A couple days ago a new pilot dropped on the internet for The Handymen. The show is an adaptation of the creators earlier miniseries with the same name. It is not very well known and the original miniseries is quite rough. The show was made by the duo Thomas Browne and Andrew Buchanan. Thomas is the creator and writer while Andrew animated and did the post production on the original show. The new pilot is a lot higher quality and got a lot more people are working on it.
The handymen: Tom (Thomas Browne), Chad (Andrew Buchanan), and John (Mark Borison) are a couple of guys running a bunch of odd jobs for their shady boss Samantha (Andrew Buchanan). The handymen prides themselves on doing any job imaginable except, as Samantha says half jokingly, killing children.
Tom is an old weirdo who works well and is mostly interested in his paycheck, he has worked for the handymen for many years and is wishing for retirement. Chad is a seemingly lazy middle aged man who can’t be bothered with working properly. John, sort of dropped in the middle of this, is a law abiding citizen who wants to do a great job and go home to his family but is stuck in a situation where he has to do the opposite criminal and negligent coworkers.
Classic “The Handymen”
It’s a little hard knowing exactly what we will get with the handymen reboot. It differs in some rather major ways from the original miniseries but other parts are word for word the same. There are some pretty major spoilers that might become relevant as soon as the first episode of the main show but as of right now its hard to say how relevant those plot beats will become. If you are afraid of hypothetical spoilers to an indie show in production you maybe shouldn’t watch the classic show, but I really don’t think it can hurt given that production naturally will take a while.
The handymen pilot is sort of the first two episodes of the miniseries but rewritten. It follows the same cast but has a shifted tone. Where the new series mostly focus on Drama the original is more interested in improvised comedy while still serving a dramatic plot. In the original it’s a lot more clear that they are expected to do illegal jobs, the second job the gang go to is to get rid of a body.
Later episodes features Samantha haphazardly trying to get with Johns wife after he dies, the reveal that Chad originally was a pedophile on the lam, and Toms dissatisfaction as he can’t retire leads him to collaborate with the police.
In the newer adaptation they are a lot less openly criminal. The original “get rid of a body” job, is swapped to instead have them clean a house that obviously is the house of a drug addict. They seem to want to take the show to a more realistic and serious place and only time will really tell what will happen and how it will go.
Personally I hope it veers off a little more from the original, not cause I dislike it but because I feel like it’s somewhat of a waste to put this much effort into this project if you only want to make the same thing again but its hard to know from just the pilot whether or not it will come out the same but with some alterations.
I generally think the handymen pilot looks great animation-wise, many steps above the original for sure. I would say that it looks rather professional. I have some issues with the story however.
It feels sort of odd that someone like John would do the illegal things he does in the pilot, like burning down a house. When he does those things it feels like he is sort of under selling the traumatic things he just did or witnessed. Most reasons for why he don’t do the things he maybe should is either for no reason at all or because Chad tells him to stop and John begrudgingly follows his directions. John, the level headed one, kills a man in self defense, then he rather burn down the guys home to cover his trails than call the police to get things sorted.
Near the end, before Chad goes to meet Samantha, he picks up a gun and I was anticipating that getting fired in this episode but that is seemingly kept for later. If the show follows the same plot as the original I would assume that’s the gun Chad will kill themselves with but at this point it is not clear that’s the case and I don’t know why it was included when it was yet.
It’s sort of hard to tell with a show that seemingly wants to tell a bigger story if the things I right now see as confusing or sloppy, actually has an explanation. This might be explainable in later episodes but as of now it just feels quite odd.
I’m curious where The Handymen are headed and its clear that the people who are working on this really burns for it and I wish them the best. If you are interested in an animated, crime show with some comedy I really think you should watch it. The handymen pilot can be seen here.
You can also watch the original, it’s a less polished but its still worth a watch (just be ready for some audio peaking in the first episode). You can watch the original here.
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