Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fantastic Friends’ On The CW, Where James And Oliver Phelps Are Joined By Famous Friends On Adventurous Trips In Exotic Locales

In Fantastic Friends, twin brothers James and Oliver Phelps — best known for playing the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter film series — share their love of adventure travel with celebrity friends. That’s about it.

FANTASTIC FRIENDS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A boat speeds towards a scenic, mountainous island.

The Gist: In the first episode, taking place in the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, the brothers happen to “find” Maisie Williams, best known as Arya Stark in Game Of Thrones, paddleboarding in the middle of the bay they’re in. She’s their companion for this trip.

The three of them get a quick sailing lesson and then the brothers race Williams and the instructor on tiny catamarans; of course the brothers get smoked, and James falls in. Oliver goes for a swim and boards the crew’s sailboat, leaving his brother in the dust.

The trio ride bikes through a former sugar plantation, and see a bunch of fruit bats in a cave, then stay at an amazing hotel carved into the mountain. The next day they hike the highest peak on the island’s Piton Mountains. They try to swim to Pigeon Island but take paddleboards and a kayak instead; there, they have a cookout with some strong booze that the guide says would be illegal to bring on the plane back home.

Then, Maisie finds a bar that requires crossing the rocky beach at low tide to get there. The next day the trio go ziplining in the jungle and play pranks on each other, then wrap up the trip in the same spot where they started, working together on a real sailboat.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Fantastic Friends is a travel show not unlike ones like The Reluctant Traveler, or Down To Earth With Zac Efron, but with a cheeky, very British tone reminiscent of pretty much every show hosted by the trio from The Grand Tour.

Our Take: The entire time we watched the first episode of Fantastic Friends, we kept searching for what we were going to say about the show. It’s a travel show, and not a particularly distinctive one. It’s got the requisite amount of spectacular photography, and a lot of interplay between the brothers, their guest and the guides who are showing them around. There’s that cheeky commentary we mentioned above, often hard to hear over a too-loud soundtrack.

Maybe where it’s supposed to be unique is that the Phelps brothers are best known for playing the Weasley twins, and it seems like most of their guests are people who have starred in fantasy genre shows and films. So there’s some chitchat during hikes and other things where the group has time, where the brothers relate to the craziness of being in the middle of such devoted fanbases.

But there doesn’t seem to be anything regarding insight into the heritage and history of wherever they are. There’s some lip service given, but much of it is in narration, not in the moment. And many moments where a viewer could get some of that insight are obscured by set bits where the brother and/or their guest are being goofy for the cameras.

All of these complaints indicate a show that’s terrible, but that’s not the case with Fantastic Friends. It’s just kinda… there. It’s a show that’s worth having on when you’re doing something else, and you can look up occasionally from that something else and mouth a silent “wow” at the beautiful scenery, wishing you were there. But it’s not a show that sticks in the brain once it’s over.

Sex and Skin: No skin beyond the hosts and guest in swimsuits.

Parting Shot: Maisie dives back into the bay, and we see the sailboat in the twilight.

Sleeper Star: All of the hardworking guides who have to put up with the brothers being occasional wankers for the cameras.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing was egregiously bad; the whole show was just boring.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Fantastic Friends is perfectly serviceable but mostly just dull. But tune in if you like to watch great scenery from around the world.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.