Knights of Guinevere Pilot Review
Written by Vi-Linh Nguyen | October 17, 2025
Every sci-fi, fantasy, horror and animation fan should be excited. Because Glitch Studios, the indie studio behind the smash hit “The Amazing Digital Circus”, has released their first 2D pilot. The Australian based studio has built a reputation for gathering some of the top talents in the industry to create unique and compelling stories that are willing to experiment with what is expected with the medium, and the audiences who consume it. In the Knights of Guinevere pilot, audiences will get to see the most obvious, but most indirect commentary on the two biggest powers that keep modern society afloat: capitalism and entertainment.
Official Knights of Guinevere promotional poster from Glitch
To explain, the creators behind Knights of Guinevere include Dana Terrace, Zach Marcus and John Bailey Owen. All three of these big names have worked on the global phenomenon that also happens to be Terrace’s own creation, The Owl House. As viewers who may not all work in the animation industry, it needs to be known that The Owl House was cancelled early, for various Disney-esque profit-focused reasons. But the reason people know best is that the Owl House was incredibly LGBTQIA+ friendly when it came to its representation of these marginalized groups. Knights of Guinevere, with Terrace as the director, and storyboard lead gives off the very familiar visual style Owl Fans recognize while emanating a leagues-darker undertone to this show compared to the aforementioned, Disney property. To add onto the visual style however, we also get to see color choices that reminiscent of what has been dubbed “old Disney”. That blue nostalgic hue old movies like Pinocchio or Sleeping Beauty have. The tint of pink and warm colors that make watching those old movies feel magical. It’s important to keep in mind though, the difference between studio entertainment properties and independently run ones. Studio-run properties have to abide by ever changing rules that ensure investors reap the most benefit, lest those properties fall to the dreaded chopping block.
As stellar as this pilot is, it doesn’t come without its critiques. Knowing the circumstances of the creators behind Knights of Guinevere, one has to wonder if this show’s existence stems solely from their treatment, from their time working with the biggest entertainment company in the world. The criticism of Disney is a double-edged sword here. On the one hand, criticizing megacorporations like them is understandable from a creative’s standpoint. That's because of the stifling of that very creative essence that birthed beloved entertainment properties to begin with. From a showrunner’s shoes, you get funding and an opportunity to bring your idea to a massive audience, yet that’s if you obey your patron’s specifications. This can mean criticizing the metaphorical hand that once fed you can come off as spiteful. But that could just be the naive parasocial nature of what it could be like to work at Disney. The only people who know the truth are the ones who have in fact worked with them. Others can only wonder. The audience doesn’t know the nuances of what went on behind closed doors. The criticism of Disney could be warranted. Broadly speaking, criticizing Disney is, in fact, warranted. The company has a long history of bringing joy to the world and will always have its loyal fans. But no one who makes it that big makes it without sacrifice when the goal is money. Money gained from blood. And that’s metaphorical blood, but the blood will always be there, whether it’s Ub Iwerks, whose credit to the Disney brand was downplayed, or Adriana Caselotti, who had trouble finding work after the uncredited role as Snow White. Will Knights of Guinevere be enough to show people, whether they are fans of Disney or not, that the company is worth criticizing? There’s only one episode out for now. We’ll have to wait and see.
As viewers, we still have to remember that this one episode is still a pilot. The crew will have some kinks to work out to make Knights of Guinevere the best it can be, both in story and visuals. Every detail has meant something, in the pilot after all. This will be the SPOILER filled section of the article, so read on at your own risk.
Scene from Knights of Guinevere on YouTube
Take Orville Park for example. The obvious allusion to the big man himself, Walt Disney. Eagle eyed viewers will notice he has a blue mark on his face from his first appearance. Throughout the episode we see allusions to how the pollution of the park affects in habitants around them. That included blue marks on their bodies, warnings of babies born blue, and something called “blue lung disease”. The very fact that Orville Park has one of these tell-tale signs of being poisoned by his own park is telling, of how far his creation has come. How rampant the effects of the park are that even the richest man and owner of the park displays physical effects of that very pollution. No one is safe from Park Planet.
Those blue markings also provide an interesting parallel to the robots of the park, because the opening scene with Orville talking to Olivia (with the Guinevere robot in the background), we build up to a scene where Olivia pulls Guinevere by what looks like intestines. Why does a robot have intestines? Towards the end of the episode, viewers have a similar question. When Andi and Franki make their way into the lab with the escaped Guinevere droid, the droid gets plugged into a machine to be “fixed” (as far as Andi, Franki and viewers know). Once the machine has injected itself into Guin’s metallic skin, viewers get treated to bulging metal veins. The robots of the park are heavily implied to be organic based on the evidence of the pilot. The aforementioned blue lungs and marks are clearly affecting the humans who work at the park (especially those working under the park). Those workers are being stripped of the little humanity they have left because of the park. The line between human and machine is already starting out blurrier than a viewer would expect. We’re in the middle of the conflict of man and machine.
Knights of Guinevere perfectly illustrates the bleak beauty of combining science fiction thriller with horror fantasy elements. The setting gives the audience its science fiction thriller. The horror is shown through the disturbing organic elements of the robots that permeate the park. Finally, the fantasy elements are more subtle. We see it in the fairy tale princess way the Guin droid sees her world. We see it in the daydreamy way Franki sees the little animal trio that talk to her (and are implied to be a hallucination by how Andi cannot see them). Viewers of the already acclaimed pilot must remember that we still just have a pilot. There are theories to what path the story will take floating in the internet abyss. More than anyone could count. There have been parallels between Guinevere’s design with what has been discretely shown to be Olivia Park’s (likely late) mother. Orville’s physical interactions with the Guinevere's princess droid strongly support this as well. There’s the theory that Orville Park will come back somehow less human than before. It’s hard to say where this story will go, and I can’t wait to find out. Glitch Studios has proven to have master story tellers behind their rosters, so I have faith Knights of Guinevere will give its audience something beautiful, memorable and absolutely heart shattering- enough to stick in our collective consciousness for years to come.
