A supernatural horror-comedy series premiering on Syfy in January, 2022.
Astrid Bell and Lilly Fortenberry are best friends, and complete social outcasts. After being mocked out of a local cool kids party, the two blow off some steam by reciting a little witchcraft and screaming their frustrations at the sky.
The problem? The witchcraft worked. And now their town is infested with demons from beyond. And with their new superpowers and demon handler, Brutus, the two have to deal with all the creatures. Lest they bring about the complete apocalypse of the world.
The show was cancelled by Syfy after one season.
Astrid And Lilly Save The World provides examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: Candace and Jordan, although the former turns out to have Hidden Depths and be acting that way due to social pressure.
- Amazon Chaser: In "Hair", Sparrow is chuffed to learn that he's "dating Buffy" (though hurt that Astrid kept it a secret).
- Big Bad: The Guardian, a mysterious and very powerful demon pulling the strings behind the scenes, who according to legend once tried to open all the portals simultaneously.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Both main characters are plus size and considered attractive by Sparrow and Candace respectively.
- Bloody Hilarious: Ala Stan Against Evil. Blood and death, interspersed with hilarity.
- Butt-Monkey: Val the theater kid. She's been victimized in some fashion by every monster. It's even lampshaded during "Toenail" to mock the monster of the day.Lilly: You are so pathetic you couldn't even get Val? Every monster gets Val!
- Crack in the Sky: A rift randomly opens in the clouds in "Teeth" that drenches the principal and vice principal in goo, which they assume is a prank by Astrid and Lilly since the girls happen to be standing in front of them.
- Discard and Draw: Closing the portal also removes the duo's monster hunting powers, but another one soon opens that grants them new abilities, like levitation for Lilly.
- Even the Guys Want Him: The Pheromones of the monster in "Lips" affect boys and girls equally, and both enthusiastically line up to kiss him at the school fair's Kissing Booth.
- Failed a Spot Check: Lampshaded by Lilly in "Doppelkopfel" when Jordan walks right past her and her doppelganger in the bathroom without reacting to the fact there were two Lillies.
- Fake Relationship: At the end of "Amygdala", Brutus pretends to be Astrid's college-age boyfriend to make her bullies jealous and shut them up (this is before she starts dating Sparrow).
- Forced Out of the Closet: An angry and jilted Tate outs Lilly and Candance's burgeoning relationship after he catches them kissing in the cafeteria during "Hair". Astrid quickly gives him an earful over such a jerk move.Astrid: Did you just out them!? On what planet do you think that is okay!? That is beyond unacceptable, you idiot!
- The Fundamentalist: Candace's mom, Christine Powell, the local Bible-thumping religious zealot.
- The Heavy: While the Guardian functions as the Big Bad, Christine does most of the heavy lifting and recruiting due to him being unable to leave the confines of the church.
- Horned Humanoid: Brutus looks exactly like a handsome human man except for a single horn on his forehead, which he can retract at will.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode except the finale is named after a bodypart the girls need to take from the Monster of the Week and put in the Orb in order to close the portal (ex. "Lips", "Hair", "Amygdala", "One Rib", and monster-specific bodyparts like "Tontoom", "A-borg" and "Doppelkopfel").
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Tate, a Jerk Jock who goes to school with Astrid and Lilly. He's one of the few people who knows the truth about monsters and he sometimes helps the girls with their monster fighting.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Astrid has shades of this, with the caveat that she is a virgin. She makes no secret about her desire for attractive men's bodies and using her hunter powers to perv on Sparrow.
- Love Freak: Brutus is really, vocally into love and considers giving relationship advice just as high a priority as giving monster hunting advice, if not more so. Which makes it all the sadder when we learn in the finale, "Guts", that his true love is lost in limbo.
- Mentor Archetype: Brutus. According to him, he and his kind show up whenever a portal is opened to help the people who opened it get it closed again.
- Murderous Mannequin: The true form of the eponymous monster in "Doppelkopfel" is that of a mannequin that ominously moves to look towards its target when they leave its presence.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The entire plot because the heroes inadvertently committed a ritual that opened a portal to a dimension of monsters. To be fair for them, the circumstances were completely esoteric so it couldn't be anything but accidental. Still, they're the only ones that can close it.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Big Bad is called "the Guardian", but doesn't guard anything.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The Monster of the Week of "One Rib", a demon named Josh, turns out to be a very nice guy. It's just a case of his demonic allergies making the town loopy.
- Red Herring: In "Lips", the audience is set up to think that Trystan is the Guardian's human form, but he's really just the Monster of the Week.
- Sadist Teacher: When Vice Principal Michelle is feeling upset over her birthday week not going to plan, she decides to cheer herself up by running a dodgeball match to watch the students brutalize each other.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Part of the impromptu ritual Astrid and Lilly perform in the pilot is shouting, "We want you all to evaporate!" backwards. In a subversion of expectations, Brutus tells them it was everything else they did that opened the portal (standing 7.263 feet away from each other, having copper and fir bark, and howling their pain at the moon), the backwards incantation was irrelevant.
- Sequel Hook: Season one ends with a new rift opening, granting Astrid and Lilly new powers, while Michelle is possessed by an entity that emerged from another one.
- Shipper on Deck: Brutus for Astrid and Sparrow. He's a big fan of romance in general.
- Shout-Out:
- The title of the episode "One Rib" comes from a famous scene in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka featuring a young Chris Rock.
- Astrid and Lilly's nerdy classmate who cottons onto them being monster hunters is named Egon (nicknamed Eggs). In "Doppelkopfel", he tells Val that he was named after "Egon Spengler, PhD" in-universe.
- Buffy is name-dropped multiple times, including Brutus comparing himself to Giles more than once.
- Title Drop: AlmostLilly: Astrid and Lilly: Saving humanity with their super cute and super sexy powers.
- Unreliable Narrator: "A-borg" uses this as a main plot point. We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives as our memories can be distorted by time and perspective.
- Weirdness Censor: Ala Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even the people who are directly exposed to monsters make up some explanation that fits their own view and forget everything else. With a very few exceptions.
- Weight Woe: Our heroines are both very big girls, in the cruel social world of high school. They're singled out for crashing a popular party in the first episode and given the name "Pudge Patrol" in front of everyone, which really breaks their hearts, leading to the events of the series.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The powers Astrid and Lilly get to combat evil? An annoyingly strong sense of smell and super strength...in one leg. They aren't thrilled about it.
- X-Ray Vision: One of the powers Astrid develops is seeing through things.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Astrid and Lilly get a lot of these from Brutus and give a fair few of them to each other and other people who need them.
