#I do anticipate the Bumblebee episode in spite of my doubts

[kaythefloppa]

RE: New Episode of Wild Kratts - BUMBLEZZZZ

Bumblezzz - Airing Sunday November 3rd, 2024.

On a "mini" creature adventure, Martin and Chris encounter a hungry salamander and need to escape. Lost and unsure of their location, they ride a bumblebee, learning about it along the way. Unfortunately, they lose their adventure gear in the bee’s pollen pockets. Meanwhile, Zach is capturing endangered bumblebees, so the brothers activate Bumble Bee powers to and free the bees!

Pre-Episode Thoughts:

We get 2 episodes back-to-back where the miniaturized Kratt Brothers get lost with an animal, and then that episode is back-to-back with a salamander episode. Pretty tight continuity there, guys.

Ok, so there are links to clips of the episodes on the WVIA site, but those clips are unavailable until the episode drops. But those clips have synopses for them. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that there are some things that do get a side-eye here and there, but overall, a really interesting plot based on the synopses.

Again, really side-eyeing the show for how it took nearly a decade and a half to start doing animals that are commonly known like bumblebees, ravens, camels, leopards, and moose. Especially since we had two episodes centering around honey bees in the first season. And I'm especially petty because bumblebees are like, so fucking cute. Their rent was so due.

Zach is back! This is actually his first solo appearance in the new season. I guess it makes sense seeing as one of the complaints of the previous 2 seasons was how oversaturated he was and how repetitve his schemes became, so they dialed it down a ton here, but I think S7 leaned too far into the opposite direction, where you'd be surprised if he even appeared. Good to know that there's a decent balance at hand.

I'm not gonna spoil the plot that was revealed in the “clip descriptions” but Zach's motivations in this episode are BEYOND dumb. Like, Season 5 levels of "this could make a child cringe" (source: I was that child). I know I just went on about how refreshing it was to see him again this season, and I still stand by that, but this was the best they could do with it? Worse, this is coming right off the heels off of Our Blue & Green World and Paisley's betrayal. Even ignoring that, it just feels.... asinine even for Zach.

The Bumblebee Power Suit was revealed earlier this year in one of the Wild Kratts magazines. And I'm just gonna say it, the Bumblebee Suit has the best design out of all of the new Creature Powers in Season 7.

The quality is kinda shitty but you can still get the overall effect. The perfect blend of the signature CPS color with the animals' natural hues, the appropriate placement of the distinguished colors and markings, the anatomy of the suit itself, and the really clever easter egg of the main paw button being surrounded by a honeycomb marking. It's just perfect, and gives off a strong Season 1-ish vibe.

In this episode they really should go into the differences between honey bees and bumblebees. It's very interesting. Maybe they even activate the Honey Bee variant of the suit to explore the differences.

I so hope that they have a reference to the intro where the brothers ride on bees. Sure, it's a different species, but it seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Anyways, those are the synopsis for the next batch of Wild Kratts episodes. Allegedly (according to sources on Rotten Tomatoes) we'll be getting a total of 5 episodes in November, with this being two of them. Whether or not that's actually true, we've a lot to anticipate next month for the show.

New Episodes of Wild Kratts

Three new episodes of Wild Kratts will be airing in November of 2024. Salamander Streaming, Bumblezzz, and Chimpanzee and Me.

The synopsis for Bumblezz is yet to come, however we have plots for Salamander Streaming and Chimpanzee and Me.

Salamander Streaming - Airing Monday November 4th, 2024.

Mysteriously, the Tortuga shorts and powers down while the gang is streaming a movie. Koki says it won't be back today. What are they going to do? Chris and Martin announce they can still do streaming - salamander streaming! The rest of the gang wonders, what in the world is salamander streaming? The bros explain that salamander streaming is getting miniaturized and floating down a stream in tiny little boats looking for salamanders, of course! It's a race to find as many salamanders as they can while Koki tries to fix the Tortuga.

Pre-Episode Thoughts:

This was one of the episodes that the brothers announced at their live shows. I think that they will be focusing on tiger salamanders. Either way, I think it's gonna be cool that we might have a Salamander Power Suit.

WK's pop-culture references in the modern seasons are really hit and miss, but this is actually some good fucken wordplay with streaming.

If the Tortuga really is powered down, then will we actually see Salamander Power? Or is it gonna be like Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy where the brothers don't use any Power Suits? Either way, I'm looking forward to it.

Chimpanzee and Me - Airing - Airing Wednesday, November 6th, 2024

The gang travels deep into Uganda's tropical forests to uncover the true nature of the chimpanzee, but Chris sprains his ankle at the most inopportune time and can't participate. He is sad and upset. It's the climbing adventure that he's always looked forward to most. He tries to hide his disappointment and gets support from his friends, but it is a young chimp who shows him how to truly make the best of a bad situation.

Pre-Episode Thoughts:

This was another episode that Martin had hinted at the live shows. What's funny is that 2D Martin also expressed the idea of heading into the African rainforests in Rattlesnake Crystal (an episode that IRL Martin wrote). Again, not sure why it took them almost a decade and a half to get to this, but I digress.

Goddamn we are getting a LOT of angst in S7. Between this, No Name Dream, and the most recent episode, A Fish Out of Water, we're getting more character-driven plots, (especially if you count Paisley's redemption in the special). And while this does seem to be similar to Flight of the Draco, this does seem to have an intereting twist. Chimpanzees have many abilities apart from climbing, such as intellect, empathy, craftiness, and communciation. Maybe Chris will discover that and eventually use those skills to rescue the chimpanzees and/or the gang from a bad situation later.

Also, baby chimps are really fucking cute. I so hope that Chris gets to name it in the episode.

I've debated with my friends on this, and I do hope that we see a Chimpanzee Suit.. but knowing how anatomically similar chimps are to humans, and given how uncanny the Power Suits in the modern seasons have been.... I very much wonder.

That being said, if there is gonna be a Chimp Suit, I wonder if Chris will be the one to invent it? Assuming that he's staying behind at the Tortuga throughout this episode and makes the observations, then it would make sense that he'd invent the suit. Martin invented the Ermine Power Disc back in Season 5, so maybe Chris could invent a Chimpanzee Suit. Part of me thinks it'll backfire just as horribly, but after the bullshit that was the Indri-Conda Suit, I'm willing to accept anything 😭😭