Brief Story Line
An eccentric genius named Mr. Benedict (Tony Hale - Toy Story 4, Arrested Development TV series etc) had noticed and suspected about occurrences in the world called The Emergency which made people always in a state of worry and depression. He believed it was done by someone intelligent who became the principal of the Institute, a school for special gifted children. In order to investigate this, he recruited four children to assist him.
The four children consisted of Reynie Muldoon (Mystic Inscho) who was very close with his teacher at the orphanage Ms. Perumal (Gia Sandhu), George "Sticky" Washington (Seth B. Carr - The Main Event etc), Kate Whetteral (Emmy DeOliveira) and Constance Contraire (Marta Kessler). These four all had their own specialty which made them uniquely qualified for the mission.
Mr. Benedict was also assisted by some people he truly trusted, i.e. a woman called Number Two (Kristen Schaal - My Spy, Bob's Burgers TV series etc), Rhonda (MaameYaa Boafo) and the muscle Milligan (Ryan Hurst - Remember the Titans, Sons of Anarchy TV series etc). And so what would happen to these children and what was actually the reasons behind the Emergency? You could find them all in this quite exciting children adventure series.
End of Brief Story Line
So as I said above, I was intrigued by the premise of this series which hinted a good old fashioned mystery solving and adventures that children would experience. And when I watched the first episode, I was really interested by it, especially during the time of the "recruitment" process. It was truly fun, plus the background setting of the 1970s with really colorful theme everywhere made it nice to watch. And the various tests the children had to pass be it before recruited or in the Institute was just entertaining for me who love puzzles.
As soon as the children were recruited and given the task, the story developed nicely for a while and I was really hooked by what they experienced. It was fascinating to see how they adapted to the situation and condition at the Institute, but best thing would definitely be watching the dynamics among themselves and with other students. I actually love all the kids here, (including at a later stage, the super annoying Constance). Every one was unique individually and made it always fun to see their story and obviously their development. And by the end of the season, I can honestly say that I was delighted watching them grew.
Now, aside from the children, there were also the support of Mr. Benedict's adult team who provided some humorous situations. The one that I really liked was the character Milligan whom I always had feeling would have important role. Oh, I also liked Ms. Perugam whose care and affection towards Reynie was really lovely. The star of this show would definitely be Tony Hale who portrayed his character admirably and was totally convincing (not going into detail, suffice to say you would be amazed if you see him in here). If I have to be honest, I also believed the series would not have been interesting if it had not been for the fabulous performance by the children (who were mainly newcomers, except for Seth Carr).
The first season was adapted from the children's books of the same title written by Trenton Lee Stewart. It was developed for TV by Matt Manfredi & Phil Hay (co-writers of films like Crazy/Beautiful, Ride Along, Æon Flux etc). And from what I read, if the series is renewed, the subsequent seasons were not going to be a straight up adaptations of other books in the series, but combining some of the elements from them. I personally would love to watch a second season, as the ending of first certainly hinted a mysterious and intriguing next chapter. And talking about the ending, I really really loved the finale which I thought was the perfect culmination of what was built on in the previous 7 episodes, not to mention there were one or two emotional moment that I also liked.
Overall, for me this is a quite exciting series. It started off brightly especially during the first 2 episodes. But I did find the middle (despite the fun time watching the kids), the story developed a bit slower than expected, making me feel like it was not going as advanced as I would have hoped for. However, starting from episode 6, I thought it moved a lot faster and since it has a wonderful finale, I could disregard the slower pace in the middle. It is based on children's book with adventures children style but combined with more mature elements and the support adult cast who complimented the younger cast and vice versa, makes this an interesting family friendly series. So if you are looking for another Disney+ original series with those qualities, you could give this one a try and if you are like me who love to see adventurous of unique and intelligent children, then I think you're gonna like this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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