As the title says, I did not like Monsters at work 2020 (which looking at now jesus has it really been that long since it came out?). Now seeing as a season 2 of the show will be releasing around next year or so which will not be so long from now, while I myself would not be interested in picking up the show again, I'm willing to give season 2 have the chance of being better and improving from the mistakes of season 1 as I can acknowlegde that generally season 1's of new shows or such can be very rocky starts and aren't perfect. However with that being said, honestly this show atleast it's first season really dissapointed me with how lackluster is just feels especially considering it has quite some big shoes to fill in being a direct sequel to Monster inc, a very popular Pixar franchise so that's what I'll be doing here, just dicussing my thoughts and opinions on why I didn't quite like Monsters at work compared to some people. If you just so happen to like this show and are reading this, this is all soley my opinion and my power to you for finding enjoyment from this.
What is Monsters at work/quick plot summary
Monsters at work is a direct sequel spin off series to Pixar's 2001 Monsters inc and Monsters University, it specifically takes off right at the end of Monsters inc between the scenes where Mr Waternoose (the main villain of Monsters inc) is exposed and arrested and they bring Boo back to the human world and say their goodbyes and when Sully and Mike are now handling Monsters inc with it's new method of getting energy through children's laughs. While there are moments in the show dealing with the b plot of Mike and Sully being the new Monsters inc CEOs and figuring out what to do now it mainly focuses on the main character Tylor, a scare graduate from Monsters University who was assigned to start scaring at Monsters inc, only to have found out once arriving that the company no longer relies on scare energy and is thus reassigned to the role of being a mechanic in the facility team alongside a ragtag group of co workers from said team. Throughout the show it focuses on Tylor learning to get adjusted to being part of the team now and being conflicted over his goals and wants of being a scarer and eventually learning on being a jokester. There's also once again the b plot of Mike and Sulley getting adjusted to being the new CEOs of Monsters inc and their efforts of transitioning the company to use laugh power.
The plot is episodic and simple enough to follow, most episodes past the first one which is mostly just reintroducing the world of Monsters inc and establishing basic main characters such as Tylor of the mechanic facility team consist of Tylor generally slowly getting used to being part of a team after his previous expectation of being a scarer is now gone, the Mike and Sulley b plot is also somewhat present and intersects with the shennigans that Tylor and the mechanic team are up too such as in episode 3 "The Damaged Room" where due to accidentally destroying the wall of a baby girl's room, while Tylor and the team have to collaborate to fix it in time, Mike and Sulley temporarily take care of the human child as to not disturb it and possibly alert their parents of the mess. However that b plot does start to become less relevent all till the final episode where it becomes intergral to the plot and continaution of the original Monsters inc ending as it starts to soley focus on Tylor's goals and the group.
Main flaws/critiques I have
Now that I've summerized the plot of the show, it's time to go into what I didn't like in the show which starting off is how the show fails to do what the title/name of the show says.
Due to probably how the season only has 10 episodes, they obviously can't go in depth into every character motivation or plot ever especially due to it first and foremost being a comedy however the overall plot and what the characters do throughout the show way until the final episode just feels meaningless with most of the characters just meandering and not even doing their jobs. Most times we ever get insight on what they do especially considering how important I can imagine their job would be as essentially one of the backbones to such a company would be are in episodes like "The Damaged Room" or "The Cover Up" and even then most of it is minimal and behind the scenes. Most episodes are instead just consisting of Tylor and co just hanging around in their main office not doing much related to their jobs and honestly is just really boring. I am serious when I say that Monsters at work as a show also fails terribly at being funny or entertaining in the slightest, not even in a "this is so bad it's good" way or a joke intentionally or unintentionally making me laugh, all I felt was just increasing boredom and frustration over these characters and honestly waiting till the show gets good or for it to end which also just makes the ending of Tylor finally achieving a goal and want at the company useless cause having the knowlegde of how this is a continaution of the original Monsters inc, you already know it's all going to be jolly and fine in the end so there's no real suspense or interest in wanting to see Tylor who is essentially the main focus of the show actually succeed, same with the other group of new characters who are very cookie cutter and boring.
Most of the new characters who aren't reoccuring are just really uninteresting to follow and don't hold up to previous characters or side characters of the franchise, Tylor is a generic protagonist whose main conflict failed to interest me or make him root for him and the mechanic group he's teamed up with are even worse in quality. Val, Tylor's co worker and acquaintance who shared a class with him once is just annoying to sit through, characters like Fritz and Catherine who both play somewhat important roles in the group as bare bones beyond very basic character archetypes and jokes and Duncan, a minor antagonistic figure towards Tylor who slowly warms up to him at the end is just a lesser worst version of Randall Boggs who's just infuriating to sit through seeing as he continuelsy intentionally messes and fucks up situations in other to get rid of Tylor for a bullshit reason and when it seems like Duncan might be changing for the better he reverts back to his petty behaviour in the next episode all up until the finale where it wants to pretend that Duncan has had an actual character arc in not being such a self centered asshole to Tylor. Apart from that reoccuring characters like Mike and Sulley are alright enough but also still feel lackluster apart from Mike's comedey lessons at the end of each episode however to all the reoccuring characters who came back, I did not like the two nerdy monsters who were mostly just there in the first and prequel movies as comedic reliefs and the return of the abomidable snowman, it really feels like they only included the two nerdy characters for the sake of nostalgia way too much and while it's nice knowing how the abomidable snowman came back in the original ending and why they were banished, I doubt much would be different if they didn't focus an entire episode on him coming back. The only new characters I really liked are Banana Bread/winchester who only shows up for about 2 episodes and has no speaking role and Mr Crummyham soley cause I realized that curtis armstrong was voicing him and both due to them having quite charming designs. Apart from also Duncan and this one dragon monster lady somewhat, I also really didn't like any of the new characters designs at all, something about them just feels so lacking and missing, worst examples would have to be Tylor and Val.
How episodes and plots were paced and how characters were exacuted are all just really lackluster which severly impacted my viewing of Monsters at work as those being weak in return made the show itself feel weak and tiresome to sit through which is a shame as Monsters Inc is a very interesting franchise and world to explore and hell I like Monsters University even if the majority I've seen don't. Overall compared to the first movie and the hell even the prequel, Monsters at work while better in how it looks especially for a direct to Tv work, is a lot weaker in story and characters and is by far up there with the most boring pieces of media I've seen.
