Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil

Title: Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil

Episode(s): #102: "Escapeoke" and #104: "Temptasia"
Channel: Adult Swim/Cartoon Network
Format: eleven-minute episode x2
Series Premiere: Sun., September 09th @ 12:15am
Airdate (#102): Sun., September 09th @ 12:15am
Airdate (#104): Sun., September 23rd @ 12:15am

Animation Production: Fluid Animation
Official Website: Available at Lucy.TheFluidImage.com
unOfficial Website: Available at LucyDOTD.com
A.I. News: Adult Swim Upfront 2006

Images: Click to Enlarge [all]

The last time I was looking forward to an Adult Swim produced television animation was… hmmmm… yes, well, that's not what's important right now. What's important right now, is the fact that Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil isn't as egregiously nonsensical or inappropriately and creatively inferior as an animated television series as are the overwhelming majority of Adult Swim's other productions. Having tempted audiences for about two years regarding this program, viewers are pretty anxious to figure out whether Satan's daughter living in San Francisco, California is all it's cracked up to be. Rendered gleefully with computer animation Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil isn't a highly witty animated series, but it isn't a bore to sit through either.

The story of pseudo-biblical characters and their vulgar everyday lives, Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil provides reasonable laughs through a spectrum of irreverent, dry dialogue. Lucy is 21-years-old, lives in San Francisco and is slightly-maybe-sort of considering dating an impossibly bland disk jockey that goes by the name of DJ Jesús. Although Lucy's father always gets a kick out of calling her the proclaimed anti-Christ, the girl really couldn't care much less. Given his constant meddling in Lucy's life--weak if not dim-witted attempts to make her more "evil"--Satan's role as a doting father is many a time made all the more pitiful through his attempts to actually do something with himself.

Satan himself, a bit worried that DJ Jesús is indeed the Second Coming, is working himself to death trying to accomplish two tasks: hasten Lucy's devilish disposition and successfully manage to get DJ Jesús to fall from grace. That all said, Satan is no real Prince of Darkness: he's overweight, wears a collection of hideous grandma-ish sweaters, knows all of the words to Pat Benatar's "Shadows in the Night," and forces his dry, moronic sense of humor on everyone he meets. If he didn't have a hot twenty-something daughter, Satan would be an outright loser.

This series has had its premiere delayed two or three times in the past eight months for a number of reasons, but now that Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil is finally making its way to late-night audiences, the ten-part series should prove an interesting watch. Each episode runs some eleven or twelve minutes; while this doesn't allow for much room for any continuous storytelling, it nevertheless offers audiences flashes in the life of an aging demon king and his apathetic daughter. Just as much as Satan is doing everything he can to spread evil by purchasing a franchise of Mexican karaoke restaurants called Tequila Sally's, young Lucy is as indifferent to the whims and destinies of Armageddon.

The computer animation isn't particularly impressive, but then again, I seriously doubt that it's supposed to be. Perhaps the biggest thing going for Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil is the fact that Williams Street is not fulfilling duties of animation production for this series… whereas animation production here is computed by San Fran-based Fluid Animation. Not much need be said about the static movements of these low-count polygon models but for what it's worth the art direction for Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil is pretty sharp. The art direction is what consistently stands out the most, that is, in a computer animated television series where characters never really walk but shuffle their feet at best.


Lucy	DJ Jesús