Arthur - Where is the Show Going?

[D'Snowth]

Looking at PBS schedules through May, there still isn't any airdates scheduled for the remaining Season 18 episodes, which is odd, considering May is usually when the latter half of the new seasons air.

Of course, they've already been aired overseas, naturally. The episode with Rattles is apparently a big deal, and it also features Molly reverting back to being a bully again despite seemingly learning her lesson in "The Last Tough Customer".

 

[Drtooth]

Of course, they've already been aired overseas, naturally. The episode with Rattles is apparently a big deal, and it also features Molly reverting back to being a bully again despite seemingly learning her lesson in "The Last Tough Customer".

I'm really not liking this season that much. Trite kiddy cliche based episodes (there's a freaking "You saved me debt" episode...really!?!), character de-development.... the show's on for the sake of contractual obligations. Even the better episodes are meh to alright. I dunno if seeing these earlier overseas is that much of a deal or not.

They even still have episodes that use the really bad Muffy model where her nose is huge in profile. They stopped using it only to use it again. There's such a "we don't care" attitude that's a turn off.

 

[D'Snowth]

I think I've mentioned it before, but I've found that this season to be really "meh" at best.

Even though one of the original writers has returned this season, his episodes have been good at recapturing the spirit of the earlier seasons and episodes, but the resolutions have really fallen flat: "Surprise!" being one of them.

I liked how "The Friend Who Wasn't There" attempted to get the message across that kids today are so hooked on gadgets and devices that it's leaving them void of any real imagination. I've never been too keen on the idea of placing cellphones and tablets in kids' hands as soon as their yanked out of their mothers' wombs in this day and age. Heck, my generation had TVs in bedrooms, video games, and the internet was just really coming into vogue, but we still prefered to play outside any chance we got.

The only really good episode so far this season has been "The Tardy Tumbler" if only because they brought back Marina, who's really one of the better minor/recurring characters they have.

 

[Drtooth]

I liked how "The Friend Who Wasn't There" attempted to get the message across that kids today are so hooked on gadgets and devices that it's leaving them void of any real imagination. I've never been too keen on the idea of placing cellphones and tablets in kids' hands as soon as their yanked out of their mothers' wombs in this day and age. Heck, my generation had TVs in bedrooms, video games, and the internet was just really coming into vogue, but we still prefered to play outside any chance we got.

I still feel that while they did attempt that, they did it clumsilly to the point where it loses the message and makes it a simple "Dwaaaah, kids these days don't have no imaginations" instead of a more complex, "kids are hard pressed to grow out of things fast." The episode was pretty much about Muffy growing apart from very juvenile things, and yet it feels like an old guy letting loose about how fad-gadgets are to blame instead of saying "it's perfectly natural for an 8 year old kid to not want to play with a toddler's elephant doll." Especially since this is wants to be more mature than she is Muffy we're talking about.

Both the obsession with phones and the growing up too fast topics were handled much better previously. This episode wasn't bad, but they could have put a little more effort into focusing that it's a shame kids grow up fast and not kids grow up fast because of their viddyah games and the rock and roll.

Plus, the giant Polly Locket thing really could have been used better.

 

[mr3urious]

I still feel that while they did attempt that, they did it clumsilly to the point where it loses the message and makes it a simple "Dwaaaah, kids these days don't have no imaginations" instead of a more complex, "kids are hard pressed to grow out of things fast." The episode was pretty much about Muffy growing apart from very juvenile things, and yet it feels like an old guy letting loose about how fad-gadgets are to blame instead of saying "it's perfectly natural for an 8 year old kid to not want to play with a toddler's elephant doll." Especially since this is wants to be more mature than she is Muffy we're talking about.

Both the obsession with phones and the growing up too fast topics were handled much better previously. This episode wasn't bad, but they could have put a little more effort into focusing that it's a shame kids grow up fast and not kids grow up fast because of their viddyah games and the rock and roll.

Plus, the giant Polly Locket thing really could have been used better.

Other shows have delivered the message better, too, most notably the Simpsons episode "Lard of the Dance".

 

[Drtooth]

Now that I think of it, if they're talking about sentimentality, Muffy's the worst character to explore it on.

Let's face it. Arthur's the sentimental one. The episode with Stanley the teddy bear and Pick a Car. Arthur comes from a Middle Middle class family. Not working poor, but not extremely well to do either. Clinging onto something meaningful when you're that young is something a kid is partially necessity when you aren't flooded with toys. Arthur is far from spoiled and manages to have emotional attachments to things. Muffy, on the other hand... subtracting the fact that she'd be rolling in gadgets, she'd be rolling in toys. If you get every single thing there is, there's no real emotional attachment. Maybe it's something you get on a really good day and favor it over something else, but there's not really a huge emotional bond when you get everything. And knowing Muffy, it's all the latest things that she has to have to be trendy. They had an underground complex of all her old toys, meaning she both had a lot of them and grew out of them really fast.

Plus, do they expect anyone to believe any girl at age 8 wants to play with a younger child's elephant plush? I can see someone that age with an emotional attachment at most on a shelf or something. Letting go of the toddler friendly toys at age 8 is somehow treated as an evil brainwashing by computers instead of the rite of passage that it usually is.

 

[mr3urious]

I also forgot to mention "So Many Birthdays" from Steven Universe where Steven starts to feel old and abandon childish things after seeing how old the Gems are, causing adulthood to literally smack him in the face as he rapidly ages, which would eventually make him realize how he's not prepared to handle growing up yet. It delivers that "kids forced to grow up too fast" message, too, though a bit more subtly.

 

[D'Snowth]

Back on the subject of disabled characters, since Linda's been gone from SST for a long time, what if ARTHUR had a deaf character? ARTHUR seems to handle its disabled characters very well (from what I've heard, they consulted with a blind person when WGBH mandated Marina), and considering one of the most influential representatives of the deaf and hearing impaired is no longer a familiar face to young kids, it seems like with all the other diseases and disabilities that ARTHUR has tackled that they could tackle deafness as well. I could see a deaf character in this universe being someone like Marlee Matlin: able to speak (a little) and read lips - because I imagine sign language would be rather difficult to animate.

 

[D'Snowth]

Okay, something weird is going on.

Unless somebody made a mistake or error, the first week of June has one episode from the current season scheduled, and two random episodes from next season scheduled that week as well.

Weird.

 

[Drtooth]

I just wish they'd put the episodes on in May like they used to just to get this season over with.

Rereading the synopses of the upcoming episodes, something painful stuck out.

This episode. Just that freaking episode. Okay, this show is officially all over the map. First, it paints Muffy as a terrible person for not wanting to play with her toys, now they've backtracked and essentially said that toys are terrible because kids shouldn't even need them because they have their imaginations. To quote every Joey Mazzarino performed Muppet on Sesame Street, "Hubba WHA?!?!"

First off, yeah... this plot line. Season 1 Muppet Babies stuff? I'm sure Garfield did it as well. Another great generic kiddy show plotline pulled out of the very same 1980's cliche pile that Marc Brown refused to make a cartoon out of his books then. Really... too short to ride rollercoasters? Saving your life debts? How about a non-ironic treasure hunt episode where they find a genie? How about we have them shrink, too? And not in an imagination cut scene way. Yeah, this sort of thing is "new" to kids who were born 4-10 years ago, but do we really need to sink to that level?

What ever happened to the real kids with real problems learning real lessons schtick that made Arthur a hit in the first place? Now it's all 1980's kiddy cartoon cliches. Not that there aren't some intriguing episodes coming up and some real kids, real problems stuff... but imagining cardboard boxes as stuff as a plotline? Really?