I felt RoP started promising, but just got dumber and dumber as the season went on. HotD was surprisingly good (I was honesty braced for a trainwreck on par with the end of GoT), but at the same time the breakneck pace of years made it tough to invest in characters that with one or two exceptions, all seemed to get recast every other episode, so I'm left somewhat ambivalent. WoT was just all over the place. Some bits worked, some didn't. Mostly it felt like it was punching above it's weight.
As for Willow; like I said, I liked the characters and the actors including the irreverent bordering on Whedonesque dialogue, but the world building was shabby, the pacing was a mess and the needle drops just didn't work for me.
I think the main thing Willow lacked was a consistent "straight man" (comedically speaking.) When everyone is being the "funny man" it strips away any weight and gravitas. It doesn't have to be that stark of course with such a respectably sized ensemble, but there should at least be a consistent gradient of personalities.
In the movie you had Rool and Franjean as the out and out comic relief; every thing they say and do is a punchline by design. Willow as the earnest self-serious character, the Bilbo Baggins-esque hero where the comedy comes from just how far in over his head and out of his element he is, but he's still the emotional core of the story. Madmartigan of course as the roguish rascal with a heart of gold who's there to play off both Willow's self seriousness and the two Brownies' cajoling. I guess you could include Raziel in that dynamic too as for her the joke is that she's suppose to be the wise mentor figure, but has been transformed into an animal, and bounces between various forms for most of the second act. So in a sense the comedy there is from the loss of dignity.
(BTW; Patricia Hayes doesn't get nearly enough credit for pulling off this role, which is 70% vocal only, and has her having to deliver serious dramatic dialogue while affecting the high pitched squeaks of a possum, the cawing of a crow, and the bleating of a goat, respectively.)
The show on the other hand got into this weird state were every main character is constantly oscillating between funny and serious, not in accordance to a consistent characterization or group dynamic, but due to the demands of the plot, which is not great storytelling. Comedy and drama is a delicate balancing act that the movie nailed, but the show sadly missed the mark on.
Well if we're also including animation, then I'd also suggest 'Dragon Age: Absolution', which was way better than it had any business being!
