Last time, we looked at five of the Hub's other offerings. Today, we'll look at a few more. Why? Because I've lost all control over my life.
Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures
SYNOPSIS:
Strawberry Shortcake and her friends do stuff. Very girly stuff. It usually involves bad rock songs and baking. And then they keep your children up at night with their horrible visages.
OPINION:
As you can probably guess, this show didn't do it for me. At all. Like, it never got anywhere within the vicinity of done for me. I couldn't even finish an episode without having to walk away and calm myself down, that's how much it aggravates me.
Okay, so you know how people are freaking out that FiM's going to become girly and super-saccharine and all that? Well, this is a prime example of what they're complaining about. This show is just inconceivably cute to the point of suffocation. And how does this world even work in the first place? You have walking, talking berries living next to humans, and...there's this caterpillar thing and...my brain cannot compute all this sugary sweetness. The writing...okay, some parts of it can be funny, but a lot of it is really dumbed down and simplistic. The voice acting is also decent, I suppose, but...none of it's really standout, either.
But then you get to the animation. The CGI here is frightening and just feels really cheap. The humans are just terrifying to behold, and the berries...they're like tiny little demons out to steal your children's souls.
I know it's terribly unsporting to mock something that's well outside of my age range and interests, but...this is bad. There are people who like it, but the episodes I saw were grating and uncomfortable to sit through.
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Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-lot
SYNOPSIS:
The Care Bears are a bunch of bears with magic symbols on their tummies. For whatever reason, it is their goal in life to make everyone happy and smile, and so they go about helping children in need.
OPINION:
Confession time: I never liked Care Bears. Even as a little kid, I thought the original series was boring and far too feel-happy and saccharine. And yet, the franchise has refused to just roll over and die, and with Amy Keating Rogers taking up the show's helm, surely this iteration would finally make this a series worth following, right?
Well, not really. It falls under the same gray area as Littlest Pest Shop; it's okay, but there's nothing really special or spectacular about it. The Care Bears themselves are pretty much your basic, barely two-dimensional, rainbow-powered sins against nature who are defined entirely by their names and Belly Badges. (Well, except Grumpy Bear. He's awesome.) The human kids they encounter are a mixed bag as well, and suffer from the same Uncanny Valley effect as Strawberry Shortcake. Mostly they just exist to have a problem for the bears to help solve.
Other than that, there's really nothing else to comment on with this show. Nothing on here is really all that interesting to me. I also have no idea what's going on with this one since AKR has confirmed that she's back for Season 4 of FiM. Apparently there's another season in the works, so I'm guessing that she basically did what Faust did and finished setting up the season before leaving.
Either way, not interested.
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Transformers: Rescue Bots
SYNOPSIS:
A message from Optimus Prime to the scattered remnants of the Autobots is picked up by a stasis pod containing the last four Rescue Bots, who have been deactivated since before the war began. Since the Rescue Bots are not built for heavy combat, Prime instead has them...disguise themselves as extremely advanced vehicles, team up with a human family, and try to learn about Earth and improve Autobat relations with the planet and...um...huh.
OPINION:
Is your child a little too young for Transformers Prime? Well, have we got a show for you...
In all seriousness, Rescue Bots is very obviously aimed at the kindergartners out there, with its bright colors, simple designs, and near-total lack of serious violence and villains. (They do get a mad scientist later on, but no Decepticons.) Instead, any and all conflict is either generated by internal squabbling between the Rescue Bots and/or their human host family (which consists of four emergency responders and the half-pint audience surrogate). The whole “pretend to just be really advanced machines” thing is really damn ridiculous and just feels tacked on.
Other than that, there are a few positive things about the show. The Rescue Bots have fairly simple personalities, but there's enough room there for some depth when demanded. The human characters are also pretty flat, but they still have enough traits to bounce off each other from time to time. And while I joke about the ridiculous concepts around it, the idea of the Autobots trying to foster better public relations is a good one, especially considering how many continuities apparently have the humans turning on them and trying to kill them all or exile them from Earth.
But here's the strangest thing: this is part of the Aligned Continuity. That means this takes place in the same universe as Prime and the High Moon Studios games. Bumblebee even makes a guest appearance in one episode. So while the Autobots were fighting the Decepticons, the Rescue Bots were just chilling and doing their own thing. I wonder if the show's going to approach what happened in the Season 2 Prime finale, what with the full-scale Decepticon invasion, the Autobots base being destroyed, and Prime dead for the time being.
Overall, this isn't a bad show, but Prime aims a bit older and hits the mark more than this does.
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Pound Puppies
SYNOPSIS:
The Pound Puppies are a well-trained network of canines responsible for matching puppies with new owners, and the team at Shelter 17 are among the very best at what they do. They use their training and skills to find dogs new homes, all while avoiding the incompetent pound owner and the rather harmless dog catcher.
So basically, it's Hogan's Heroes, but with dogs.
OPINION:
Unlike a lot of the other retooled franchises on The Hub, Pound Puppies has absolutely jack to do with what came before outside of the very basic premise. There's still a crooked pound owner, but he's treated less like a credible threat and more like a buffoon the Puppies have to get past. None of the characters are the same, and the general dynamic of the team is very different. That being said, all these changes are a net positive.
The Pound Puppies probably stand out next to the ponies and Transformers as the most developed characters on any of the shows reviewed so far. Each of them has a basic personality, but it isn't the end-all, be-all of their character like in Care Bears. And while some of them can get a bit on the grating side depending on the episode, for the most part they are very well realized and interesting. The actual puppies, however, are all pretty much flat and uninteresting, which I suppose is kind of the point; the real meat of the show is seeing how the dogs get them hooked up with new homes. As for the humans, the two main ones pretty much serve as the closest thing to antagonists this series gets, and they are both pretty much harmless (although the early episodes did show some more malice on the owner's part).
Overall, this is a pretty good show. Heck, it was actually the most popular series on The Hub its first year; yes, this took down both Transformers and My Little Pony.Not bad for a franchise that had basically been out of the public eye for decades by that point. Unfortunately, there have been rumblings that the third season will be the show's last, much like how Season Three was thought to be the end of ponies. We'll see what happens when we get there.
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