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.