Arthur - Where is the Show Going?

[Drtooth]

Well well well before. They never showed his father at the beginning of the show. I think they planned on having them divorced all along. And frankly, that's where Sesame Street screwed up, as far as the Snuffy thing was involved. Of course, then there was his baby sister (which they don't even show anymore), and they couldn't have easily said "Oh yeah, he left when the baby was born." If they basically said "Gee Snuffy, I never seen your father before." and Snuffy used that to talk about divorce, it wouldn't have been such a problem.

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

Season 14 has started airing here in Australia, and on the title of the thread might I say that the writing is brilliant. Already a continuous in joke has been established AND the sheer hilarity of the pop culture insertions makes for exceptional entertainment. To the people working on the show, I saw keep up the excellent work.

 

[APRena]

Neil Gaiman (as a cat)! Definitely looking forward to this.

 

[Drtooth]

I have to say, I really dislike my local station not giving this an after school slot like it desperately needs. I really don't get why Super Why gets the nice 2:30 slot. Though, I really think Arthur NEEDS to be with the other PBS Go shows (Cyberchase, Word Girl, etc.)

And I really dislike them giving the slot they forced it on last year (2:00) to Cat in the Hat knows a Lot About That. It's definitely for a much younger crowd. I really want to like the show, Martin Short keeps the Cat as exuberant as he should be. But it's very repetitive, they sing the same exact song (with one line of different lyrics) twice an episode, and the kids have no personality. Plus, the fixed poses in the 2-D computer animation really have no variety and make it look obvious that things were recycled over and over. And they even recycle whole scenes. Talk about cheap. Not a bad show, but it really needs work.

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

So far season 14 has concentrated a lot, and I mean a LOT on Arthur, Buster and Binky as main characters.
This is 5 episodes in, and so far George has only been used as a fall guy; not as a "full on" character has he was last season. There have been a few storylines that seem a little recycled, but the whole show has been "modernised" from how it was 10 years ago. A lot of "digital era" stuff which seems slightly out of place within the continuity of the season. Plenty of clever satire writing and self referential humour, I adore whoever is putting all of that in. It may be just me, but it seems almost as if the animation quality has slipped just a little bit; especially with faces. The lack of lines from characters that aren't Arthur's immediate friends or The Tough Customers is very different. Fern has only had one line so far, and an out of character one at that.

From here I think I can safely say it's turning out to be a mixed batch of a season. I am quite intrigued by the titles on IMDB of some of the episodes yet to air, and look foward to them on the premise of title alone.

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

Episode 7 aired today. It's corrected most of the issues I had with the first 5; though Muffy seems to have a big role in almost every episodes plot. Though I regret to announce this, but it seems that the voice actor for Sue Ellen has changed and it isn't for the better. I feel disappointed on that front.

 

[Drtooth]

So far season 14 has concentrated a lot, and I mean a LOT on Arthur, Buster and Binky as main characters.
This is 5 episodes in, and so far George has only been used as a fall guy; not as a "full on" character has he was last season. There have been a few storylines that seem a little recycled, but the whole show has been "modernised" from how it was 10 years ago. A lot of "digital era" stuff which seems slightly out of place within the continuity of the season. Plenty of clever satire writing and self referential humour, I adore whoever is putting all of that in. It may be just me, but it seems almost as if the animation quality has slipped just a little bit; especially with faces. The lack of lines from characters that aren't Arthur's immediate friends or The Tough Customers is very different. Fern has only had one line so far, and an out of character one at that.

That's a tough one... on one hand, at least we're not dealing with characters like Jenna or some other background personality that all the sudden comes to light because they have something wrong with them. Somehow, I find it tedious. When it happened with George, at least George was likable. Like I really cared about Jenna and her human nose (Binky's the only one who can pull that look off). But it does sound like a lack of variety. I had a great fear that Lydia Fox would be the center of the show now, and shoehorned into every single plot line. Good to hear that isn't true (I have to wait until Monday for it to start).

That said, how was Lydia's character. Did she actually do something and have a personality, or did she basically do the whole, "I may be different, but I'm just as good as you because I can do thing better than you" bit? I've seen the latter too many times. I'm sure if I was in that situation, I'd feel offended that they can't come up with better character traits than that. Sigh... why can't people take a lesson from Garret from Extreme Ghostbusters?

 

[beatnikchick300]

I'm a little surprised this show is even still on. I mean, I'm 23, and my kid brothers were watching this when I was 12!

One thing I'm wondering since I haven't seen an episode in years: do they still have that awesome Ziggy Marley theme song?

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

Lydia hasn't actually been introduced yet. The issue with George's character I think was one writer's doing, as it's been rectified to a character, not a fall guy as of now. There has been a brilliant plotline around a relatively minor character and there has been 2 Fern-centric plots, that's all fine. I hadn't even heard of Lydia until today, as I'm in Australia and the competition wasn't run or advertised. The order of episodes in Australia is in the order they're listed on IMDB though; according to Wikipedia Lydia is in the first episode of the PBS running order.

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

Here we go - my thoughts on Lydia.
As far as the character design goes, it was well done, somewhat distant from the original competetion winner though. The episode aired today, and it seems to be that she may become a one off, or a sparingly used recurring character. She is in a nutshell, a female counterpart to Brain, but the fact she was born without use of her legs (as said by Lydia in the show) is close to not mentioned. The whole disability cliche doesn't really happen. I've seen 12 episodes of the season now, and only one has had Lydia in it, so she hasn't been jammed into every episode. Issues such as wheelchair accessibility are brought up, which is a reasonably nice change from the cliche. I don't know if I would like to see her become a show regular, I think she works much better as just being in one or two episodes.

On a different note, the fire chief finally has a name - Betsy. That one has been a long time coming.