Expect much from ‘Disenchantment,’ but not ‘The Simpsons’

Because it’s a Matt Groening animated comedy set in medieval times, a viewer might come upon Netflix’s newest show, “Disenchantment,” and expect a magical mash-up where Lord Macduff and Duff Beer could become fast tavern companions – and where a ruff-wearing Homer Simpson might even belly up to the Bard.

Certainly, “Disenchantment,” which became available for streaming Friday, does have a taste for the drink, featuring as it does a carousing 19-year-old princess who binges midnight mead and ale the way an eager Netflix subscriber might binge these fresh episodes.

And in this case, viewers would be wise to indulge in some binge thinking, because “Disenchantment” – like a party barge awaiting a capricious wind – takes awhile to get up to a steady comedy clip. Clearly, Groening and collaborator/ showrunner Josh Weinstein (a veteran of Groening’s “The Simpsons” and “Futurama”) start out rendering the character-development outlines more heavily than the punchlines. That tactic should prove wise in the long run, but be forewarned: It’s not till the fifth episode that you really see the show’s elements all start to jell, as the writers, unshackled from heavy exposition, get as creatively adventurous as their star princess.

And it is on the solid shoulders of Princess “Bean” Tiabeanie that much of “Disenchantment’s” early appeal rests. As a young royal betrothed multiple times by her alliance-seeking father, Bean (winningly voiced by “Broad City’s” Abbi Jacobson) has shades of many freedom-seeking princesses. As an animated royal rebel – albeit one who likes to drop medieval Molly or doff her top on occasion in defiance – Bean is trying to change her fate like some PG-13 Merida from Disney/Pixar’s “Brave.” The character also summons thoughts of rough-rolling princesses from such films as “Shrek,” as well as danger-hungry young warriors from comics like “Nimona.”

The creative choices by Groening and Weinstein also mean that “Disenchantment” is not aiming to play like some mere sendup of “Game of Thrones,” “Lord of the Rings” or a decades-long line of Disney princesses. Bean, a freckled, bucktoothed young woman, does have the striking white hair of “GoT’s” Daenerys. And the 10-episode first season does spoof Disney, from “Lady and the Tramp” to street-wise Peter Pan-esque fairies – more swaggering TinkerBallers than Tinkerbell – who soar like gritty pixies over the castle of Dreamland. But Bean feels like enough of a fresh invention that Netflix’s order of 20 episodes total does not look like an act of misplaced optimism.

Rounding out Bean’s core of physical and psychological adventurers are Elfo, a Keebler-esque refugee who, as voiced by Nat Faxon, comedically plays a bit like Josh Gad’s snow-sidekick Olaf but with more heated desires on his mind; and Luci (Eric Andre), Bean’s feline-like personal demon who gives shadowy side-eye just as well as Natasha from the classic “Rocky and Bullwinkle” series.