I speak as a long-time fan of Extra Credits, and as someone who's really enjoyed Extra History and Extra Sci-Fi: Extra Mythology is mediocre, ill-told, and really trying much too hard, and you can comfortably ignore it.
First, the framing. I understand the intent behind opening and closing every story with a campfire, trying to stress the folkloric roots of mythological tales, but it's alienating at best, adding more layers between us on one end of the screen and the story on the other. And it doesn't need any of it. Extra History isn't presented as a lecture, or a research paper, or a book opening. Even when episodes of that one have a framing narrative, as with the Suleiman series, it's presented from the point of view of the characters, not from a secondary character looking at them.
And this change undermines attempts to put gags into the story, making it seem like these are tin-eared attempts by the story-teller to "spice up" or "modernize" the narrative. Worse, sometimes the art and the direction try way too hard to push more drama into the story by creating melodrama, with accidentally-hilarious results.
Finally, and arguably worst of all, the stories themselves are often not told well. The creators seem to obsess over minutae, as if trying to "world build," while leaving out characterization, adventures, or moments of interaction. The worst example by far is presenting Perseus as an inattentive husband and Andromeda as a bored kept woman with no say in her fate, when the two are famously one of the most faithful and happy couples in their home mythos, in the name of instead making a lame joke about Perseus's accidental murder of his father being an anti-climax. But even the Wendigo episode, otherwise one of the better ones, snags on what supernatural powers the Wendigoes have mid-fight-scene.
All of this is, of course, speaking as fan of the creators' output otherwise. I don't know what it would be like for someone coming in blind.
Extra Mythology: Try-Hard Mediocrity
I speak as a long-time fan of Extra Credits, and as someone who's really enjoyed Extra History and Extra Sci-Fi: Extra Mythology is mediocre, ill-told, and really trying much too hard, and you can comfortably ignore it.
First, the framing. I understand the intent behind opening and closing every story with a campfire, trying to stress the folkloric roots of mythological tales, but it's alienating at best, adding more layers between us on one end of the screen and the story on the other. And it doesn't need any of it. Extra History isn't presented as a lecture, or a research paper, or a book opening. Even when episodes of that one have a framing narrative, as with the Suleiman series, it's presented from the point of view of the characters, not from a secondary character looking at them.
And this change undermines attempts to put gags into the story, making it seem like these are tin-eared attempts by the story-teller to "spice up" or "modernize" the narrative. Worse, sometimes the art and the direction try way too hard to push more drama into the story by creating melodrama, with accidentally-hilarious results.
Finally, and arguably worst of all, the stories themselves are often not told well. The creators seem to obsess over minutae, as if trying to "world build," while leaving out characterization, adventures, or moments of interaction. The worst example by far is presenting Perseus as an inattentive husband and Andromeda as a bored kept woman with no say in her fate, when the two are famously one of the most faithful and happy couples in their home mythos, in the name of instead making a lame joke about Perseus's accidental murder of his father being an anti-climax. But even the Wendigo episode, otherwise one of the better ones, snags on what supernatural powers the Wendigoes have mid-fight-scene.
All of this is, of course, speaking as fan of the creators' output otherwise. I don't know what it would be like for someone coming in blind.