Let's talk about The Loud House tonight.

 You can either die and be "Making Fiends," or live long enough to see yourself become "SpongeBob."

There are times where you can become too successful for your own good. This is one of those times. 

Six years ago this week, Nickelodeon aired the series premiere of its latest cartoon, The Loud House. The show follows Lincoln Loud, a boy who experiences life in Royal Woods, Michigan while dealing with ten sisters. It was created by animation veteran Chris Savino, and has since turned into one of Nickelodeon's most successful properties. The Loud House is now a franchise, with a spin-off series (and a live-action one on the way), a feature film, and a live-action Christmas film. And the show itself has no plans to slow down any time soon, having been renewed for a seventh season. 

We're at the point now where you can't tell the story of Nickelodeon without including The Loud House. It became a runaway hit and was the first Nicktoon in years to not only gain popularity, but the kind of popularity that hasn't been seen since SpongeBob SquarePants. Nickelodeon finally gained an animated show that could take the reins and lead them into the future.

But along the way, something happened. And six years later, The Loud House has gone from receiving near-universal praise to being public enemy number one. In 2022, people are tired of The Loud House. They want the series to end, or at least change its approach because of an apparent decline that's impossible to ignore. Everybody was looking for a savior back in 2016, and now, everybody feels like they put their faith in the wrong show. Why did this happen? And is there an actual decline in quality, or are people just recognizing that The Loud House is an old man in television years?

For a long time, Nickelodeon was ridiculed and despised, a lot of it being warranted. The golden age was long gone, their live-action programming became more sterile and heartless. And worse than that, SpongeBob was the only show the network seemed to give any kind of affection. I remember when there was a new episode of SpongeBob every day at 5:00. For years, it seemed like there was a new episode all the time. And reruns dominated Nick's schedule, to the point where you were guaranteed to see multiple SpongeBob episodes every day of your life. Not only was the show being over-saturated and exploited, it also had a very noticeable decline in quality. I'm more forgiving with the later seasons than most people, but I know the show's best years were the first three seasons. And I know that the later seasons seemed a lot more childish in comparison. 

This was also when Nickelodeon was desperate to get another SpongeBob, that next big show that could blow up and make the network millions. For years, many animated series stepped up to the plate and very few of them could even get on base. If Nickelodeon wasn't getting SpongeBob-level ratings from its cartoons, they got cut off at the knees and buried alive. People who worked for Nickelodeon during this era have alluded to this. This is also the same Nickelodeon that rejected Adventure Time, which turned into a monster hit for Cartoon Network so what kind of show were they looking for? Fanboy and Chum Chum? Sanjay & Craig? Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures? This is with whom they placed their faith?

I know Bucket & Skinner wasn't animated, but I'm just amazed that show ever made it to air. How am I supposed to take you seriously when your parents named you Bucket?

So, the fact that The Loud House was able to survive Nickelodeon's politics and achieve far beyond anyone's expectations should be applauded. If things were different, the network could have easily buried the show if they felt like it. It could have ended up just like Harvey Beaks, which was another show that people looked at as the savior when it first came out. It also helps that The Loud House is a genuinely good show. It was able to connect with people because of its charm, snappy dialogue, interesting characters, and relatable nature. Half the time, it feels more like a show that would have been around in the 90s. On paper, it really doesn't seem like anyone should have a problem with this show. For a while, the worst thing I heard about it was that it was boring. 

So, what changed? Is there really a decline on the level that SpongeBob had?

No. At least I don't think so. The show is still as entertaining as it was when it came out. Some episodes are clearly better than others, but I don’t see anything alarming going on with the show. The characters aren't parodies of themselves, the style of humor hasn't degraded, the stories are still told in a competent way, and it's not like the writers are trying to repeat themselves over and over. These are things that kill any show, live-action or animated. Rugrats went through it, SpongeBob went through it, The Fairly OddParents sure as hell went through it. But The Loud House isn't there yet. Could it get there? Definitely, but six seasons in, it's not there.

I'm not approaching this from a biased point of view, either. I always liked The Loud House, but I was never a super fan. I definitely kept up with the show more in the earlier seasons, but that has less to do with not liking the show anymore than just not having the same time or energy I used to have. I've seen multiple episodes from seasons four and five, which is where people say the decline started sinking in. Honestly, it's easier for me to name good episodes from those seasons than bad episodes. The one thing I have noticed that the show does differently is it's not really Lincoln's show anymore. That's not a bad thing. When the show started, it was important that Lincoln was the focus because he was the character meant to guide us through the experience of growing up in a big family. His personality isn't as exaggerated as the other characters. As time went on and the sisters became more defined, it wasn't necessary to have every episode be about Lincoln. The others were capable of carrying the show without him. I don't think Lincoln is anywhere near the most popular character on the show. I've seen Lori and Lola and Luna get more love than him.

Some people have their theories on why the show isn't good anymore. Some say it was never that good to begin with, some say it fell off after Chris Savino was fired, some say it happened around season four. Personally, the show never stopped being good. It just became a victim of its own success. 

The Loud House is like that musical artist that broke out and became mainstream, with Billboard hits, platinum records, and Grammys. Suddenly, the people who rooted for the show when it was "underground" started thinking it went "pop" and turned on it, even if the music was still at a high quality. I don't think The Loud House would get the same criticism if it didn't have multiple spinoffs and movies and hadn't reached six seasons. People just get tired of seeing what's on top and want a new face. The same thing happened to Rick and Morty. A couple years ago, it was white hot. In fact, it was around the same time The Loud House was white hot. A couple years later, it's not the cool thing anymore. It's a veteran, it's an old friend. Rick and Morty achieved far beyond what anybody could have expected and became hated for it. Now, people would rather pretend they never liked the show in the first place than just admit they moved on and like different things now. It happens. 

I feel like history will look back favorably on The Loud House. It was Nickelodeon's first animated hit in years, even gaining mainstream attention. It came during a time when Nickelodeon was still somewhat interesting to talk about, and still provided enough material for this blog. It was able to bring back an older style of comedy without feeling outdated. It even showed LGBT characters without needing to make a big deal about it. In fact, someone could watch The Loud House enough times without even knowing it has LGBT characters. It means something for progression and representation when Luna and Clyde's dads are written with actual personalities, not just presented as the gay characters to score points with society. 

If the day comes when The Loud House truly declines in quality, I'll be there to tell you about it. But until then, all I see is a bunch of people annoyed that Nickelodeon found something good for the first time in a long time and decided to milk it for all it was worth. How many times have we seen that before? You're still not used to it? After three decades?

By the way, happy anniversary Loud House. 

EXTRA THOUGHTS

-I was inspired to write this because this past weekend, Mr. Enter posted a negative review of the episode "No Such Luck." I'm not going to defend that episode, but there's been a real backlash against The Loud House for about two years now and it's just going to get worse. I felt like it was time to address it in some way, but I found out while writing this that May 2 marked the six-year anniversary of the series premiere. So, great timing, right?

-I've actually been a Loud House fan since the original short was released back in 2015, when Sean Ryan Fox (Jasper from Henry Danger) was the voice of Lincoln. The fact that the show has become so successful is something that should be celebrated, not criticized. Although, I don't agree with everything the franchise does. We don't need a live-action spinoff. The Christmas movie was more than enough. In fact, we don't need a live-action spinoff of any animated series ever again. It's like the reverse of what happened in the 70s and 80s when shows like Happy Days and Punky Brewster were made into cartoons. Neither trend is worth the effort.

-Episodes from seasons four and five that go against what people are saying: "Any Given Sundae," "A Grave Mistake," "A Mutt Above," "Stall Monitor," "Geriantics," "Exchange of Heart/Community Disservice," "Deep Cuts," "Sister Act," "Don't You Fore-get About Me," "Strife of the Party," "Ghosted!," 'Diamonds Are for Never," "Grub Snub," "In the Mick of Time," "Lori Days," "Farm to Unstable," "Diss the Cook/For Sale by Loner," "How the Best Was Won."

Double-Feature Movie Review: Wildfire: The Arabian Heart and Green Snake

 ...these two movies are just frankly too weird to try to mesh all the stuff combined so I'll do it separately. Let's start with Wildfire since that's by far the shortest (though both of these will be fairly short, hence why I'm combining them)

What is it? ...honestly a good question. No I'm not really kidding. But I guess the straightforward answer is a 90 minute "film"

Where did it air? ...that's really another great question, too. No, seriously. I've done research and I can't quite figure it out, and that's coming from someone who has actually seen the film. But more on that later; I found it in a double-pack from the library bundled with a movie I actually wanted to watch.

Who stars in it? Literally no one of note. Actually the most interesting part of the cast and crew is...we'll get to that later, too.

Why are we reviewing this? ....

...to just jump right into the review here, because it's phenominally...I don't want to say bad, but....

Ok infamous Ray's Rambly Prologue moment here. Obviously this review is inspired from having seen the film in question (no duh), but I regard that as mostly being coincidental or incidental. I'm a very regular viewer of Pushing Up Roses on YouTube (and indeed when she was still with...well, especially considering what she's been very public and open about it seems kinda icky to bring that up) and as of the time of this writing her most recent review is this, which she makes a big deal of being the movie equivalent of wet cardboard.

And there we go, we get into the meat of this review right here, because I'm challenging her that I have indeed found an even greater example of a movie as wet cardboard. No seriously, I'm very strongly thinking of joining her Patreon and sending her a copy of this movie specifically for the sake of her reviewing it on her own show.

First, the acting. I've been in literally middle school plays that have better acting than this, including, I'm being completely serious here, from myself. In a good movie people have a perceptible energy when engaging in dialogue, even if it's not always tangible (which, literally speaking, it never is anyway but....). This energy is very much dependent on mood or scene and is indeed a big part of the whole setup for that mood or scene. And this isn't just a movie thing either - good novels are able to replicate this, and indeed this is something that occurs in natural human conversation which is why it's a big part of the whole realism/verisimilitude element. But here we have...how the hell do I even describe it? The actors act (forgive the pun) like it's an utter chore to talk to each other. Or in another way, like they're so bored out of their minds to even be in this movie (which I submit to you is probably the actual case). The directing is...practically non-existent. 

Actually, the director himself is pretty interesting. See, he's not only the director, but also the sole credited screenwriter, either co-wrote or is solely credited for writing the entire soundtrack, really, and oh yeah he's also the sole performer for the entire soundtrack. Other than true amateur efforts (i.e. YouTube, etc), I've only ever previously encountered such a level of multi-tasking once in a film, and you can probably take a very good guess as to what film that is (if not this hyperlink is a pretty big hint). And neither of these films (or for that matter, earnest attempts to create a "film" on YouTube) do much to suggest anything other than this being a huge red flag.

As for plot...well...the film is clearly inspired by Black Beauty and Margareute Henry's Misty (the 1965 film version, incidentally, being the one bundled with this one and the movie I actually wanted to see); girl is sent by her mom to make her estranged uncle be back with the family again, estranged uncle turns out to have a ranch, girl races snotty local girl in a horse race, yadda yadda. Maybe a total of 8 minutes out of 90 feel like actually plot development with the rest being big time filler. We see people walking..and talking...and walking...and talking....

I'm not kidding when I say this movie beats Dear Christmas for being the one film that most resembles chewed up cardboard.

...there's really nothing else to talk about.

Really.

Movie Grade: ...how do you review slightly damp cardboard, anyway? In my handy-dandy ratings guide I have this to say about an F score: You pretty much get this already, folks. It's just awful. Not truly worth watching. You feel like you've seen the entire episode just a few minutes after the front credits.

Yeah, I'd say that's an apt description.

It's an F, Folks

Movie MVP/LVP: ...I'm putting both MVP and LVP up because...I'm not sure this film has either. In common practical usage, either one implies someone did something, either exceptionally good or exceptionally bad, and nobody does anything in this film. But going by the literal definitions of those acronyms, most valuable player and least valuable player (I keep thinking it as loser valuable player for the purposes of these reviews, BTW, which mentally helps make it hard to single anyone out), and considering this is one of the "most" "least" movies I've ever seen in my life, I guess I have to give the LVP award to literally everyone even remotely associated with the making of this movie.

Wow. I think that might be a first. That really surprises me considering how for a bad film I use the MVP Award as an opportunity to express sarcasm, including giving it to people not even remotely associated with the production, inanimate objects and even myself.

Extra Thoughts: ...like the movie itself, I got nothing here.

Oh, wait. Happy New Year and all.

Green Snake:

What is it?: A Chinese CGI-animated film with a run time of Over. Two. Hours. Yeah we'll talk about that.

Where did it air?: It's a Netflix exclusive, folks (yes we'll even talk about that too, in a dedicated post even)

Who stars in it?: Well, it's a foreign animated film with a bunch of dub-over artists, which is to say, a bunch of people who definitely didn't get a living wage voicing over this one.

Why are we reviewing it?: ...ok you kinda got me on that one.

But, as I just alluded to, I've been thinking about Netflix for a while now, as a platform and distributor. In fact I've got two posts lined up just talking about Netflix, and I figure this is a good way to start: with an animated film more or less in that demographic this blog is mostly focused with.

So anyway, the plot of Green Snake is...ummmm...it's about...uhhhhh...so what happens is...

...ok, the plot is just all over the place. I literally can't even describe it, if it even has a proper "plot" at all. I don't mean in the sense of Wildfire: Arabian Heart literally reviewed right above, with people walking around aimlessly vaguely in front of a camera effectively doing completely nothing, I mean that in the first ten minutes it establishes a very clear plot...and then effectively completely changes movies altogether.

I mean it.

Now this is hardly the first film to do that. In fact it has a specific trope name attached to it, "fish out of water." But I'm noticing a distinct trend in animated Chinese films and TV shows (and South Korean animated films and TV shows; in fact mostly in South Korean ones) where it's not so much a "fish out of water" as it is an outright "bait and switch." There is such a tonal and narrative whiplash that it whips right into a completely different plot altogether and practically severs all ties with the old one, and it does this multiple times.

The characters...well, with a few exceptions the characters also frequently change motivation without real sense or explanation. The main character is obsessed (literally, to the point where the film calls out her obsession by name as the focal point of the entire plot...or rather, the closest thing to a narrative focal point for anything) with finding her sister; the only problem is that the movie wants to throw that plotline out after the first ten minutes, only to reintroduce it here and there sporadically. Everybody else might as well be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

Really, these feel like symptoms of the movie being just thrown together on the fly. There's this writing concept called "pantsing" where you just "write by the seat of your pants" i.e. just making it up as you go along. It's actually a valid and potentially very effective writing style - I should know since it's pretty much my writing style for my fiction (two novels baby! Please someone publish them :( ). The only thing is, most "pantsers" are still working off some sort of framework or outline - it's just that it's mostly in their head rather than taking the time to write it down (as I like to say, there's no such thing as "pantsing", just people who like to write an incredibly detailed, 70,000 word outline that suspiciously closely resembles a finished first draft). Also, most good writers still give their drafts several "polishing" passes. What we have here isn't "pantsing" or by-seat-of-pants writing; it's seat-of-pants throwing in elements that the people involved think will look cool at that moment. To me, it feels like a student film where it's less an actual film and more a tech demo of the type of animation and character design the people involved can do, and then someone gets the spark of an idea of a scene that might look cool, so they have the animators spontaneously cook something up and then throw it in with the rest of the film on iMovie. There's actually a big push to call this style of narrative-crafting "J.J. Abrams'ing", and I'm like, yeah I can get behind that. No where is this more evident than in key action scenes where they do an extreeeeeeeeme close-up of an object being thrown to the point where it's blocking out the entire screen and you can't even tell if it's in mid-air anymore.

And continuing with the J.J. Abrams comparison, the "plot" likes to bring up more questions than it answers - in fact goes out of its way to avoid giving answers, instead filling the run time up with questions as if that's what passes for a plot. It starts off with an evil monk casting off the main character and her sister (who has a child) into some alternate dimension portal and she lands in a dimension apparently called Asuraville (yes really) and then it's suddenly a post-apoc survival plot, then suddenly an Escape from New York-style get-the-hell-outta-the-apocalypse plot, then suddenly we're interested in the sister and her child again, then suddenly interested in the Escape from New York thing again, then suddenly a big battle fight with the evil monk (that's about in the middle of the run time), and with large sections of filler including what should be the climax of the film. And by "filler" I mean, again, go back to the above where I talk about it in Wildfire. Going back to motivations - the evil monk goes from casting them off into an alternate dimension for...reasons (he's basically going all Dimsdale on his lover i.e. the sister and her child, if you're familiar with The Scarlet Letter i.e. legit one of the most boringly-written books in history, I mean it, #SorryNotSorry just read a graphic novel adaptation or even just watch Easy A, yes the movie that launched Emma Stone's entire acting career) but when the main character meets the evil monk again, his motivations change to wanting to ensure the reincarnation cycle is maintained and the film seems like it wants to make a big statement here, which seems to be "permanence is worth fighting for, even if it's something not possible" (which is an odd choice for a theme of a film, but sure whatever) and then...stuff. And we also meet this male character which the MC is convinced is literally her sister, yes, and you might be lead into thinking that this movie wants to make a statement about familial bonds and transgenderism and identity but...nope, not from a film officially endorsed by a government that also endorses severe crackdowns on transgender activism and LGBTQIA+ rights and activism period! The film also suggests that he might be the reincarnation of her sister, but is very vague and coy about even having the characters even suggest that (he even states that one day he was just minding his own business and then effectively got abducted UFO-style into Asuraville, although he doesn't have any memory prior to that including who he actually is). Oh wait, I know! He's the child the sister had! Nope, the film effectively forgot all about that, even though that would be an extremely logical conclusion that would tie up a ton of loose ends!

In fact I really have to sit down and think about all the questions the film ends up asking. I want to say, about a dozen or so. As for answers the film really only provides four: a very vague answer on what Asuraville even is, a very concrete answer on how to get the hell out, a somewhat vague and out-of-nowhere answer for the monk's motivations, and the whole mess about the true fate of the sister as described above. That's one effective answer to all the questions raised, and it's effectively a McGuffin device. 

Like I said, it really feels thrown together on-the-fly with people thinking up cool scenes and then having the animators render it all up on-the-spot and just toss it into the iMovie track.

On another note, Saberspark (another YouTuber I frequently watch) did a review on a film called White Snake that looks like it suspiciously uses the exact same character models in an unrecognizable setting. Turns out according to IMDB Green Snake is the sequel (and there is indeed a post-credits sequel hook plus trailer at the end of Green Snake) but there's no indication from its Netflix presentation to indicate that being the case. In fact no where in the narrative at all does it indicate it's connected with any story whatsoever (including, well, it's own). If anything watching his review just makes me feel even more discombobulated about what the hell Green Snake actually is.

And that run time...oof. The 130 minute total is a lot to get through on its own, but it feels even longer than that watching it through. I say, the average movie really should be 105 minutes max (which incidentally is about the max run time of a DCOM, see Teen Beach Movie for example which pretty much hits this on the dot - in fact I'm really deriving this otherwise completely arbitrary number from DCOM and Nick Originals run times). Any longer than that and you risk really just dragging it out and putting filler all over the place just because you think longer run time = better. Of course you can go the other extreme (a couple of DCOMs do this too) but at least it might help with cutting out the filler. 

Movie Grade: D This is even harder to grade than Wildfire for even harder reasons. In Wildfire's case, it was just a question of, ok, how do I grade what feels like a colossal waste of time for everyone involved including the actors themselves? That's definitely going to be limited to a D max, if not a D- (and as you can see the film couldn't even do that). In this case, I first have to figure out...what the hell did I watch, even? It's a confusing, muddled, discombobulated mess of a trainwreck and I think a flat D reflects that.

Extra Thoughts:

 - bet you thought I forgot all about that post, didn't you? I still stand by it and everything still applies, BTW. That is, assuming you yourself even remember it (or at least clicked the hyperlink).

 - the questions raised about even grading these movies is why I was hesitant to adopt the school system A through F scale in the first place, or even any rating scale, period (the only reason why we even adopted it is because what we regard as our "sister blog," the now long-defunct Girl Meets World Reviewed, used it - bee tee dubs, their most recent post is three and a half years old. And you thought this blog was bad at updating). I've mentioned Lorerunner a couple of times, and I really like the grading system he invented: give one positive (+) for a good point, and one negative (-) for a bad one, and add up the positives and negatives together to get an aggregate score, with a (mostly theoretical) perfect 0 representing perfectly "meh". You can also only get up to three positives or negatives per category - one is it's above average good/bad, two means it's really good/bad, and three is "it's simply the best/worst I've seen" (of that particular category/example). Going through some really quick mental math, I think Wildfire would earn probably a -4 (one point off overall narrative, one point off acting, one point off directing, one point off enjoyment factor) and Green Snake a -3 (one point off directing, one point off overall narrative/story construction, one point off overall enjoyment factor), which kinda pans out with the rating system we are currently using. I've been thinking of doing a complete switchover to that system - this is the part where I would do my best Lorerunner impression and ask, what do you guys think?, but really who am I kidding literally no one reads this blog in the first place.

 - speaking of futile efforts, there's really no point in grading a Netflix or any streaming film in the first place...but I'll get to that in its own dedicated blog post....

Movie Review: Scales: Mermaids Are Real

 *screams horribly while dying in a way that not only is physically impossible but doesn't even make any sense even in the most absurd of sci-fi or fantasy conventions*

What is it? a 92-minute on-the-dot movie...I suspect it's a Direct-to-video movie? But I'm not entirely sure (more on that in the review proper)

Where did it air? I saw it on Netflix but it has since expired off that platform and I wouldn't necessarily know where it jumped to - although it looks like it's almost exclusively on Prime and AppleTV now. Almost, as you can apparently also watch it completely for free, without subscription, on Tubi (and...review spoiler alert, although the opening quote should've been enough of a hint, that's about the absolute most you want to pay for it DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE MADE AS INDICATED ON AMAZON USER REVIEWS  AND ACTUALLY SPEND MONEY TO GET THIS MOVIE ON A PHYSICAL STORAGE MEDIUM)

Who stars in it? Apparently the kid from some movie or TV show or other who says this is the worst film he's ever done (more review spoiler alert) and let's face it, a bunch of no names. Oh, and Morgan Fairchild...let's face it, it really speaks about where she is in her career to really be in a movie like this. Oh, and Nikki Hahn, who you might recognize from the DCOM Adventures in Babysitting! You know, the "100th" DCOM (yes quotes there are relevant)? Oh, and Elizabeth Rohm! From Angel! You're old enough to remember Angel, right? You're old enough to remember the WB Network, right?

Why are we reviewing this? Well it's within our children/teen media mandate-thingie and...also this is some sort of especial writing disaster that deserves comment on (more on this...pretty dang soon, actually)

This movie was written and directed by Kevan Peterson.

I'm bringing that up specifically because, while he's actually a pretty competent director, all things considered...Good Lord he can't write to save his life.

If you're wondering where I've been, it's to....I know I say this literally every massive break like this (which, yes, is a lot) but I've been focusing on my writing career, and also because it was 2020, trying to hide under a rock, but also, the relevant point as to why I bring this up now, listening to this guy on YouTube who calls himself Lorerunner. He calls himself that because in addition to his passion for speedrunning, he also "lore-runs" video games where he pauses and explains all the details of the lore behind the story and setting of the game and even behind-the-scenes details (you know the literal exact opposite of speedrunning, but trust me, it's really good in a nerdy sort of way, which I totally unapologetically unironically dig). He's since expanded this "lore-running" into movies and TV shows where he...well, basically just does exactly what this very blog does just in video format, which granted is also what a ton upon a ton of other YouTube channels do. Hell, although he's mostly known for "lore-running" the various Star Trek shows and movies now to the point where he openly acknowledges that's what the YouTube stats are actively telling him what most of his audience is interested in, he's not even the first to do that by far, openly acknowledging Chuck Sonnenberg's SciFi Debris' influence (and I just want to take this opportunity to brag I knew Chuck from way back in the day, way, way before YouTube was even a thing, thank you very much). But what really sets Lorerunner apart, and what really impresses me about him, is the thoroughness and attention to detail he puts in his reviews. Seriously, he watches the thing, sometimes rewatches it, and writes down any relevant thoughts that pops up, and on top of that, he actually goes and than scours not just the Internet but even any print media he can find not only on that movie or TV show but even on that individual specific episode, to the point where his official policy is to wait years until he bothers to even watch a show so he can make sure that whatever behind-the-scenes accounts of that show are ever going to be available do become available by that time. 

Ok, so what? Well, remember where I passively mention that he's most well-known for his Star Trek reviews? I managed to complete all his Next Generation reviews (good stuff BTW, you'll learn lots about the utter shitshow that show had to start out as which pretty much explains why the first two seasons were so, so bad) and just started his Voyager reviews a couple of weeks ago. Ok, so what to that then? 

The point I'm making is, if you go back and especially watch the first episodes of Lorerunner's lore-run of the corresponding first episodes of Voyager, you'll realize that Scales: Mermaids are Real is basically constructed exactly like a very, very early episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

That is in no way a good thing.

This movie is one of the most disjointed, discombobulated things I've ever seen that's still trying for an actually coherent plot (and failing miserably at it). One of the reasons why is that it feels like almost every other scene at least just feels like outright padding and time-filler. These scenes add nothing to plot progression or character development and in fact for the most part nothing is exactly what happens. The worst offender I can think of off the top of my head is when the main character, Siren, is invited to a desalinization plant (yes really) by the adult mermaids for what's basically her mermaid bat mitzvah (yes really) and said adult mermaids wail (yes really) for what seems like several minutes. There's an especially extended scene where Siren's mom, best friend, and best friend's mother play a game of hot-potato who's-gonna-tell-Siren?-roulette that strikes me as being straight out of a script you ask someone the age of Siren herself to write. There's also quite a bit of outright dead space - inordinate long shots of characters walking in groups in order to confront groups of other characters, for instance, or equally inordinately long shots of mermaids swimming in the ocean - mermaid characters that in one particular actually should-be-important case don't even appear elsewhere in the movie, aside from these long-ass glorified establishing shots. 

There's also, I swear, plot details that are just simply out of order entirely. Siren gets explanations to random new abilities or details well after said details have ceased being relevant for the rest of the movie. There are obvious setups for scenes that have already occurred a good while ago. There's an odd throwaway line about the "Hunters," the wholly-human antagonists of the film, in relation to mermen, and that's the only time the subject of mermen is brought up in the entirety of the movie, save for one part that you probably missed because you've simply quit the movie by then, no really (I'll get into that part a little more, too).  I'm seriously wondering if a bunch of scenes were just scooped right off the editing room floor after being erroneously cut and then randomly spliced back into the reel (or, rather, I guess, if said scenes were just bunched together from the iMovie trash bin after being erroneously cut and then randomly dumped back into the main video track). 

And then there's the ultimate show-don't-tell cardinal sin: not just telling instead of showing, but literally telling us twice. There's a scene where Siren's adoptive mom Tiffany introduces her to two mermaid characters, and then literally the very next piece of dialogue is for those same characters to introduce themselves, again. There's a part at the climax where Tiffany goes into the ocean to rescue Siren - except she pauses in order to turn to the camera to tell the camera she's going off to rescue Siren. 

Without these glaring marks of amateur hour...I'm not sure if the film would be serviceable at that point or if it's actually taking what would be an extremely, perhaps even painfully, straightforward, unimaginative, cookie-cutter and even outright boring mermaid coming-of-age story and actually making it entertaining by swinging it all the way into...not so bad it's good, but so bad it's fascinating that someone can make so many basic mistakes in something that isn't The Room. If there is one good thing that I can say about it, it's that it actually has some crazy good picture quality to it. The film itself has a very sharp contrast and field-depth to it that is outright impressive, really, to a degree that I don't see in most actual theatrical releases, even ones that are high-budget blatant Oscar-bait. I'm really wondering how they pulled that off and what kind of crazy-good camera they ended up getting for something that otherwise would probably feel like your average DisneyXD production.

...on that note, it actually did kinda feel like the distaff-counterpart of Mech-X4 (remember that show?) at first before it, well...started feeling like an especially mediocre episode of very early Star Trek: Voyager.

As for special effects, well...probably the wisest thing they did with the special effects is that they really only have like, seriously, half a dozen SFX shots in the entire movie, practical, digital or otherwise. And most of those are just generic "ooooooh glowing orb!" effects or the practical effect of Siren's growing mermaid tail (unless you want to count that under costuming, which is really all it is). The one time - the ONE time - were we do see both a serious effort at a digital effect and a practical effect is literally the absolute climax of the movie itself where...actually, that right there is a real good example of all the sins I just listed this movie committed, combined into a single mega-example.

The...I guess secondary main villain of the movie, the one TVTropes would call The Dragon, Brodie (which come to think about it...is about as subtle as you'd expect from this movie) attempts to kidnap Siren's best friend Crystal (the one played by Nikki Hahn) to...I'm not kidding, basically press out all her mermaid blood to make into medicinal remedies, and by "kidnap" I really mean "grab her and let her squirm in your arms as you just wiggle in place while surrounded by mermaids who have every motherly incentive to take their daughter back but also do absolutely nothing other than to also stand in place while they outnumber you seven-to-one and you're also completely unarmed" until Siren's birth mother shows up (oh spoiler, Siren's birth mother is literally the Queen of All Mermaids) and stands on the shore and...shows off her powers by making the waves really tall, and then receding them, and making them tall again, and just repeat for a good while. The special effect itself is about what you'd expect from a DCOM from early last decade, and it's literally just scene filler as after she makes a big show of her wave-making magic, she just continues to stand there like everyone else. And then Siren herself confronts Brodie who, understanably, isn't impressed with the wow you can make really big waves! trick, until Siren explains that the human body is two-thirds water.

And then proceeds to use her water-controlling powers to literally melt Brodie into nothing.

There's quite a bit to unpack here, but the first thing I want to address is the one thing I find most commonly brought up on user reviews whether they be on Amazon, Common Sense Media, what have you, and that is how they all found how utterly ghastly and horrific is this  outright murder that 12-year-old Siren just committed, justified or not. Honestly, I wasn't bothered by how ghastly or how evidently torturously painful poor Brodie's demise was (other than Crystal asking Siren if she can teach her that trick which...ummm...is legitimately disturbing) as I was mostly just sitting there and saying to myself....

image from...Chukichi? WTF?

Yeah, first of all, water don't work like that. It's demonstrated, or at least heavily implied, that Siren can only manipulate pure water, or at least mostly seawater, and most of the "water" that exists in the human body does so mostly in solution with other fluids such as blood. Furthermore...well, in order to delve into that I really need to get into the practical effect itself which is...dumping a ton of water onto Brodie's actor and telling him, ok, now act like you're dying the most painful death imaginable! Great, but, uh, can you ham it up just a little bit? Ok a lot more. Ok pretend your Tim Curry in the full-motion video cutscenes of Red Alert 3. Perfect! And then he literally goes poof! until only his clothes and a pair of goggles that really come right out of nowhere are left in a tiny neat little pile right there on the beach.

Yeah...please reference the image macro above.

I mean, I don't think I even need to explain it any further. Again, manipulating or suddenly removing all the water (as much as it is in solution) out of a human's body completely doesn't outright melt them Wicked Witch of the West-style.

You know...this whole goddamn movie...S. M. H.

...oh, and before I conclude this review I gotta mention the other part where mermen are referenced. The reason why I said you'll probably quit the movie before then is because it's a post-credits stinger scene where Siren and her birth-mom are in the ocean staring at a merman for like a split second right in between the conclusion of the credits roll and when the movie quits proper. Really you can almost miss it entirely by blinking. I would've had no idea if I didn't insist on watching through the entirety of the credits specifically to jot down production information (that I could've just as easily gotten off IMDb) specifically for the sake of this review. 

Ok, now where was I? Oh, yeah, right.

...this whole goddamn movie...S. M. H.

Movie Grade:  ...I actually had to refer back to my handy-dandy Grade Rating System Explainer that I wrote...wow, over three years ago to pinpoint and figure this one out and I've settled on...a solid D+, or as I call it in said Explainer, "the real Gentleman's F". Really, there came a point where the only reason why I finished watching it was to satisfy some morbid curiosity (or perhaps, I had hope that it would actually turn around and be good.

Nope.).

Movie MVP: ...or should I reward an LVP here? Nobody stands out at all, not even the actor behind Siren herself. I would be tempted to reward it to myself for sitting through it, but I do feel like that's only genuinely warranted for F grade movies (even if my own past actions contradict that, whatevs). Likewise, a proper LVP also necessitates a F range grade. A mere "Gentleman's F" isn't gonna cut it for this. So I guess I'll just..."throws dart at IMDb listing".... congratulations actual "professional mermaid" Hannah Mermaid (yes really) for winning this blog's award for this movie's MVP!

Extra Thoughts:

 - ...this whole godddamn movie. S. M. H.

 - yes, Hannah Mermaid, "professional mermaid." Well, what she really is is a glorified professional cosplayer just...cosplaying as a mermaid. Underwater.

 - fun fact I actually had an opportunity to meet some "professional mermaids" a while back but logistical issues got in the way. Would really, really still like to meet one one day.

 - on that note, and I really should've mentioned it in the main review (and I'm pretty certain I mentioned it in previous reviews), is that I absolutely totes love mermaid lore and culture. As in, I'm legitimately obsessed with it. Almost to Brodie-I'm Melting! MEEELLLTING! levels, really. I think a lot of it comes from the Tom Hanks-Daryl Hannah rom-com Splash being one of the first movies I ever saw (...no, not in theaters, that movie actually did come out before I was even born for once) and really reaffirmed when I saw Aquamarine on Nickelodeon right when I started getting into all this kiddie crap as a grown-ass adult ....children's and teen media....that I had explained what's now years ago in this post (warning: pretty heavy stuff there, consider this a legitimate trigger warning even) and even in this review (our first A++ score, in fact!) and even in this review. And I guess given that (on top of all the other stuff, which is referred to in all those previous linked posts) it's only natural I gravitate towards all this kiddie crap as a grown-ass adult as most mermaid media ends up being...well, kiddie crap stuff. Even to this day any mermaid lore or culture book I find at a used bookstore or a garage/yard sale/swap meet is an instant must-buy.

 - ...that said...this whole goddamn movie. S. M. H.

Netflix Carmen Sandiego reviewed: "Seasons" 1-5

 She did not protect the face!

What is it? Standard 24-minute drama-ish cartoon show

Where did it air? Netflix original, baby!

Who stars in it? Gina Rodriguez of Jane the Virgin fame as the title role, Abby Trott and Michael Hawley as Zack and Ivy, and Dawnn Lewis (of A Different World fame, if you're old enough to remember that, if you remember the dad from K.C. Undercover also being in it...if you're old enough to even remember K.C. Undercover at this point, wow....) and of course an assortment of other actors.

Why did we review it? I dunno I just wanted to start this year off on a good note for once and oh look it's May....

Being a product of my generation, I (General Bison from the Street Fighter live-action movie) of course! watched both the game-show format live-action show and the animated drama-ish (for a cartoon) cartoon show, both from the 90s (in fact I recall significant overlap, which must've made the Borderbund or whatever people happy). It was in fact a pretty influential part of my childhood storytelling imagination, aside from yelling OMG how can you NOT know where Mexico is you friggin' idiot! So when this Carmen Sandiego reboot hit Netflix, I was both interested and curious, although truth be told Netflix has a...spotty record when it comes to 90s nostalgia cartoons from that era. The Inspector Gadget CGI cartoon (which is not a reboot, it's actually a direct sequel/continuation to the 80s-90s cartoon, and incidentally is also aminated by the same studio that did the Garfield CGI cartoon that premiered on Cartoon Network a few years ago, also available on Netflix) is about as textbook mediocre as you can get and frankly not worth reviewing, while the Stretch Armstrong, er, "2D" "traditional" cartoon (have to use quotes there because everything animated is CGI nowadays, including flat "traditional"-looking animation) is...well, I could only end up standing about 11 minutes of the first episode before I deleted it off my list (quick aside, as far as I'm aware this is actually the first time there's been a Stretch Armstrong cartoon, prior to this it's really only been a line of dolls stretchable action figures). I haven't even bothered to see the Reboot...er, reboot yet (yes I've seen pretty much most of the original cartoon at least - and as an aside to that, live-action? Really, Netflix?) But, the previews looked promising with Carmen Sandiego.

At least in this case, the previews do not lie.

In fact, I do not hesitate one bit to call Carmen Sandiego the best original on the platform right now. I'm completely serious. If Inspector Gadget is a textbook example on how to do a reboot/sequel in a very mediocre manner, and if....er, let's take the 2009 Star Trek "reboot" as a textbook example of how to completely bungle a reboot with ever-shrinking returns to prove it, then Carmen Sandiego is a textbook example on how to do a reboot friggin' right for once.

image from something called Startattle, apparently? Man I need to stop sourcing my images from Hollywood Life wannabes

The absolute most drastic and indeed lore-changing, er, change that they made in the reboot is, if anything, the outright most brilliant and inspired move to make. In all past iterations of the franchise, the actual main/viewpoint character was all over the place inherently due to the simple nature of what the franchise really was in the first place. Starting out as a series of computer games, the main character was...well, you, the player (more on that specifically, actually) as you played an Acme Agency detective to try to catch world-renowned thief Carmen Sandiego and her gang of thieves. In the game show version the main character was...well, you, the player, again, again playing an Acme Agency detective to try to catch Carmen blah blah blah, given its game show nature. It was if anything a pretty straightforward, if not equally brilliant and inspired, way to translate a video game to live-action recorded game show format (although that's a story for another time, one that's been told far, far better than I ever will). In the "original" 90s cartoon, the first example in the franchise to actually follow a scripted format, the main characters were Zack and Ivy, two teen junior Acme Agency detectives ordered about and around by a...well, we'll just call him for what he is, a Power Rangers Zordon ripoff but made way, way nerdier. We're talking Urkel levels of nerdier here, I mean it. Oh, and we'll also get back to Zack and Ivy too.

But what makes the Netflix version truly inspired is that, for the first time ever, the star of Carmen Sandiego actually gets to be Carmen Sandiego, you know, the woman the show and whole franchise is named after to begin with. Except she's not a woman quite yet - officially 18-19-20 throughout the run of the show and certainly meant to be relatable with teenagers (or even tweens), and we're first introduced to her for an episode or two when she's just 12 or so. Oh, and she's definitely one of the good guys...er, girls?, this time around, although not exactly on Acme's good side either, pulling a "steal from the bad guys and give back to the good guys" modus operandi. But the point is, it does allow for some amazing character growth, and really some of the best I've ever seen in a show, kiddie cartoon or not.

this is straight from NBC News, apparently! Go figure!

Really, it's hard to articulate all the awesomeness in one concentrated go, but the brilliance of the series isn't just limited to the reimagining of Carmen's character - which wouldn't have been nearly enough to make it this awesome on its own. There was ample opportunity to completely bungle it - again, see previously mentioned reboots - but they somehow managed to throw this together seamlessly and, dare I say, perfectly. Very solid writing, amazing character and world-building, exciting plots, compelling mysteries and cliffhangers all around. To keep up with the J.J. Abrams comparisons I guess, maybe think less Carmen Sandiego and think more a kid-friendly version of Alias that happens to borrow Carmen Sandiego's skin (ewww, that sounds creepy, especially since this involves a teenaged girl...you know what just forget I said that actually)

Actually, on that note, it's not just an example of how to do a reboot right, it's an example on how to do darker and edgier right, especially for a kid-friendly property. The world isn't some apocalyptic hellhole, everybody isn't washed over with perfect morality grey that you can use in turn to justify doing whatever you feel like to them - there are people with clear motivations, it's just that while they're clear to the viewers they're not clear to each other. That's what creates the tension without having it spill over into dorkier and edgier (than bismuth, now that's what I call Le Edgy).

 im

image from CBR

And, yeah, there's cute references to previous incarnations, too. We've got...wait for it - Player!, yes the character's actual name, who's basically Carmen's omnipresent tech support (think...well, pretty much exactly like Wade from Kim Possible, down to being short and never ever leaving his room until forced to do so). And Zack and Ivy are effectively Carmen's sidekicks. We even have a sweet ensemble rendition of Rockapella's iconic theme song from the game show! 

No I'm not going to post it here, you have to do what I did and earn it Saving Private Ryan-style by playing the interactive, um, show thingie. Which you totally should, it's super good. I stumbled into the perfect ending first go-around by accident! 

If there's any flaws, it's that if anything this show was cut down before its prime with something like 38 episodes total. Yes, 38, making it by far the shortest of the Carman Sandiego shows even if also the best by just as much. That's how the Netfix beast goes I guess, when binging habits make total episode counts become much more meaningless than they did back in the old broadcasting days (for example, Stranger Things has something like 50-60 episodes total, a pretty miniscule amount for such a massive break-out series as it would compare to even basic cable let alone broadcast, and BoJack Horseman - another show I should review, actually - has even less, somewhere in the ballpark between that and Carmen Sandiego). And while I wouldn't call it a flaw at all per se, it's...not nearly trying to push the "edu-tainment" angle of its predecessors, although in fairness this reboot never once advertised itself as much and if anything...yeah it's probably all the better for it.

Anyway, that's really as far as I can go without analyzing each and every individual episode. 

Series Grade: ...this seems controversial even to me, but I stand by my statement that this is the best thing on the entirety of the Netflix platform right now, so A++, the highest grade this blog bothers to give out. I don't think even Gravity Falls (which I suppose was the previous "greatest cartoon of all time") even got that high, albeit not by much with it's more conventional A+ score.

Series MVP: Oof, this is a toughie. Conventional wisdom would probably say Gina Rodriguez and...you know what let's just go with that. Carmen herself really is the linchpin of why I love this series so much.

Extra Thoughts:

 - welcome to the slightly-less-of-a-hellhole-and-steadily-improving that is 2021. Whee.

 - Yes I know it's already May.

 - One of the most controversial things that I can possibly think of when it comes to any animated work (or written work for that matter - in fact any work not involving the portrayal of live actors or character depictions based directly upon real people) up to and including, yes, animated porn and hentai (and that really gives away what I'm getting at right there) is designing or depicting any character, but especially women, and let's face it, especially girls as being at the very least very and particularly attractive - and I think it's a safe bet to say Carmen definitely falls into this. This subject isn't worth it's own blog post or even book, it's worth it's own graduate-level gender studies course. I mean it, and in fact I wish there was such a course and if there is, sign me up, literally (I'm looking for graduate credits anyway pls halp) so I won't get into it too much, but it's something as a creative myself that I'm really forced to think about and give consideration to, beyond even my own fascination about this subject. In fact in a couple of the Young Adult books I'm writing, this very subject is the whole core theme of the story (and actually, this iteration of Carmen is almost exactly a dead-ringer for the protog in one of them). On the one hand, I don't think I even need to explain why this point is considered controversial at this point in time, given how more and more mainstream consideration is given to body and sex positivity while also balancing fighting back outright objectification into all of that. On the other hand, beyond just the old adage of "sex sells" (I mean, we are still talking a kiddie show here), audiences do respond to pretty characters. Again, I don't want to bother to go into detail about it here, but I do sincerely think it's fair not only to the show but to the character Carmen herself, yes as if she were an actual person, to bring it up at least.

 - As for the Netflix reboot of Stretch Armstrong...I gave up all interest when it became clear it was just following the exact same old 80s and 90s cartoon tropes that all the cartoons of those eras follows. Cookie cutter bad guys with cookie cutter motivations, cookie cutter Truth and Justice good guys, and just a heavy retro feel in a really bad way especially since this is, what, a friggin' 2019 cartoon? There, that's the series review, that's all the review I feel its really worthy of. Still more than what I can ever conceive the Netflix version of Inspector Gadget is worth.

 

The iCarly reboot: What's really going on?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/entertainment/icarly-reboot-trnd/index.html

This is old news at this point, but yes, iCarly is another show in a long line of shows over the past number of months to get cleared for a reboot. It will begin airing on Paramount+ next year, with Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, and Jerry Trainor reprising their roles. Jay Kogen (former Simpsons writer, but has since went on to work for a variety of shows) will serve as a producer.

When I first found out about this reboot, I really didn't know what to say. But I can tell you that I wasn't happy or excited or interested. I was confused and irritated more than anything else. I felt like this was another show that didn't need to come back, because I don't know what else you can do with the iCarly characters that the original show didn't touch on. From Kogen's tweet, it looks like the show will be for an older audience, which is the only way that a reboot like this can sustain itself. But considering all the other shows that have been rebooted already, and the shows that are going to return in the months to come, this isn't something I have high expectations for. Or any expectations, really.

Let me put this in perspective: Last month, the Animaniacs reboot began airing on Hulu, and the Saved by the Bell reboot started airing on Peacock. Since the announcement of the iCarly reboot, I've read about a Firefly reboot, a Night Court reboot, and a Behind the Music reboot. There is a remake of Revenge of the Nerds on the slate, it was mentioned by Flex Alexander that he has written a script for a potential One on One reboot, and that doesn't even go into the reboots that have been in the works for a while like Rugrats and Frasier. We're living in an era of entertainment where the current trend is to take something popular from the past, and bring it back in a different form which is almost guaranteed to pale in comparison to the original version. This is the era of the reboot, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

I'm just trying to understand why this trend exploded the way it did. This is really only something that started picking up steam in the late 2010s. Before that, I don't think Hollywood was so eager to bring back existing properties like this. Think about the shows that could have returned years ago, but the pitches were shot down because networks were uninterested in digging up the past. Then an actor from one of those old shows dies, usually an actor that was part of the main cast and an integral part of the show's success. Fast forward a decade or so later, and the show gets a reboot without that particular actor, so you're not even getting the show you remember. You're automatically getting an inferior version before you even see a trailer. Then the show has to learn how to navigate through our current era, despite the fact that a lot of the show's success and quality came from the specific era it came from. It has to modernize itself enough to not alienate new viewers, but also cannot be unrecognizable from the old show because the target audience is people who grew up with the original. It's like that joke in the first episode of the Animaniacs reboot where they have to really think about what their first lines should be, except it's every show that has to think about it now. Over and over and over again.

Back in 2012/2013, I remember hearing about the idea of Girl Meets World. I thought it was really interesting that a show from the past was going to return in a completely new form. Of course, Girl Meets World was an entirely different show, not just Boy Meets World coming back with more episodes. Still, it was one of the shows that was part of the trend in the beginning. Then I remember hearing about Fuller House, which was a huge deal at the time. I grew up watching Full House constantly, and the reboot was something that gained a lot of attention (mostly negative, but still). It definitely felt like Fuller House was a reboot that the world in general was anticipating, not just a niche audience. And it made sense to do it because Full House was doing great numbers on Nick at Nite. This was also around the time of The X-Files returning to Fox as a revival, which I remember being a big deal as well.

Four years later, the novelty's worn off and these reboots no longer have that must-see appeal. Which means that you have to make more, at a time when people are starting to get sick of them so you can run them into the ground and move on to something else, preferably in the late 2020s.

It might sound like I hate the idea of reboots, but I don't. Some of the shows that are part of this trend are shows that I care about, like The Boondocks. I always hated the way season four turned out and I'm genuinely curious to see if the HBO Max reboot can redeem the original show's ending. There are some shows that were mistreated in their first run, and didn't get the opportunity to continue because of low ratings or constantly changing time slots. It makes sense for a show like Firefly to get a reboot, because of its huge cult following. And then there are shows like Girlfriends, which didn't even get a proper series finale because after the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, CW decided to cut its losses and end the show early, before it could finish its eighth season. If it was announced that Girlfriends was coming back for a one-off finale or even a limited season of episodes, I would have no problem with that.

The issue I have is with the abundance of reboots. At this point, it's hard to even know which ones are genuine creative attempts and which ones are just encouraged by executives to make money. It's almost like your show is really unappealing if it hasn't been green-lit for a reboot yet. There must be something wrong with the people behind that show if they haven't gotten the call to come back for another run. 

That's why I can at least respect the creators and cast of Friends because they have no interest in making a reboot, at least at this current point in time. It's simply because they don't see the need to come back. The original show was about six young adults going through life, and a reboot would go against that idea of what the show was about. The pressure and expectations for a Friends reboot would be massive, and the people behind the show know that whatever they make will be scrutinized and picked apart for years to come. A lot of money will be invested into the project, and the cast would likely be paid at least $2 million just for one episode. As much hype as a Friends reboot would generate, everybody involved knows that it's not worth doing something that won't warrant that kind of hype.

I've said all that without even getting to my feelings about the iCarly reboot specifically. Is it going to work in 2021? I honestly don't know. My view is that the original show ended perfectly, and by 2012, it had already said everything it needed to say. You can even see it in the actors' performances that they were ready to move on. It won't even feel like the original show since Jennette McCurdy won't be a part of it. I understand that she's not in a place mentally where she can even consider doing the reboot, but that's the reason this is automatically going to be a lesser version of the iCarly we grew up with. Sam was a very important part of the dynamic, and without her, you need someone that can pick up her slack comedically. I don't know if this reboot will have anyone like that.

Regardless, I hope the reboot turns out well and doesn't affect the legacy of the original series. I may or may not watch it, but I will say this: I never thought I would be living in a world full of remakes of shows I grew up with. Makes me feel like I need some adult diapers and a cup of applesauce. 

Shows of the decade: 2011-2014 (the slow decline)

What good is a dynasty if it doesn't fall?

Seeing as how Ray had an interesting concept with his post about shows from 2009-2011, I wanted to carry it on and see where else I could go with it. Although, this will be from my personal perspective more because that's the only way it will be any fun for me. Plus, this actually gives me the opportunity to talk about something I've been putting off for a long time now. But we'll get to that later.

2011 was an interesting time for Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. Both networks were going strong with entertaining shows, and I was still a fan of both at the time, but there was a notable difference from the previous era. The elements that made up that time period were slowly disappearing or being erased entirely. This is more on the Disney Channel side of things, because Nickelodeon was still running on the same engine as before. By this time, a new generation of shows were being introduced to Disney. In just that one year, A.N.T. Farm, Jessie, and Austin & Ally all made their debuts, and they all ran for multiple seasons. Hannah Montana and The Suite Life on Deck both ended their runs, closing out a six-year period of episodes if you count The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Demi Lovato decided not to return for the third season of Sonny with a Chance, which led to the show being retooled as So Random! and getting a 26-episode run before being cancelled. Wizards of Waverly Place was on its way out as well, with the series finale airing in early 2012.

Disney Channel was making a lot of moves during this period. It was getting rid of the past and preparing for the future by going for an almost entirely new lineup. For a while, the network was defined by its stars. Demi, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers. By the beginning of 2012, they were all gone from the network, and Disney Channel no longer had crossover appeal. The kind of appeal that meant that shows like Family Guy and South Park were taking notice of them. Slowly but surely, the network started to decay, because some of these new shows were decent, but not as entertaining as previous shows. The acting across the board became less charming, the writing became more simplified, brighter colors were emphasized more. By the end of this period, Good Luck Charlie was the only show with any genuine humanity, and it was closing its doors also. Disney Channel was smart enough to know when to change their brand and eliminate the "superstar" mentality it had from 2009-2011, but their new mentality meant their new stars (and by extension, their new shows) wouldn't get as much traction.

Meanwhile, things looked like they were never going to get any better for Nick. iCarly, Victorious, and Big Time Rush were all huge successes, and the anchors of the network during this period. Unlike Disney Channel, which embraced change as soon as the 2010s hit, Nickelodeon didn't have the same urgency. The only new scripted shows that came out in 2011 were Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures, House of Anubis, and Supah Ninjas. Only House of Anubis really had much of a run worth talking about, and if you asked people who grew up with 2010s Nickelodeon what the other two shows were, they would most likely tell you they didn't even know they existed.

For a long time, Nickelodeon never had to worry about the future in terms of live-action programming. Whenever an old, long-running show closed its doors, a new show took its place. This is the same network that once had Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, and Unfabulous all running at the same time, all of which became successes. 2011 was another year where Nickelodeon was riding high off the strength of three shows that were not only ratings hits, but instantly memorable and entertaining in their own ways. Big Time Rush never got anywhere near the success of the Jonas Brothers or other Disney acts, but they were Nickelodeon's first real attempt to make a musical sensation, and they did a respectable job. Also, as quiet as it's kept, their music was really damn good. You don't realize it until you play back Elevate one day and you're wondering why you never cared about songs like "Show Me" and "Invisible" until now.

The point is, Nickelodeon was embracing the art of having crossover appeal when Disney Channel was beginning to abandon it, whether it was by design or not. It really seemed like the network was just going to continue having more success as the 2010s rolled on.

But then 2012 happened.

That was the year iCarly ended its run and Victorious was unceremoniously cancelled. Honestly, I don't think Nickelodeon ever recovered from losing both shows like that. While iCarly was growing stale and needed to end at some point, Victorious most likely had one or two more seasons left in it. The reasons for the show ending are still unclear. While it was Nick's decision, many theories have been put forth since 2012. The show reached the end of its required run and was never going to get more episodes to begin with. The show was appealing to teenagers and adults, but the key demographic (children) wasn't tuning in enough. Victoria Justice was trying to branch out and in the process, put the cast and crew of Victorious in a bad spot. The show was becoming more expensive to produce. I don't know the reason Nickelodeon decided to pull the plug, but they're paying for it to this day because Victorious has gained a second life on Netflix. People are watching the show like it's still running today, and it's being hailed as one of Nick's best programs.

I don't subscribe to that belief. While I've always been a fan of Victorious, and still think the first season is fantastic, the show fell off as soon as season two. There were some legitimately bad episodes in that season ("Tori Gets Stuck," "Prom Wrecker," "Tori Tortures Teacher") which makes them stick out even worse when you compare them to the good episodes ("Ice Cream for Ke$ha," "Jade Gets Crushed," "Terror on Cupcake Street," "Blooptorious"). As the show went on, it kept fluctuating between really good and really bad, and with the way season four turned out, it makes me wonder how much worse Victorious would have gotten if Nickelodeon let it continue.

Victorious was the last Dan Schneider show that was capable of being good. Before that, his track record was flawless. iCarly was a legitimately funny show for a while, which is something even I forget about. But the fact that Schneider was working on both shows at the same time led to neither of them getting the attention they really needed. It worked in the mid-2000s, but lightning didn't strike twice. The humor became broader and more shallow, scenes started dragging on, the acting performances became more exaggerated, and stories began descending into nonsensical territory. Could you imagine an episode like "Josh is Done" even being attempted in 2013? It wouldn't have, and if it had been, it would have been slowed down by corny, awkward jokes that killed the mood.

In 2013, not only did Victorious air its last episode, but so did Big Time Rush. At least that show got a proper finale. How to Rock began airing in 2012 and ended that same year, which is a shame because that show was at least decent and never got the chance to become better. Marvin Marvin had a short run also, and since Victorious was a consistent disappointment at the time, that show stood out as being infinitely better. Not even joking, I genuinely liked Marvin Marvin. I know everybody hated it, but it was nothing but ridiculous fuckery every week and I lived for it. Would I watch it now? I don't really know, but at least it gave Lucas Cruikshank something to do besides scream everything he says in a high-pitched voice.

Disney Channel wasn't in a great place in 2013, but at least it knew what it was trying to do and had an actual direction. Nickelodeon had the direction of a broken compass being used by a crack addict. I believe Ray has referred to this as the Kidocalypse. I remember shows being cancelled left and right, whether it was deserved or not. Nickelodeon was hitting the panic button more times than necessary, constantly transitioning and rebuilding. The perfect structure from 2010/2011 had crumbled completely, and in less than three years, the crossover appeal was gone completely. Nickelodeon and Disney Channel were no longer cool. They were just there for background noise.

By the end of 2013, Nick had three live-action shows holding things down: Sam & Cat, which put two characters with no chemistry together and carried none of the elements that made the original shows good. The Haunted Hathaways, which was a respectable show and at least had somewhat of a run before it got cancelled. And lastly, The Thundermans, which lasted much longer than the other two shows and was actually decent, having a little bit of that old Nickelodeon charm. A new generation was forced to come to Nick, but you have to wonder what that generation would have looked like if some of the shows were allowed to crawl before they could walk.

In 2014, Disney Channel introduced one of its most memorable shows in the last decade, and the one show that constantly tested my patience as a fan and a reviewer: Girl Meets World. As much as I talked about the many problems this show had, it was usually interesting and gave me a consistent source of material, good and bad. But I don't want to get ahead of myself here. This is for the next write-up. That same year, Nickelodeon introduced the newest member of the Schneider's Bakery family, Henry Danger. This show was interesting because it represented many things. First of all, it was a superhero show, not just a sitcom. So at least it had some unique element to it. Second, it was made entirely from scratch. What I mean is the show starred people that had never worked with Dan Schneider before. iCarly and Victorious weren't spinoffs, but they starred actresses who had already been on other Schneider shows. Even Drake & Josh had the built-in Schneider connection. So, for the first time ever, Henry Danger was a Schneider's Bakery show with no lineage to anything that came before it. Sam & Cat also ended this year (coming up short of its 40-episode order), bringing an official end to an era that had started seven years ago with iCarly.

2014 also brought us the debut of Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, & Dawn. It's okay if you don't remember that this show existed, or that it ran for four years. Sometimes, I have trouble remembering too.

The question now is, what happens in the next couple years for Nickelodeon and Disney Channel? I don't know if I want to find out, maybe Ray can do it for me.

And yeah, I know this blog literally started in 2015, but even then, I wasn't paying nearly as much attention to Nick and Disney as I did five years ago.

Are we just all stories? (and what are stories anyway?)

Happy The Year of Barbara Walters 2020s! The Year of Coronavirus and the Death of Decency, any Reason, Justification and Will to Even be Bothered to Keep on Living and the Human Race Itself Anyway so Why Bother?

This wasn't exactly the "first post of the decade" that I really had in mind. Really, I just wanted to continue with evaluating the shows of the past decade (which if I really wanted to get off my ass would've been done before the year was over) but Mike is actually working on the 2011-14 section and, spoiler alert, what he's done is brilliant and I really want him to finish up with that because he's really spot-on with that. I've also wanted to move into more Netflix reviews, since Netflix is (was?) a hotbed of tween/teen entertainment right now, not to mention Insatiable and (me completely dead set on binging) Bojack Horseman, but I didn't just want to open up a whole new decade on just another review, especially since we just got done closing out arguably the most important decade in all of human history as far as tween and teen entertainment is concerned.

Then again since I had intended to finish my lookback at the 2010s last year I guess I really don't know what kind of post I had been intending in the first place. I guess I'll go with yet another post on why this type of storytelling matters, and a general look at least as far as why the last decade wasn't just so important but the most important (beyond just television, since the lookback series is covering that in more detail).

But as to why this particular decade is the most important...let's look back at the very beginning of tween/teen entertainment....

...which is more recent than you think.

The concept of tweens/teens didn't even exist until last century at the latest, and really "tween" as a concept wasn't invented until this one, more as a response to describe just what the hell Disney Channel and Nickelodeon were marketing in the first place, incidentally. The concept of a "teenager" really grew out of a rapidly growing middle class at the beginning of the 20th century and even then, really referred to a particularly privileged type of teenager (the concept of a middle class itself was pretty brand-new and...it's hard to really define within strictly the cultural context of that particular time period and divorced from its context now. Basically, it meant your kids were actually going to school instead of demonstrating why this era also gave birth to child labor laws). Many of the things we associate as being teen and even tween entertainment - fairy tales; Dickens, Twain, Alcott and the Bronte sisters; hell even cartoons - were strictly for adults up to that time. Hell literacy among the adult population was still in at best a plurality, let alone for teens. The "Downton Abbey era" was the first where you actually did have books published specifically for teens and tweens and...well, it's more of a fucked-up era than you realize because these books were the direct immediate ancestor for the "Tijuana Bibles" of the 20s and 30s (yes the back-then equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey actually was one of the first books intended specifically for tweens. We're very literally talking about tween smut here. True story, folks). Needless to say these operations tended to be quite underground. 

And tween and teen entertainment would for the large part continue to be underground and...shockingly smutty...until the late 30s and really the end of WWII. Sure, you did have a few books written for literate (and highly privileged) teens, and yes you had children's books, but for the most part entertainment and culture as a whole existed almost exclusively in an adult world. Between child and adult, again that really wasn't a concept. Television made for an explosion of children's programming (which was still live-action - cartoons at best or worst depending on how you look at it were still about a 50/50 split adult/kid) but still, nothing tween or teen-specific. Yes, you still had adult-specific shows - I don't think The Honeymooners can really be called "family entertainment" under any real context regardless what decade it is and I think we've all seen Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble hock cigarettes by now. Really at best you had "family shows" that tweens and teens can watch along with the rest of the family.

You really have to go all the way to the 1980s to find teens (or tweens, although they really weren't marketed to as such) as an actual demo, and even then it would be a pretty slow trickle for years. In the 60s you started to have some entertainment marketed towards teens including a few books (well, one book - The Outsiders - and arguably to the close of that decade S.E. Hinton would be one of the few authors writing to teens, with her mixing it up with a good number of very much adult-demo books in the process - and really not until the mid 70s with Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War which, trust me, is way way more cynical than The Outsiders) and especially movies (Bonnie and Clyde being almost the ur-example with "New Hollywood," up to and very much including everything pre-Star Wars George Lucas did, especially American Graffiti which if anything one-upped The Outsiders). 

But nope, other than that not really anything. Aside from movies which, again, really were the vanguard of defining teens as a demo on their own - The Outsiders and The Chocolate War being adapted into movies, The Wave on TV and really an entire artistic movement, that aforementioned "New Hollywood" which again includes at least very early George Lucas. But most books were, well...pretty kiddie, to put it one way, and TV was dominated by family sitcoms and dramas outside of Saturday morning and afterschool. Even The Wonder Years...well, that was as much feeding off adult nostalgia as it was appealing to viewers the actual age of the characters (trust me I know a thing or two about adult nostalgia). In 1985 racist homophobic asshole Orson Scott Card (yes I will keep referring to him quite specifically as this until something comes along to show me he's changed) came out with Ender's Game - today it would be so totally a YA novel and even its movie adaptation(s) have been marketed as such, but back then it was just another pulp sci-fi book. 

And then Britney and N*SYNC happened.

Really, even moreso than movies, it was the music industry that was rapidly defining the teen marketing demo. Families were now giving their children, particularly tweens and teens, enough allowance to let them make regular purchases, or even just giving into their purchasing demands outright. Now all of a sudden kids 11-17 were a group that was worth bothering to market too. And I'd be remiss to forget video games, which largely pushed tweens and teens as a demo for boys. 

But I'd be equally remiss in not mentioning Nickelodeon's and Disney Channel's direct role in all this. After all, Nickelodeon started pushing kids TV "upmarket" back in the 90s and even 80s with Clarissa Explains it All, Salute Your Shorts and Hey Dude for live action and Ren and Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life in animation. And as I mentioned, it was Disney Channel that practically invented the concept of "tween" in the first place with their blatantly obvious Clarissa Explains it All ripoff except way more boring with Lizzie McGuire and later That's So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

But the tween and teen demos really blew up last decade, and we have the rest of media and the industry trying to inevitably play catch-up with Nickelodeon and especially Disney Channel to thank for that. Well, and Twilight and Hunger Games but not quite to the degree I think people give credit for (remember, I went to graduate school for this so I'm an expert!) Those books gave greater attention to an already defined demo and showed that it wasn't all just what had been narrowly defined up to that point (although ironically coming to dominate so thoroughly it merely changed what that narrow definition was instead of expanding upon it) but from a wider cultural standpoint it really was Nickelodeon and Disney Channel that did the heavy lifting in the 2000s, and it just leaking more into the wider culture in the 2010s.

I guess this kinda contradicts my point about the 2010s being the most important decade in tween and teen entertainment, but there is a huge distinction between doing the heavy lifting and when the fruits of that heavy lifting actually bear out, especially when much of that fruit is just a lot of people playing catch-up or just trying to join in on the cashing in. Towards the very beginning of the 2010s (or the very end of the 2000s, when Twilight and Hunger Games came out) the young adult genre really exploded as a major, dominant genre - if not the major dominant book genre. YA/teen and tween movies weren't just a niche thing that existed or even pushed for but, again, was a pretty dominant genre filling the whole spectrum of budgets and studios aside from the absolute stratosphere a superhero or major franchise sci-fi movie dictates (and even then, you can argue the MCU Spider-Man movies are pretty dang YA-ish, to say nothing of Into the Spider-Verse. Hell you had what's basically a half-assed attempt at a YA Star Wars movie with Solo). You had everything from major studios to independents pumping out YA/teen movies - some being more successful than others (to put it one way, a whole bunch just come off like the directors and/or producers were listening to Nirvana desperately trying to recapture their own teen years way too hard, way too many times). And of course Nickelodeon and Disney Channel were at their height - sure, Hannah Montana hung up her mic for the last time and High School Musical may have been so 2000s but their influence was still a major presence through the 2010s.

And that is why, through volume and numbers if nothing else, the 2010s were the most important decade for teen and tween entertainment.

Other Thoughts

 - I know I promised I'd talk about why stories matter and, umm...I definitely dropped the ball on that. I've just been watching a lot of Bojack Horseman (a lot of Bojack Horseman) and I'm just struck by what Princess Caroline says about people being just a collection of stories, or something more. But moreover, I think stories are important for conveying and capturing something that's hard to do in a single sentence, paragraph, or even entire conversation, and the show itself does a great job doing that.

And umm...I've got nothing beyond that. Which is why it's just being shoved into a paragraph in what's essentially the afterthought section.

 - speaking of which, Bojack Horseman is pretty freakin' incredible and probably the best show on Netflix period so far. I'll be writing a review of it soon but...it's not exactly perfect either God I hate Todd but it's absolutely fantastic in the exact messages and emotions it wants to convey.

 - I've also been watching Insatiable which got recently canceled and...Good God this might be the worst show on Netflix so far. Ugh. Just...wall-to-wall awful. Considering this and Sing It! I just really don't think Debby has what it takes to stay on television post-Jessie, sorry.