“Star vs. the Forces of Evil” arrived on Disney Channel as a preview on January 18, 2015, then moved to Disney XD on March 30, 2015. It ran four seasons and 140 episodes, ending May 19, 2019. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a perfect 100%, a 10 out of 10. That score is not generosity. It is a correct reading of one of the most ambitious things Disney Television Animation has ever put on air.
Trailer, via Disney Channel Animation.
Daron Nefcy and a First for Disney XD
Nefcy created the series, with Jordana Arkin and Dave Wasson developing it. It is the first Disney XD series created by a woman, and the third Disney Television Animation series overall to hold that distinction, after Pepper Ann in 1997 and Doc McStuffins in 2012. That fact matters less than what Nefcy did with the room she was given: a magical girl show that starts silly and ends as a study of prejudice, monarchy and the nature of magic itself.
Star Butterfly and the Wand
Star Butterfly, voiced by Eden Sher, is heir to the Butterfly Kingdom throne in the dimension of Mewni. On her 14th birthday she receives the family’s heirloom wand. After she accidentally sets fire to the family castle, King River and Queen Moon Butterfly send her to Earth as a foreign exchange student. She lands in suburban Los Angeles with the Diaz family, attends Echo Creek Academy, and becomes roommates with Marco Diaz, voiced by Adam McArthur.
The premise is a delivery system. The show’s real engine is the wand and the dimensional scissors that open portals between worlds.
Ludo, Toffee and the Shift in Scale
Season one is a monster-of-the-week comedy. Ludo, voiced by Alan Tudyk, is a half-bird, half-man creature from Mewni commanding a group of monsters, all trying to steal the wand. Tudyk also voices King River Butterfly. Then Toffee, voiced by Michael C. Hall, arrives, and the show changes shape.
This is the paper’s own ranking, not a claim the show makes about itself:
- Season two — Toffee forces the show to grow up without losing its jokes.
- Season four — more half-hour episodes, and the payoff for years of setup.
- Season three — Meteora Butterfly and the Eclipsa mysteries land hard.
- Season one — charming, uneven, still finding its voice.
Eclipsa and the Butterfly Family Secrets
The plot eventually abandons wand defense for something bigger: prejudice against monsters, the rulership of Mewni, Mewni’s origins, and magic itself. The mysteries center on Eclipsa Butterfly, the “Queen of Darkness” and the most infamous member of the Butterfly family. Meteora Butterfly, Eclipsa’s half-Mewman, half-monster daughter, becomes a major antagonist. Star and Marco fall in love along the way.
Two Segments and a Half-Hour
For the first three seasons, episodes typically split into two independent 11-minute segments. Season four has more half-hour episodes. That structure is why the show could be funny in one segment and devastating in the next. It also means the early episodes are disposable in a way the later ones are not.
What the 10 Out of 10 Actually Means
The score is not a claim that every episode works. Season one drifts. Some segments are filler. The claim is that the whole is greater than the parts, and that the parts are frequently excellent.
What makes “Star vs. the Forces of Evil” worth the perfect score is that it never treats its audience as too young for the questions it raises. A princess who burns down her own castle gets sent away, and the show follows that exile into questions about who deserves a throne and who gets called a monster. That is a lot to ask of a Disney XD cartoon. Nefcy asked it anyway.
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