1. What are We Watching?
Hilda is an animated series on Netflix, created by Luke Pearson and based on his comic series from Nobrow Press. It was developed by Pearson with Stephanie Simpson and Kurt Mueller. Already, after this pilot episode, it might be the service’s second best show of 2018, behind Queer Eye. Like the comics, it tells the story of a precocious girl who lives in the middle of the forest with her mother, Hilda’s mum. In this first episode, Hilda and her mom find their idyllic existence threatened by a mysterious group of tiny, invisible people who want them to leave immediately. Hilda, who lovers her home, sets out to try to square things away.
This feels like it’s Netflix’s answer to Adventure Time. Pearson did storyboard several episodes of that show. Certainly, there’s a big gap in animated entertainment now that Adventure Time has concluded. And while the humor here is more focused and British, less slangy, innuendo-filled, and pun-tastic, there’s a shared spirit to Hilda. If Adventure Time is the ADD kid trying to figure out his place in the world, Hilda is its much calmer younger sister, along for the same ride except on her own stride.
As always, there will be spoilers for the episode.
2. A Girl Named Hilda
Right off the bat, it feels like the creators have a strong grasp on Hilda and her personality. Unlike the last kids’ show I covered, Pearson, episode director Andy Coyle, and writer Stephanie Simpson aren’t fumbling with how she holds herself. Maybe it’s because Pearson had already worked on the character since 2010 but there’s a solid sense of how she approaches each situation. “Tell me where the prime minister is or I’ll let your kitty live in my hair forever,” she tells an uncooperative elf mayor after his cat jumps into her hair. She loses track of time sketching the various landforms in the forst. She trusts her little deerfox, Twig, unconditionally. At discovering a hidden village, her first action is to pick up one of the houses and shake it. “Careful with that! Somebody lives there, you know!” After the end of this episode we know her life in the forest means a lot to her and she’s willing to work hard and travel far to maintain it. Although it does seem everything is against in her in that regard.
3. A Visual Spread
Hilda keeps much of Luke Pearson’s art style and it’s rather glorious to see it in motion. His work has always moved and with each successive “Hilda” book, he’s developed a keener eye for bringing his pages to life. But there’s something sweeping in the bird flying over the town in the cold open. I was most struck by the color work in this episode, these soft pastels, which the animators press far in order to evoke their reactions. Nights are your soft blues and purples, but also magenta and burgundy. This gives the scene an alluring quality. Something mysterious and sweeping. There’s a lot of eye candy in the design, from the elf people (“And I don’t even have hands!”) to the numerous creatures who hang around the forest but I think it was that color palette that most lingered with me.
4. Lurking in the Shadows
Like the best children’s stories, Hilda flirts with the idea of danger and horror before it ultimately undermines it. I’m a firm believer that kids need to be scared because the world is a scary place. At the same time, however, kids need to be shown evil can be misconstrued or undermined, if not outright defeated. There are a few instances in this pilot episode, for instance, which come off a little tense but a scene or two later, Coyle delivers a turn. The cold open, a riff on the initial “Hilda” comic, features a rocky troll tromping and stomping after Hilda. Its eyes gleam yellow in the moonlight. Turns out, though, it’s only pursuing her because the bell Hilda attached to its nose is driving it mad. And he wants to return his sketchbook.
A little later, Hilda and Hilda’s mum are attacked by the hidden people. There’s some Poltergeist business with the TV, property damage, and all kinds of eerie noises. The people are traced through the house by long lines of dust and some nice foley work. Undeterred, Hilda learns how to see these tiny elf people and realizes they’re angry because her house is in the middle of one of their towns. It’s not like these elves are awful or anything but their prime minister got elected because he promised to evict Hilda and Hilda’s mum. The true horror is how the bureaucracy prevents anything from being accomplished.
5. Can It Sustain Itself?
In short, I’m with this first episode of Hilda. I thought the humor was spot-on, the design work was engaging, the world enticing, and the overall feel of it well-handled. There’s a sense of soft serialization, some elements planted for something later, I’m sure. (The forest spirit thing?) “Chapter 1: The Hidden People” ends on a cliffhanger but we haven’t even seen all the characters who appeared in the opening titles. The comics no doubt took Pearson a while to draw but they were able to cram more than one of them in this 24-minute episode. If the rest of the series has the same level of confidence, assurance, and charm as this episode, I think Netflix has found a true treat.
