is more of Vox Machina but different ,and still good

When I saw the first teaser for The Might Nein I didn’t think too much of it. It just seemed to me as more of the world of Vox Machina where we will follow a group of characters in their journey. I was still willing to watch it as I had not reason to think that it would be bad or a waste of time.

The first few episodes are dedicated to introducing the different characters that will come together to form the Mighty Nein. Each episode follows 2-3 characters as we learn about their personalities and their relationship with the world they are in. While this show is set in the Vox Machina universe, it is a different time period and the settings and factions present in this show are new; hence the world building at the beginning of the season. That is my first praise of the show: while it is set in a universe we have visited before, everything about it is new and it does a good job introducing the different pieces that will play a part in the story. I did find myself forgetting the name of a faction or what it meant once or twice, but overall I was able to understand the different factions and their relationship to each other. This is also in turn thanks to how the main characters are related to the factions, as their relationship will help solidify not just the factions, but the characters themselves as well.

This is the first place where The Mighty Nein sets itself apart from Vox Machina. While in Vox Machina the group is already formed, with history, and we tag along with them, in The Mighty Nein we first follow each character individually. We get to know them as they are by themselves before they become part of a group. It actually added intrigue as I wanted to know how these different characters would come together, how their different paths would converge. The show spends enough time on each character individually, but it doesn’t spend too much time. You don’t have to wait too long to see the group formed and the main characters together. Some shows can pull this off, it is something that can be done. It is a matter of not wasting, of keeping a good pace to maintain interest. The show does this well initially and throughout the season. Either the plot or the character were almost always advancing, keeping things from getting boring.

Of course this wouldn’t work if the characters themselves weren’t interesting. Thing is, not all the main characters are interesting, nor do they all have a flushed out backstory or deep personality. While individually almost every part of the group suffers, they make up for it when they are together as a group. While one character may lack charisma, they may make up for it in interesting backstory. Another may have a basic backstory but with an interesting path ahead of them. Not just for the sake of the plot, but for the sake of good storytelling these characters need each other. That said, some characters can be considered superior to others. By that I mean if you ask viewers who their favourite character is, chances are they will choose from a select few, with the rest not getting much love. It is not an easy thing to do, to create a group and write the members in such a way to make them all equally loveable or appealing to a big group of viewers. But like I said, the best moments are when these characters are interacting with each other as they lift each other up.

Plus, the main characters themselves are differ from one another in many ways: race, colour, personality, charisma, skills, combat, etc. That is something you would naturally expect though. What I was interested in was whether these new characters would feel similar to or rip off of the Vox Machina characters. The short is answer is no, these new characters can stand on their own two feet …… mostly. You can’t point at one character and say they are the equivalent of that character from Vox Machina. This is in part due to the way these characters are written, and in part due to the voice acting. Of course a lot of the Critical Role members will be lending their voices to these new characters, and most of them change their voice, tone, or do something to make sure this new character is distinguishable from the characters they voice in Vox Machina. That said, some characters, two specifically, had their voices identical to those in Vox Machina. The voice actors do change their tone a little and talk different languages at times, but a lot of the time it felt as I was listening to one of the characters from Vox Machina. It was wired. This is inconsistent though, with ups and downs depending on the scene and the emotions that are involved.

That said, something that does help definitively separate The Mighty Nein from Vox Machina, both in terms of characters and overall feels, is the tone. The Mighty Nein feel much more mature compared to Vox Machina. The latter has its fair share of serious moments and topics, but it also had a big amount of crude and slapstick comedy. In The Mighty Nein it seems as if these have been toned down a little, there isn’t an overabundance of sex jokes or filthy dialogues and such. This is not to say it is not fun, it still has a lot comedy, but it is not on the same level as in Vox Machina.

Something else that sets the tone apart is the music. The music from Vox Machina was nothing crazy, I don’t even remember my impressions from it. I magine the music was the generic type that would a fantasy show and setting. In The Mighty Nein however, I was taken off guard the first time I heard the music in this show. There are elements of synth in the music, it is almost like electronic in terms of genre. I am not well versed in music vocabulary but that is how I can describe it, not something you would expect from a fantasy show. While you can argue that this type of music doesn’t match a fantasy setting, oddly enough, it did. I think it was because they kept it under control, as in it never goes to an extent where it would become something you’d expect to hear in a disco or a club. This music is still nothing outstanding, I’m not gonna listen to the soundtrack or anything, but it does a good job setting this show apart from Vox Machina.

I’ve yet to talk about the story of The Mighty Nein. The story is quite basic actually, at least so far. There is a MacGuffin and each faction has its own reasons for going after it, including the mighty nein themselves. That is the general story, but the individual stories of the characters are much more interesting. In each episode at least one of the main characters has their own story moved forward and so there is always something that grabs the attention and gets you invested in the ongoing story. Some of the characters get revelations to their story in the very last episode, which feels satisfying as it had been a long time coming.

That brings me to the big issue with this season. The finale. The final episode is actually very good and exciting, but my issue is with where it ends. The season ends without a proper conclusion to either the overall story or the individual stories of the main characters. It does that thing where at the height of tension the episode suddenly just ends, leaving you with a ton of questions as to where these characters will go. It can build anticipation for the next season, but at the cost of a satisfying end to this one. It is fine for some lose ends or leaving other things open, but there needs to be some type of conclusion, something satisfactory alongside those things. If the next season is planned to be released next year then perhaps this is something that I can get over, we will just have to see about it. I do have one other issue with the final episode but it isn’t something I can mention without spoiling.

I am mostly quite happy with S1 of The Mighty Nein. It sets itself apart from Vox Machina and still maintains a good quality across the board. It is entertaining and never gets boring. While maybe in tone or in other ways the Critical Role shows have been full of ups and downs, they have always stayed entertaining. I thought the season was going to end with a banger and while it was going in that direction, it decided to leave things super open ended, without giving some conclusion to the season. That is the main negative that stands out to me, but other than that, the show was pretty solid.