Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Gremlins: The Wild Batch’ On Max, Where Gizmo And His Pals Go To San Francisco To Capture Evil Mogwai

The first season of the animated Gremlins prequel was subtitled Secrets Of The Mogwai , and it fed well into the mythology of the 1980s movie franchise. It did so in a funny, adventurous way with well-thought-out characters. Now Gizmo and his buddies in Shanghai are going on a new adventure, looking for evil Mogwai in San Francisco.

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Opening Shot: A girl runs through the streets of Shanghai laughing; she’s being chased because she’s a pickpocket.

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The Gist: The girl is Elle (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) in her previous life as a street urchin. When her stepfather sees how little she stole, though, he gets angry until Elle’s mother Margot (Yael Grobglas) steps in. She gives Elle her scarf and tells her that “you must find me… in America!” Then Elle wakes up.

She’s living with the Wing family, a year after her adventures with Sam Wing (Izaac Wang) and the furry Mogwai named Gizmo (A.J. Locascio). Lately, Gizmo has been acting up, escaping the Wings’ apothecary and running through town destroying things in his path.

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Is he going bad? Sam wants to find out, and Elle and Grandpa (James Hong) are eager to join him. But Sam’s parents Fong (Ming-Na Wen) and Hon (BD Wong) would rather plan out the next 20 years of Sam’s life in order to keep him safe.

Sam seems content to deliver drugs and try the safe way to find out what’s going on with Gizmo, but when he and Elle overhear a sailor describe “mutant Komodo dragons” on a ship from San Francisco, Elle realizes they need to get there, but a weeks-long voyage pretty much clashes with Sam’s parents’ “no adventures” edict. Sam thinks they should talk to Nuwa (Sandra Oh), but they need to find her Celestial Administrator (Bowen Yang) first.

Luckily, Grandpa found out that there are portals to the administrator underneath the Old City, one of which is at the neighborhood movie theater. From there, it’s pretty inevitable that they’re going on a new adventure, starting with dealing with tiny, chatty dragon guards named Big Big (Ronnie Chieng) and Little Big (Jimmy O. Yang).

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Gremlins: The Wild Batch is the second season of the carton whose first season was subtitled Secrets Of The Mogwai . The series a prequel based on the 1984 film Gremlins .

Our Take: One of the things that we enjoyed about the first season of Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai is that the characters are lively and well-conceived, and the adventure Elle, Sam, Grandpa and Gizmo went on was tied well into the mythology of the film. While it seems like the way into the adventure in the show’s second season is a bit more convoluted, it still seems like it’ll be a fun journey to watch.

What we like is that Sam wants to be loyal to his parents and play it safe, going against his instinct for adventure. But Elle, Grandpa and his better nature seems to get the better of him.

But Sam’s parents aren’t just sitting back; Fong and Hon might not want Sam to go on adventures, but they certainly jump right in when he might be getting in over his head.

It’ll be interesting to see the action move from early-20th century Shanghai to San Francisco; Elle already thinks that they’ll be riding horses, because everyone in America is a cowboy. But she’ll have her own goal, which is to find her mother. How the two stories link up will be interesting to watch.

What Age Group Is This For?: Like last season, 8 and up seems like the appropriate age.

Parting Shot: After the Celestial Administrator pushes Elle, Sam and Gizmo through a portal to San Francisco, the three of them see the city from across the bay. They turn around and see a warden (Will Forte) growl “Welcome to Alcatraz!” to them.

Sleeper Star: We haven’t heard from Simu Liu yet; he’s been cast as Chang, who will be someone the trio meets in San Francisco.

Most Pilot-y Line: In Elle’s dream, her stepfather is more cruel and violent to her than we’d expect to see in a cartoon geared towards kids.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Gremlins: The Wild Batch continues the pre-movie mythology of the Mogwai with good voice acting, fun action sequences and expressive animation.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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