I had high expectations for this re-invention one of my most beloved childhood edutainment series--and, unfortunately, they weren't able to meet them. The series tries very hard to capture the humour and wit of the original, the new episodes and story lines are fairly interesting and the updated Magic Bus is appropriately high-techy, but... everything seems less than it once was. Other reviews have pointed out the cheap animation, so I'll skip that and consider other problems.
Examples: Children's personalities - they were by and large flattened, they still retain traces of their former disposition (Keesha is bossy and not exactly a team player, DA obsesses over research, Ralphie likes to daydream), but their personal quirks sometimes come out when the episode calls upon them to be present. When they are not needed, they simply fade into the background. For example, Carlos' puns are few and far between, and when they do occur, they feel quite forced. On the contrary, Arnold's personality has been by and large reduced to being fearful and anxious.
Incidentally, Phoebe was replaced by a newcomer Jyoti, who's annoyingly Mary Sue-like: not only she's a great athlete and a great team player, but also a super-tech savvy kid who can always save the day when the rest of the class hasn't got a clue. In fact, it often feels like the rest of the class are just a sounding board for Jyoti's ideas.
Miss Valerie Frizzle was substituted by her sister, Fiona Felicity Frizzle, who feels like a cheap knock-off. Oh yes, she tries very hard to be hip, groovy and 'with the kids', but you can tell that she's struggling and doesn't have a whit of Lily Tomlin's je ne sais quoi. Tomlin's Frizzle was upbeat, quirky and witty, but also calm, mysterious and reassuring when necessary: McKinnon's Frizzle has the energy of a caffeine-overdosed insomniac: you feel as if she's SUPPOSED to be lively and have fun, but she can never quite work herself into the mood. I found myself waiting for the final section of each episode, when Tomlin's Frizzle would answer questions from the audience: she had a quiet charm about her that McKinnon utterly lacks.
Interestingly, you can even tell that the creators predicted the fans' outrage over Fiona's coming, so they addressed it in the first episode, when she is explicitly likened to an invasive species that sneakily wriggles her way into the classroom habitat. Fiona is shown to have some doubts about her role, she's not exactly familiar with the Bus and makes some mistakes during her first trip; most significantly, she recognizes the fact that Arnold doesn't like her and she implicitly manipulates him so that he's forced into accepting her. Here's also where the flat characterization comes into play: children seem all too accepting of this newcomer teacher, whereas they're at the age when any such change should be a quite dramatic event that takes getting used to.
Continuity errors: this series is supposed to take place after the school vacation, with all the children still remembering their last field trip. The original series was full of continuity nods: when kids visited places they've been before (like the bloodstream), they'd recognize it and point familiar features. In the new series, the class remember nothing of their previous field trips and have to re-learn parts of the material they've already seen. For instance, Ralphie wants to build a giant cheer-leading robot, even though he built a robot in the original series and found out first hand why it's not such a good idea. This is neither mentioned nor alluded too: it feels almost like the writer plagiarized the previous episode. Of course, all this could have been easily remedied by picking a new class of children unfamiliar with Ms Frizzle, but they writers took the easy way out--and it shows.
Sense of wonder: the original FELT like a magic bus simply because you couldn't always explain what it'd do. The new bus feels like a high- tech invention with all the wearables, flat screens and cameras, but it has very little magic of its own and almost no personality. We don't really see the bus think for itself-it's on a very tight leash, as Fiona Frizzle constantly handles a remote through which she controls its behavior. I found the Bus' moods and behaviors one of the best parts of the original: the new version Bus feels just like an ultra modern vehicle. By trying to be cutting edge, it'll probably become extremely dated in a few years, whereas the original has a timeless quality about it that still captures your imagination.
Writing: much weaker than before, story lines often feel forced and hastily cobbled together. For a show geared towards children, the pace is often break-neck and doesn't allow time for properly learning new concepts. I remember that the original had children repeat the word 'phytoplakton' several times so they'd learn the proper pronunciation: the new series introduces very complex words (such as medulla oblongata) in passing and expects the class to flawlessly reproduce them. It's as it the writers had to fill in their science quota per episode and they packed them full of references, not caring if they play well with the story.
In sum, I don't really recommend this new series: I still very fondly return to the original seasons and they never cease to fill me with the sense of wonder and glory of the sciences and natural world, whereas the new episodes make me feel... bored. Bored and restless.
Examples: Children's personalities - they were by and large flattened, they still retain traces of their former disposition (Keesha is bossy and not exactly a team player, DA obsesses over research, Ralphie likes to daydream), but their personal quirks sometimes come out when the episode calls upon them to be present. When they are not needed, they simply fade into the background. For example, Carlos' puns are few and far between, and when they do occur, they feel quite forced. On the contrary, Arnold's personality has been by and large reduced to being fearful and anxious.
Incidentally, Phoebe was replaced by a newcomer Jyoti, who's annoyingly Mary Sue-like: not only she's a great athlete and a great team player, but also a super-tech savvy kid who can always save the day when the rest of the class hasn't got a clue. In fact, it often feels like the rest of the class are just a sounding board for Jyoti's ideas.
Miss Valerie Frizzle was substituted by her sister, Fiona Felicity Frizzle, who feels like a cheap knock-off. Oh yes, she tries very hard to be hip, groovy and 'with the kids', but you can tell that she's struggling and doesn't have a whit of Lily Tomlin's je ne sais quoi. Tomlin's Frizzle was upbeat, quirky and witty, but also calm, mysterious and reassuring when necessary: McKinnon's Frizzle has the energy of a caffeine-overdosed insomniac: you feel as if she's SUPPOSED to be lively and have fun, but she can never quite work herself into the mood. I found myself waiting for the final section of each episode, when Tomlin's Frizzle would answer questions from the audience: she had a quiet charm about her that McKinnon utterly lacks.
Interestingly, you can even tell that the creators predicted the fans' outrage over Fiona's coming, so they addressed it in the first episode, when she is explicitly likened to an invasive species that sneakily wriggles her way into the classroom habitat. Fiona is shown to have some doubts about her role, she's not exactly familiar with the Bus and makes some mistakes during her first trip; most significantly, she recognizes the fact that Arnold doesn't like her and she implicitly manipulates him so that he's forced into accepting her. Here's also where the flat characterization comes into play: children seem all too accepting of this newcomer teacher, whereas they're at the age when any such change should be a quite dramatic event that takes getting used to.
Continuity errors: this series is supposed to take place after the school vacation, with all the children still remembering their last field trip. The original series was full of continuity nods: when kids visited places they've been before (like the bloodstream), they'd recognize it and point familiar features. In the new series, the class remember nothing of their previous field trips and have to re-learn parts of the material they've already seen. For instance, Ralphie wants to build a giant cheer-leading robot, even though he built a robot in the original series and found out first hand why it's not such a good idea. This is neither mentioned nor alluded too: it feels almost like the writer plagiarized the previous episode. Of course, all this could have been easily remedied by picking a new class of children unfamiliar with Ms Frizzle, but they writers took the easy way out--and it shows.
Sense of wonder: the original FELT like a magic bus simply because you couldn't always explain what it'd do. The new bus feels like a high- tech invention with all the wearables, flat screens and cameras, but it has very little magic of its own and almost no personality. We don't really see the bus think for itself-it's on a very tight leash, as Fiona Frizzle constantly handles a remote through which she controls its behavior. I found the Bus' moods and behaviors one of the best parts of the original: the new version Bus feels just like an ultra modern vehicle. By trying to be cutting edge, it'll probably become extremely dated in a few years, whereas the original has a timeless quality about it that still captures your imagination.
Writing: much weaker than before, story lines often feel forced and hastily cobbled together. For a show geared towards children, the pace is often break-neck and doesn't allow time for properly learning new concepts. I remember that the original had children repeat the word 'phytoplakton' several times so they'd learn the proper pronunciation: the new series introduces very complex words (such as medulla oblongata) in passing and expects the class to flawlessly reproduce them. It's as it the writers had to fill in their science quota per episode and they packed them full of references, not caring if they play well with the story.
In sum, I don't really recommend this new series: I still very fondly return to the original seasons and they never cease to fill me with the sense of wonder and glory of the sciences and natural world, whereas the new episodes make me feel... bored. Bored and restless.