didn’t feel slow at all.
there were actually a couple spots I wished lingered a little longer (to sink in), but they were also trying to fit quite a lot into this first episode.
competently directed
There were lots of little touches I really enjoyed! e.g. Ms. Faust being framed in the bottle, the cloud (literally) coming over her face, Anna dissolving into younger Meg. One (subtler) parallel between Anna and Meg I noticed was: Meg is supposedly going to die from a curse, and her teacher (“the greatest witch”) cannot save her; while Anna’s mom died from an illness, and her dad is apparently a doctor/pharmacist.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it was revealed as all being a trick by the old witch as a character building exercise.
Even if we play along with Ms. Faust here, I feel like there’s two layers (kinda) to the whole ordeal—one is she needs to literally collect tears (joy) in order to live the rest of her life, and the other is that she needs that joy to really live, in the carpe diem sense. … I hope that made sense…
The production team is basically showing their hand and saying “yeah, our goal is to make you cry every episode for the entire season”. That’s ambitious and I like it.
Maybe I’m just easily manipulated, but this first story got me (even with them having to take the time to establish the premise first). It could’ve hit harder, sure, but it (subjectively ofc) felt like a pretty promising start to me. If I have one thing to nitpick it’s actually the soundtrack when she goes into town–it feels out of place? it doesn’t mesh and feels frantic. It’s entirely possible that it was intentional–I’m willing to trust the story for now.
I loved the cold open! It really efficiently establishes the mood, sets up the magical aspect with the single “tea brewing” shot, and shows us Meg’s personality through how others (Ms. Faust and all the animals) interact with her. When people say “show, don’t tell”, this is what they mean.