What It's Like Being Alone

Plot synopsis:
=== Pilot ===
The pilot of the series aired with some anticipation. Beforehand, columnist Randall Denley had written that "I suspect [it] will be the highlight of the evening," noting the series had been described as "wondrous and fiendishly humorous." The first episode, titled "The Gurney Orphanage For Beginners," features Princess Lucy and her suitcase falling from the sky in front of the orphanage and killing three rabbits. Upon getting up and seeing the orphanage, Princess Lucy believes she has found her castle and royal family. Instead, she is surprised to find the building is full of mutant orphans, and devastated to learn she is an orphan herself. She tries to escape, but finds any way out blocked by a lake monster and a dangerous forest, among other things.
Eventually, a woman agrees to adopt Lucy. However, the other orphans see that the woman will probably not provide the best home for her, and intervene. Lucy ultimately decides that she belongs in the orphanage more so than her ideal castle.
=== Series ===
The series was continued with twelve more episodes: Themes explored include "social issues, pop culture references and humour." Due to the show having the visual appearance of a children's television series, each episode was preceded by a content warning, stating that the show was intended for an adult audience and that "parental discretion" was advised.
"Do Orphans Dream of Electric Parents?" is the second episode. It is about Brian Brain inventing robots and making them his parents, only to find that the robots want to divorce each other. In the next episode, "An Orphans Life Indeed", Princess Lucy seeks a best friend, but her vanity causes her to decide that only she can be her own best friend. Lucy then clones herself, but the clones prove troublesome. Seymore, who is in love with Lucy, ultimately solves the problem by slaughtering the clones with a chainsaw. One critic remarked that this was a particularly "disturbing" scene for the series.
The fourth episode, called "The Perfect Lesson", sees the orphans trying to perform a play to impress visiting prospective parents. It is from this episode that the show's title is derived, as the play repeatedly refers to "what it's like being alone". This was followed by the episode aired on 24 July, "The Poster Child" which is about a corporation that attempts to adopt Aldous to use her in advertisements. Aldous, under a witch's curse, must accept this shallow adoption or die.
In the episode "Fire the Reverend", a religious speaker visits the orphanage and confuses Charlie with Satan; the real Satan and his son later emerge, and Charlie finds out that while he is mistaken for being evil, Satan's son is trying to shed the perception that he is good. Eventually Charlie saves the day by persuading Satan and his son to leave the orphanage. The seventh episode is entitled "Red, White and Orphanage". It is about another orphanage abducting Brian Brain in order to exploit him in their plans for world domination. This was followed by "Sammy's Episode", which is about Sammy taking various medications, as well as shock therapy. The ninth episode is "A Tale of Almost Unbearable Sadness," which is focussed on declining morale in the orphanage and exploration of the dangerous forest.
Alternate names for the tenth episode are "Lucky Lucy" and "You Gotta Know When to Hold 'em". In it, Princess Lucy bets that Byron and Beasly cannot be cleaned and wins. She afterwards gambles more but nearly loses the orphanage in the process. The episode "Armie Loves Cigarettes" sees Armie taking up smoking. According to the Internet Movie Database, the second last episode and season finale aired on the same day, 18 September. The twelfth and second last episode is called "A Frightful Flu," and in it Aldous entrusts care for the ailing orphans to a witch. The final episode, "Silver Screen Lucy" or "The Sweet Stink of Success," is about the orphans making short films to impress a prospective parent, but he ends up adopting Nanny Goodapple and Beasly and Byron, leaving the orphanage to Aldous.

Tags: comedy

Review:
The Truth About Being Alone....
From the comment titled "What It's Like Being Amazed"***A wondrous and fiendishly humorous stop-motion animation series about freak orphans who are desperately trying to get adopted.
(yadda yadda yadda...)***Clearly, this post was written by Peyton himself - no other human being would display such bravado as to write such complete drivel about a poorly constructed show that has nowhere to go and no way to get there.
While I have to admit that the animation and set design is top-notch, the actual story lines are weak and the characters direct rip-offs of other artist's creations: a cuter version of Princess Lucy can be seen on "The Oblongs" and the dead bunny is practically a direct steal from Vasquez's "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" - not to mention the Tim Burton-esquire "influence" that other posts have mentioned.
This can come as no surprise to anyone who has ever had the pleasure of reading Dirge's "Lenore" comic book only to later be exposed to Peyton's "Evelyn" - the plagiarism is tangible enough to choke even the most stalwart goth-wannabe.It is a shame that this show was made on the backs of the Canadian tax-payers while the art and animation department struggled to make the show funny and brilliant under the weight of poor scripts and even poorer management.Do yourself a favour and watch the show with the sound turned off - at least that way you may enjoy the beauty of the animation and art direction unencumbered by the lousy writing..
Burton Lite.
At first I was intrigued when I saw the posters advertising the show.
Stop-motion animation on TV?
what's not to like?
But when I looked up the creators I found that one of the guys was responsible for Evelyn: the Cutest Evil Dead Girl, a short film whose style was obviously taken from Tim Burton, and concept was lifted wholesale from Roman Dirge's comic Lenore: the Adventures of a Cute Little Dead Girl.
He couldn't even be bothered to change the title.
So when I finally saw the show, I was watching with lowered expectations.
I've only seen the third episode, but for the most part it's about as unfunny and derivative as his previous effort.
The style still looks like it was fished out of Burton's recycling bin, the main character is more grating than necessary and there are the usual comedy ensemble stereotypes.
Only Aldous had a few funny lines and I liked the Seymour character mainly because he was mute.
I might watch a couple more episodes to give the show a chance, but unless the writing improves I'll hold out for the next Aardman film, thanks..
One of my favorites!.
I 100% adored this.
Sammy is cute and I loved how he kept trying to catch that witch.
Aldous is so gloomy and has some nice one liners.
I hate how they keep saying Charlie is a flaming homosexual.
Has it ever been said on the show that he is?
I loved when Lucy tried to be perfect and sent away for implants and then stapled them over top.
It's kinda depressing how delusional she is (check it out on the official site).
Armie is adorable but I wish Seymour could talk!!
Brian is way to conceited for my liking but it works.
This is a great mixture of characters and I'm looking forward to new episodes and have recruited a group of friends too :).
Originality and why they hate it.
I found what it's like being alone to be a creepily hilarious and hilariously creepy.
Claymation as used in the show is beautiful and visually stimulating.Every aspect of the show was well thought of and the characters are clever and poignantly funny from the literally 'flaming' homosexual(yes it's a stereotype but that's the joke) to Army the one armed boy and even Seymour the no mouthed one eyed violinist.most people with a developed sense of humour should be able to enjoy this show though the potty humour goes a little overboard sometimes.
the show should even hook horror fans with it's bleakness or the wonderful gore-fest towards the end of the third episode.
Adittionally Peyton fans who are looking for more of his "The Cutest Evil Dead Girl" (His award winning short) won't be disappointed.
What It's Like Being Amazed.
A wondrous and fiendishly humorous stop-motion animation series about freak orphans who are desperately trying to get adopted.
They must have had a crack writing team.
They must have had a crack writing team.
Incredible animation and each touching story is as pithy as it is erudite.
Incredible animation and each touching story is as pithy as it is erudite.
Though it is appealing to a younger audience the plot lines aren't facile.
For example I especially enjoy the brilliant autopsy of the idiosyncrasies of racial stereotypes.
Dwayne Hill is a maestro of voice.
If only there were more shows like this on television.
Finally we have proof that a fantastic series with great production values can come from Canada.
I just wish there was more marketing behind it..
what a disappointment.
I was looking forward to this, being a big fan of stop motion animation.
Man, what were they thinking?
Wasting all that gorgeous animation on such awful writing?!
That was the lamest attempt at comedy I've seen in a long time.
The character with the most lines had the most irritating voice imaginable, and blathered on in a near scream throughout the entire episode.
It was like fingernails across a blackboard, it was so difficult not to get up and change the channel (okay I admit, I didn't make it through the whole episode.
After 20 minutes I just couldn't take it any longer!) And the gay character, who is constantly on fire (get it?
'flaming'?
don't feel bad, i didn't laugh either.) is such a homophobic stereotype, I'm surprised the CBC let it slide.
It feels like they just thought, 'hey let's throw some kooky characters together and that will be enough: this one will be the smart one, this one will be the nihilist, this one's gay, etc.....' The end effect was soulless and irritating.The show looks gorgeous, the animators are talented and must have worked their butts off, so I hope they get some better scripts.
They deserve it..
Incredibly Bad, Unoriginal, and Uninspired.
Those poor, poor animators and production designers on this show.
They knocked themselves out on this really terrible effort from third-rate Tim Burton rip-off Brad Peyton.Lucy the irritating monster in the toilet paper roll with the annoying voice -- completely unlikeable and enough to turn the channel before one episode is finished (never to return).
Really lame sight-joke characters.
Adult humour in an infantile format which misses the mark completely as to how South Park and the rest pull these things off so well.
Insults to gay people, racism, insults to thinking people everywhere.
How in the world did the CBC let this one slide on by?
Read on.Those poor animators...Poorer still are the Canadian Tax-payers who flipped the bill for this one.
Not unlike the endless disasters from the English Canadian film Illuminati (Egoyan and those other failures Canadians hate so much), the Canadian public who is paying for this garbage is avoiding it with a passion.
I read today that the ratings are down to 118k average for the season so far.
Which means, at some point, the ratings dropped to about 90 thousand people, across the whole of Canada, who paid for this.
It doesn't get much worse than that.
An astonishing .25% of Canadians are watching this show (ONE QUARTER OF ONE PERCENT).
It cost us HOW MUCH?
As a point of fact, the ratings have been dropping through the floor since the premier episode, falling off an incredible 40%!
Some people gave it a chance, then fled after seeing how worthless it was.
If this were in the US, it would be yanked immediately and never heard from again.
Brad Peyton's career would be thankfully over and he'd be sent packing to flip burgers back in Gander, Newfoundland -- his natural calling.
But this is Canada.Terrible writing, irritating characters, bad jokes, no actual audience that can be identified, and the whole rip-off fake pseudo-Burton/Suess/Sesame Street thing is infuriatingly bad.
So how did it happen?
It all got a blind-eye instant greenlight because Fred Fuchs signed up his name knowing he'd make a quick buck because Peyton had a deal with Tom Hank's PLAYTONE and the big name recognition that brings (Hanks needed a Tim Burton rip-off for some project).
Now the mythic Hanks project has fallen off the map, not listed on the website even, and we Canadians are left holding the bag on this..
What was CBC thinking?
This is bad beyond words!.
I'm astounded that a show this bad could have made it on a major network.
It would have been rejected as a cable access program.
The only reason I gave it 2 stars, and not 1, is because the animation is beautiful.
The writing, however, is about as amateurish as can be.
I'm sure a 6 year old who speaks ONLY Bulgarian could have done better.
It is insulting, unfunny and STUPID.
The voices are so grating that it actually caused me physical pain to listen to the show.Don't get me wrong, weird can be good and sometimes great, but this show is neither, and weird for weird's sake is just BORING.The person at the CBC who green-lit this junk should really be out on their ear.
What on earth were they thinking!
This really has to be the lowest that Canadian TV can sink..
i thought it was cute..
I first saw this show when a friend sent me a text message saying turn to channel 3 (the CBC).
Now, i normally don't watch this channel, it is usually quite boring (except for the Simpson's's at supper-time!), but i tuned in anyway.
It was a really cute stop motion animation show that was playing.
I liked it quite a bit, and i put a reminder on my television to watch it again next week.
I really liked the one character (my friend has watched this a few times and believes she is the main character) she appears to be goth, tall, skinny and depressing.
I didn't catch her name, but i really liked her.
She reminds me of a few other characters that have been in other shows.
For some reason, i am usually drawn towards the goth characters.
(my mother thinks i am morbid) But anyway, i thought this was a cute show, and you should check it out if you have a chance..
Funny writing and great animation...
what were the naysayers watching?.
I stumbled on this show much later...
I wasn't sure what it was about but thought I'd give it a try.
I was surprised that this funny, well animated show did not get the love it deserved!
The characters are well thought out and have good chemistry.
I can't believe the people that gave it a one-star on this site...
Sure, it's not for everyone and those who can't understand dark comedy will never like it but come on, even if you are not a big fan, you have to admit it is well done and should at least be given a five-star.
Not sure why people are also comparing it with Tim Burton's work.
So are they saying that every clay/stop-motion show that has a dark theme should be compared to those?
It's like having every space-themed, science fiction movie be compared to Star Wars.
It's just too bad there are only 13 episodes...
as with most CBC shows (some deserving and some not), it gets little to no promotion and just fades away.
I'm positive if the show's creator had pitch this to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, there would have a good cult following in the US..
I really wanted to like this show.
When the ads first started running on CBC las year (?) I thought the show looked great.
A creepy, silly fun stop-motion animation show for adults!
Can it get any better than this?
Well, yes it can, because after viewing a number of episodes, the beauty of the animation can only carry weak writing so far.
Each episode had a few laughs (few being the main word) but overall, this is an unfunny comedy and that's the worst thing a comedy can be.Yes, I get that the humour is supposed to be ironic and that the tragic lives of the characters are supposed to be sickly darkly funny.
Sometimes they are indeed, but most of the time their just kind of bland, or boring or tedious.I really wanted to support this show, to see it succeed as a cool new thing, and Canadian to boot, but sadly, what it's like is, well, dull..
Unique, Dark, and at times Disgusting.
Though there's not much in the way of a plot, this show does have a certain goth charm to it as well as a few funny moments.
The main characters are hapless children at an orphanage that would be considered freaks by society- a drunken fish-boy, a young man with one huge eye and no mouth, a goth, you name it.
At times they struggle amongst their friends and their own strange selves, but ultimately learn to be comfortable with who they are.
The show is also beautifully animated in stop-motion, but because it contains things such as bodily functions, foul language, and chainsaw butchery, it is not advisable for children.Somemay find this show pointless and irritating, others may enjoy the plight of the wacky characters, but most will agree that this series brings something quirky and completely original to the home viewer..
I love it!!.
I love it!!.
I first heard about this show from two of my friends and I thought "sounds incredibly morbid and gory.
Not my type of show" But really, when you think about it , it isn't that morbid at all.
At times it can be quite happy.
I love the animation style.
Stop motion takes a lot of time and patience, and to make a whole TV series out of it is just amazing.
And now, I berate all you critics out there.ahem: how can anybody say this show is unoriginal???How many other shows have there been about a bunch of freak orphans who live in the middle of nowhere with a dysfunctional nanny who does nothing but glide around giggling?
Name me a single one and I'll drop it.
Okay enough of that.
Personally, I would recommend this show to just about anybody-as long as they have a slightly sick sense of humor.
If you have no sense of humor don't watch it, it's that simple.
I love all the characters, especially Seymore talkless(the mute with one giant eye who plays the violin:get it everybody?), Charlie(the flaming kid everybody says is gay:stereotypes!), and Aldous (the goth girl:and much to her displeasure, babysitter).
I especially love how Aldous is forced to take care of them all, particularly after episode 13, where Nanny Goodapple leaves them and leaves her in charge of the gurney.The only problem with this show is that it's only on once a week and so far has only 13 episodes, when it deserves so much more...