What I will always love about Over the Garden Wall, and what to me really makes it an autumn classic, is how the show presents the season as a transition. People like to say it’s a Halloween show, but it’s really an autumn show, autumn in all its faces.
Early in the show, we have autumn as the late, lingering summer. The fields are full, leaves cling to the branches. The world is painted in a greenish-gold, and it feels warm and rich and good.
And over the course of the show we lose that bit of summer. The colours bleach out. The mists come in. The harvest dances and music are done.
And by the end of the show, we get autumn as the harbinger of the coming season. Summer is long behind us. The long winter is ahead.
And I think it’s so appropriate that the show first premiered in November. When else are we more aware of how much the season has changed than when we are past smiling September and October and find ourselves with grey, patient November, watching the days get shorter and the nights grow longer.
