I found the Umbrella Academy very enticing, and thought that it worked on most levels - unfortunately the manner in which the story was told, the character arcs and the consistency in genre/expression was not to my overall liking.

The look of the show was great. The costumes weren't clunky as is so often the case in superhero shows, they were stylish and original. The production value in general seemed very high for a show. The sets and locations were good, the use and execution of CGI was excellent and blended well with the special effects which must have been equally many.

Perhaps most of all I enjoyed the cast. Not every character was equally compelling, and some could have used more screen time in order for their stories to really have an impact. But despite the great visuals I would properly have given up on this show had it not been for the great cast. Especially Aidan Gallagher and Robert Sheehan delivered consistently interesting performances, and the partnership between Mary J. Blige and Cameron Britton worked well and couldn't help remind me of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson.

With all this said.

After a great first episode or two, the shows story started showing some serious cracks, and as with so many other superhero dramas nowadays, the basic premise for the shows major conflict was bad communication, infighting and general quarreling. The show felt too predictable as most of the foreshadowing was so glaringly obvious that it was painful, and the few things that originally seemed delightfully odd, turned out be just that and nothing more, just gimmicks sprinkled in without them providing any deeper meaning or carrying the story forward. One can hope that they will manifest themselves in the next season.

Last, but not least, the show seemed to have a hard time figuring out if it was a horror, a mystery, a comedy or family drama. I'm not saying that components of each of these can not be part of the same, but more consistency would have been an improvement in my opinion. Personally I found too much of the written humor juvenile and feel-good moments at odds with the rest of the shows tone, however the actors did intentionally manage to provide some good laughs in their deliveries of otherwise humorless statements. (so more kudos to them) I intentionally neglected to mention action as a genre, because beyond three of the fights, of which two feature in the first two episodes, the fights seemed slow and boring, they didn't carry the story forward and they weren't even shot well.

So basically The Umbrella Academy is a very mixed bag. But you like fashionable superheroes, Tim Burton's parade of misunderstood, leading-role freaks and reality-TV level drama, then this is properly right up your alley.