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wbwest · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/02/17/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-21717/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 2/17/17

On the movie front I finally got around to watching Central Intelligence. I’ve been wanting to see it since it was in theaters, as I love Kevin Hart movies, but I didn’t get to see it until it hit HBO. And I’m glad I waited. In the film, Hart plays a middle-aged accountant whose best days were in high school, when he was the most popular kid in school. Meanwhile, The Rock was the fat kid that all the other kids made fun of. Hart’s life is thrown into high gear when The Rock comes back into his life and turns out to work for the CIA. Hart gets wrapped up in murder, intrigue, and secret files. Yeah…On paper, this probably sounded like a great idea. The trailers looked hilarious. Surprisingly co-written by actor Ike Barinholtz (MadTV, The Mindy Project), it’s got a great cast, but they’re not necessarily bringing their A game. It was kinda weird to see Hart essentially playing the straight man, while The Rock had this weird goofiness to him. I know he’s trying to make the audience wonder if he can be trusted or not, but I don’t feel he sells it well. I almost bought this on Black Friday, and I’m glad I put it back on the shelf, as I don’t need to see it again.

In movie news, it’s rumored that Mel Gibson is being courted to direct Suicide Squad 2. Now, this is pretty interesting. I mean, who better to direct a movie about deranged criminals than a deranged actor/director? Seriously, that dude couldn’t be poked with an 8 foot pole a year ago, but since Hacksaw Ridge, it’s like all has been forgiven. I mean, he told his girlfriend he hoped she was “raped by a pack of niggers”! And let’s not forget all the antisemitic stuff. Anyway, I guess everyone deserves a second chance or whatever, but I don’t even see why he’d take the job. Even with all the controversy, a comic book film seems…beneath him, even if it would be great PR to restore his image in the public eye.

In other controversial movie news, A Cure For Wellness took a page out of the “fake news” playbook for its marketing campaign. 20th Century Fox partnered with fake news sites to run false stories alongside ads for the movie. Considering how the concept of fake news is upsetting a lot of people on both sides of the political aisle lately, this was considered to be in poor taste. A Fox spokesperson tried to explain that the film is about a fake cure that actually makes people sicker, so they thought the campaign was fitting. Fox has since apologized for the move, but I’ll bet it’s not the last time someone does this.

In TV news, ABC announced that the next season of The Bachelorette would star Rachel Lindsay as the first Black Bachelorette. This is important for a few reasons. First off, ABC is essentially torpedoing the notion that the current season of The Bachelor even matters anymore. After all, Lindsay is still in the running as one of the remaining finalists of the current cycle of the show. By doing this, ABC is spoiling the fact that she doesn’t win, before the finale has even aired. I’ve never watched the show prior to this season (What? It’s on at the gym!), but I’ve read that this is a particularly disappointing season. The current Bachelor, Nick Viall, is pretty boring, and is also on his fourth go-round with the franchise, having previously been a contestant on seasons 10 and 11 of The Bachelorette, as well as season 3 of Bachelor In Paradise. I mean, if he hasn’t found love by now, then he’d might as well just pack it in! The odd part to me, though, is the choice of Lindsay. I mean, I’ve been watching TV for a LONG time, and it used to be that the most outlandish cast member is the one who gets the spin-off. This season, that honor goes to Corinne, a 24 year old businesswoman who has a nanny for HERSELF, and has repeatedly tried to fuck Nick into choosing her, only to be rebuffed every time. She’s always shocked that someone could reject someone as hot as she is, but that shock never stops her from trying again. If you want good television, you make Corinne the next Bachelorette. Plus, Lindsay isn’t even that interesting. In all the episodes I’ve seen, I can’t really understand why she’s still around unless the plan was always for her to be the next Bachelorette. I mean, after 33 cycles of all three shows combined, it’s time for some diversity, and it’ll definitely make things interesting – ESPECIALLY when they do the home visits. But right now, I’m just not seeing any reason for the choice of Lindsay other than the fact that she’s Black. And she’s not even the best Black chick they had this season. Nah, they sent those chicks home already.

There was an interesting interview over on TV Line with Arrow‘s co-showrunner Marc Guggenheim, where he basically revealed that those previously-announced DCTV contracts don’t really mean that much. If you remember, over the summer it was announced that Wentworth Miller, John Barrowman, and Katie Cassidy had signed DCTV exclusive deals, which would allow them to pop up in any of the Berlantiverse shows. While the details of the deal were unknown, it certainly seemed like they’d be doing more with them than they are. Sure, Miller has popped up as a hallucination on Legends, and Barrowman’s also on Legends, but Cassidy hasn’t really been used outside of Arrow this season (that I know of. I’m still behind on The Flash). When asked if Cassidy would be popping up before Arrow‘s season is over, Guggenheim replied:

“We have an idea for how to see [Katie] again, but we haven’t made a deal with her,” Guggenheim shared. “She’s not a series regular anymore, so we have to make a contract with her, and she’s got to be available. We haven’t had those conversations. But… we know exactly what we do want to do.

They have to make a contract with her? Then what was the point of last summer’s announcement? I realize it’s pilot season, so she’s got to look out for herself since she’s no longer a series regular, but the contract seemed to ensure she’d have work, and be available for it should it arise. It’s starting to be clear that these “exclusive” contracts are just as useless as comic exclusive contracts, which basically just mean you can’t work for Marvel if you’re working for DC and vice versa. You can still work for Image and nobody bats an eye.

In a surprising announcement, we’re getting a Love Actually sequel, but it’s not what you think it is. See, in the UK, they have this charity event called Red Nose Day, where they air a TV special to raise money for Comic Relief, which helps people in need in Africa and The UK. In its 30 year history, the event has raise over £1 billion. In the UK, Red Nose Day culminates in a telethon where all sorts of specials and reunions occur. The idea was brought to the US back in 2015, with Walgreens selling the red noses for charity. Well, this year, a bunch of members of the original cast of the film are getting back together for a 10-minute special that will show us where they all are today. Right now, the special is expected to include Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Martine McCutcheon (YAY!), Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson (really? He wasn’t even that important), Andrew Lincoln, Lucia Moniz, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Olivia Olson. It’ll be really interesting to see where these characters are, 14 years later. It’s a shame we’re only getting ten minutes, but I’ll take what I can get. The special will air March 24th in the UK and May 25th in America. Yup, two months later. So, look for it on YouTube March 25th.

Rejoice, fellow titty enthusiasts! After a year of trying to “go legit”, Playboy has announced that nudity is returning to its pages as of its next issue. The decision to remove nudity didn’t really help sales much, which was somewhat surprising to me. See, I figured the lack of nudity would mean you’d see it in grocery stores and pharmacies, right next to Maxim and GQ. But that never happened. I guess it’s because the Playboy brand is known for nudity, even when the magazine itself decides to eschew it. But you bushwackers are gonna be disappointed, as the returning nudity will only feature breasts and butts for the time being.

This week, I had the pleasure of joining my pal, Classick, on the newest episode of Classick Team-Up. We discussed 24 Legacy, Turkish Airlines, and Trump’s America. Trust me, it all makes sense. Anyway, if you’re looking for some podcastin’ fo’ yo’ ears, check check check it out!

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Adele “robbed” Beyoncé of the Album of the Year Grammy at this year’s awards ceremony. Whatever…

Country newcomer Maren Morris pulled off a major upset by winning Best Country Solo Performance Grammy over established award darlings Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and Miranda Lambert

With recent successful revivals of old shows, Fox is finally keen to revive sci fi cult fave Firefly – the only catch is that show creator Joss Whedon has to come back, and they figure he’s too busy right now. I hope he doesn’t call their bluff. That show bored the shit out of me.

Speaking of Fox, they blew my mind by renewing Lucifer this week for a 3rd season. I didn’t think it would make it through season 1!

ABC renewed their TGIT lineup comprised of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder for next season.

NBC renewed the wonderful Superstore for a 3rd season.

Cloverfield director Matt Reeves is in talks to replace Ben Affleck as director of The Batman. Meanwhile, the rumor is that Affleck is trying to walk away from the film completely.

Poor Alanis Morissette! I recently wrote about how her former manager stole around $5 million from her, and this week over $2 million in jewelry was stolen from her home.

In the Remakes Nobody Wanted department, Frank Grillo will star in an American version of modern-day action classic The Raid

In what I’ve heard was a dreadfully unfunny stand up special, Nick Cannon said that NBC was keeping him from being himself as host of America’s Got Talent. As a result, he’s said he’s leaving the show.

Man, before Sunday night we had no idea who or what “Gnarley Davidson” was. Now, I can’t understand how we ever lived without him. At the Grammys, Cee Lo Green debuted his new solid gold persona, bewildering millions. And the meme machine got crankin’. He was photoshopped into pictures of Donald Trump’s house.

He was photoshopped into pictures of the Power Rangers.

The best part, however, wasn’t even a meme, but actual video of his departure from the awards. After all, he didn’t win anything, so why stick around?

That, folks, is how a true West Week Ever recipient leaves an awards ceremony. So, it should go without saying at this point, but Cee Lo Green/Gnarly Davidson had the West Week Ever.

#Batman #Comics #Country #DC #Image #Marvel #Movies #Music #Politics #Pop #Power Rangers #Race #Television #West Week Ever

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offbeatmusicuk · 8 years ago

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Movies Of 2016

Well I certainly haven’t seen as many films this year as I have heard albums, but there’s quite a few to consider. This list is based on sheer enjoyment, how much a film affected me, either by making me laugh, cry or sending shivers of excitement down my spine. Do I want to watch it again? It’s these sort of things rather than pure artistic merit that I am looking for.

Any film released in UK cinemas in 2016 (not including re-releases) is eligible.

I haven’t managed to see everything I wanted to this year so this may be updated as I see further films. Still To See: Jason Bourne, Train To Busan, Sully and many more that may suprise.

First a couple of honourable-ish mentions (ones that had some merit but I couldn’t bring myself to include in the list proper):

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

I will put my hand up and say there was a lot about this sequel to 'Man Of Steel' that I loved. I’d say it’s 70% a great movie. However the other 30%, what is wrong with it, is utterly awful, and extra annoying seeing as they nearly got it right, but just messed it up. I’m sure I’ll still watch it many times, but I can’t give it a place in the list. Still, infinitely better than Suicide Squad.

The Revenant

One of the most impressive pieces of film making I have seen this year. Incredibly shot (the scenery is almost another character it is so breathtaking), brilliantly directed, superbly acted by DiCaprio. I was totally wowed by this film and I respect the hell out of it, I’m just not sure I actually enjoyed it, if you know what I mean. It’s a fairly brutal experience and I don’t know if I’d watch it again (maybe, years down the line), which is why it misses the list but deserves a nod.

And the proper honourable mentions

The Best Of The Rest in no specific order (aka numbers 11-22 if I could be bothered to order them):

and the Top 10:

10. 10 Cloverfield Lane

What a tense boiling pot of a movie. Questions, questions, questions. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is as brilliant and watchable as ever, but John Goodman is phenomenal.

9. Eye In The Sky

Edge of the seat tension, brilliantly pased, wonderfully acted. My only gripe is that some of the tech they used doesn’t exist which seems an odd choice in an otherwise grounded and seemingly realistic drama. No less worthy though.

8. Sing Street

A funny, touching film about growing up, falling in love with music and just falling in love.

7. Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates

My unexpected delight of the year. I saw the trailer and wasn’t expecting much, but a free screening came up and due to the cast (love Anna Kendrick (when she’s not doing yet another musical) plus Aubrey Plaza and Zac Efron can be great given the right material too) I thought I’d give it a chance. It was consistently hilarious, the whole audience laughing regularly, and everyone I spoke to afterwards had the same reaction - ‘That was MUCH better than I was expecting! I really enjoyed it’

6. Hunt For The Wilderpeople

A bit of a joy this. Quirky without being inaccessible, sweet and touching without being saccharine, and very funny whilst still retaining subtleness. An unusual treat.

5. Green Room

Tense, relentless and brutal. Very gripping flick about a band witnessing something they shouldn’t in a Nazi bar. One of the most tragicly untimely celebrity deaths this year was that of this film’s lead Anton Yelchin who was on fine form here and was fast becoming one of my favourite actors. Patrick Stewart is fantastically threatening here too.

4. The Girl With All The Gifts

A clever and fresh twist on the zombie genre. It’s not particularly scary, but it doesn’t need to be, utilising tension and proper storytelling over cheap frights and jump scares. Excellent stuff.

3. The Nice Guys

Shane Black creates gold again. He is so good at these mismatched buddy movies. A well written mystery, some great action scenes and utterly hilarious (particularly Gosling on top form). Great fun.

2. Room

Considering its dark and horrific central concept, this is an incredibly beautiful film about the love between a mother and son. It is clever, gripping, harrowing and tearjerking. Brie Larson is fantastic and totally deserved her Oscar win, yet it is young Jacob Tremblay who steals the show.

1. Captain America: Civil War

So the best Avengers movie, isn’t an Avengers movie (to date at least). Brilliantly written, superbly directed, fantastic balancing of all the characters (including introducing some major new ones), and suprisingly grounded considering all the superpowers and spectacular scenes involved. A major geekgasm from start to finish, and I liked it even more on a second viewing. No contest.

—————————————————————————————————-

List of 2016 films I have seen but were not mentioned here (most of them were still pretty enjoyable, though there are definitely some stinkers in here, and some just decidedly average): Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, The Accountant, Arrival, Bad Moms, The Big Short, Blair Witch, Captain Fantastic, Doctor Strange, Everybody Wants Some!!, Ghostbusters, The Girl On The Train, The Greasy Strangler, High-Rise, How To Be Single, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Imperium, Independence Day: Resurgence, Keeping Up With The Joneses, Kubo And The Two Strings, Love & Friendship, Midnight Special, Money Monster, Morgan, The Neon Demon, Nerve, Passengers, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Sausage Party, The Secret Life Of Pets, The Shallows, Sleeping With Other People, Suicide Squad, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows, Triple 9, X-Men: Apocalypse, Yoga Hosers, Zootropolis

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serendertothesquad · 5 months ago

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Seren's Studies: The Odd Squad UK Trailer

Well, 8 days after my birthday really ain't bad for a belated gift. At this point I'll take what I can get.

Even if it means I have to crawl out of sleep to do it.

*deep sigh*

So you might be thinking, "Hold on, we got a new trailer?" And to that I say yes. Yes we did. PBS grew enough balls to actually give Odd Squad some love during a programming initiative that has absolutely nothing to do with it. And they put it on Vimeo, apparently, which puts all the audition videos that have been unearthed (for OSUK, OSMU, and Odd Squad) in an entirely new light.

But wah wah wah, you didn't come here to read my ding-dong ramblings. You came here to watch me be the biggest loser to ever lose at losing and dissect a 30-second trailer on a weekend. You know how movie trailers stuff all the important bits about a movie into 30 seconds? This is the telly equivalent.

Below the break, I'm going to shred this trailer to pieces, scream, cry, and of course, analyze. Come join me, if you dare.

So I'm going to reiterate a point I made in the Seren's Studies essay for the gadget competition video in regards to Ozzie, in that he's wearing an outfit that looks like it belongs to some kind of Flight department. (And yes, my headcanon about there being a boat that can travel in the sky shall remain strong in spite of this trailer. Whether it will be shot down like a cannonball through a boat that can travel in the sky remains to be seen.)

But anyway. We have him carrying a box (transferring departments?), what looks to be some kind of agent in the back (Security?), and what looks to me like an old Nissan logo against a map (of the UK? yes, of the UK, duh). Off to a hell of a start here.

The trailer doesn't give us the name of this girl -- which is odd, considering she's one of the protagonists -- but just as a refresher: this is Orli, who is from the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls (because of course) and transfers to the UK precinct in order to help with rising oddness rates. My guess is that, while Ozzie transfers from departments, Orli will transfer from precincts. Essentially, she's there to help Americans like myself (and also children, and also parents) understand British terms and culture. Which is fine, because otherwise kids would understand jack about how the United Kingdom does things beyond what's represented in media.

And we have a look at our first villainess! This is The Trifler, named after a British dessert and armed with the power to turn things into...well yeah, trifles. If you've been keeping up with the news, then you're probably aware that a BTS photo of her was found last year when OSUK was getting off the ground. Now, we have her in an official capacity!

I will say that I love the wordplay used here. Combining the British and American definitions of the word "trifle" into a badass introductory phrase is absolutely beautiful and I want more of it.

Haha lol shot from the press release big funy now laugh.

...Wait, hold on, does that mean the image used for the press release was a BTS photo? Because this sure as hell isn't the same angle.

Oh my God.

Not my absolute dumb ass thinking the context of this scene was a welcome party for Orli, only for the celebration to be for a fucking movie opening that got the attention of local news outlets and Eric Stonestreet.

...Okay, the telephone box is great too, and if there's not another Doctor Who reference they can yote in there then we riot, but I- a fucking opening of a movie?

...

Hold on, I'm noticing the Odd Squad logo on the popcorn and the cup.

This is Odd Squad: The Movie opening in the UK, isn't it.

Ah yes. Because I sure would fuckin' love to relive the joy I had when the "Odd Beginnings" two-parter decided to make the movie an in-universe piece of media. Look, I me- you guys had to be there when I recorded the Seren Reacts video. I was taken aback. I nearly fell off the bed. I was tempted to go to the neighbors and sit on their picnic table and cry. And that was when the COVID pandemic was a new thing!

And now I get to experience the hell all over again, four years later, when the pandemic is (largely) over and I'm in my mid-20s.

Look, if they're keen on torturing me like this, then that's how you really know it's a return to form. All they need to do is drop the word "serendipity" somewhere in there and I'll launch myself off the cliff and into the water and hopefully not on a pointy rock.

Normally I'd say how happy I am to see the tubes again after they got one dedicated episode and a handful of appearances and mentions besides that in Season 3, but..."Down the Tubes" is one of my favorite episodes for sleep-talking Oswald alone. And in Season 3, my total count for favorite episodes I can count on only one hand.

Worth noting, though, that in addition to the UK Headquarters being located in an abandoned train station, the tubes are named after the London Underground. Because...y'know, the Tube, and...yeah, they couldn't pass that pun up because they need Britain money somehow.

See, this is how you can tell I'm an Odd Squad veteran.

I can, with about 90% accuracy, pinpoint the context of a scene only seen by few. For example, I can tell you that this is Orli fighting with a woman over tour bus tickets by playing RPS. Because fuck her American money, American money does not net you tour bus tickets to tour the UK and...uh...well, I don't know if Ozzie has any pounds to buy any.

Ah? Aaaaaaaaaahh? Man, I'm good!

Unless Oddmented Reality had some (and please don't ask me, I've never played it), we've now had flying books in every season bar Season 2.

Honestly, that's a sin.

If this means the return of cold opens, then bless them.

It's 12 episodes with 11-minute time limits, though, so I'm a little wary...but bless them. Season 3 had only a select few before they laughed and tossed the concept out, so this is a good return to form.

Also, this is hella good camera work.

I'm...at least inclined to believe this is Ozzie attempting to boost workplace morale by getting a few agents-in-training to cheer.

Which is great, but I'm just thinking of Olympia asking Otis how he feels about his cheerleading skills and and him telling her they're perfect. It works, because Ozzie kinda looks like Otis!

Hey, hey, you guys remember aaaaaaaall the way back in "Zero Effect" where they had that shot of the agents cheering?

You guys also remember the last episode of OddTube S1?

This is like a mishymashy of that and it is glorious.

Also, our first look at the girl who is, by every sense, part of the Flight department. And Onom, even though he got a mention in the gadget-making competition video.

A few folks were asking about this, so I feel the need to clarify that this is a thing in the Oddverse that has been done numerous times before, especially in the first two seasons. You don't wanna blow 10 seconds of airtime on having two agents find the nearest tube entrance, let 'em phase through the floor.

'Tis magic, baby.

I can also predict, with about 70% accuracy, how the OSUK premiere is gonna go.

...

It's gonna end with Ozzie being transferred/promoted/demoted to the Investigation department, isn't it.

Look, the franchise's timeline is a bitch and scares all the neuroscience people at Harvard Medical School, but I did this before with a simple Season 3 trailer and I got a fair bit of it right. When a few OSUK episode titles and synopses come out, then we'll see if I'm gonna reach for the stars or fall hard on my ass.

Okay, I'm inclined to take the logic applied to New York City and apply it here, in that it's too much money and effort and time to edit every piece of signage here into a Shmumber-fied equivalent...

But that's a fucking McDonald's ad up there near the top, and let's be honest, that's one of the most gobsmacking things about the whole damn trailer. We already have a Burger King replacement, so having a McShmumber's is absolutely not out of the question.

(Also, that meal deal is $5 USD. If you're an American, I don't need to explain why this makes me more irrationally angry than it should.)

Besides that, Orli, this is a one-way, two-lane (with possible merger) street, which can absolutely be seen in areas like this in the United States and I don't know why I'm bringing this up since agents cannot and have not been automotively inclined.

"No, that's not odd. It's Britain."

Dumb lil' American I am (who is, in fact, aware how British people drive), but I gave a visceral cough at this line. This is the kind of shit OSMU should have gotten, and failed to deliver.

That aside, though, Ozzie has a bit of a different icon on his shirt now. It's either the London Bridge or a black H, and I know Fergie would cry her eyes out looking at it, bless her soul.

"I'm blue! And if I were green I would die! If I were green I would die, if I were green I would die, if-"

Okay, okay, I had to get that out of the way. I'm sorry. I'm never sorry.

The smartwatches were also something seen in BTS photos back when OSUK was first announced to be a thing. Still running on that Apple technology and crushing creativity.

Perhaps the best sleep paralysis demon I've seen since Yui in the Precure All-Stars F movie.

All right, I'm starting to see the massive differences between this Headquarters and the Headquarters of yore. Keyholes, the blue thing meant to be a simpler copy of the metallic circle structure, the...I mean it do be fuckin' big...

Also, we got our first look at a moving breathing Chef O, who's on promotional material at the very least but isn't exactly a main character. Sort of like what Oksana was: a side character.

Hey, it could be worse. It could be a Ginormouse coming to eat you up for lunch.

(For the non-believers: this is the Oddverse. I'm not explaining shit.)

I see somewhere in the crew of this show we have a boomer who still believes in the usage of the digital camera in the year of our Lord 2024.

No, but seriously. It wasn't believable in 2014 when Otto owned one, and it's less believable now. I've been more frustrated about this than about the badge phones, because there's only so much ironic low-tech stuff I can take before I drop everything and leave.

I was gonna write a joke about how they used to feed cocaine to mice in the 80s for anti-drug PSAs, but someone apparently wrote it for me. Which, unsurprisingly, is not the first time that's happened.

That's on you for not being Odd Squad-savvy.

All of you.

Yes, even Captain O.

-------------------------------------

And that's it. A short trailer, but a hell of a goodie. I'm honestly hyped for this return to form, especially as we approach the franchise's 10th anniversary. Hopefully, the crew has at least learned from its mistakes with Odd Squad Mobile Unit, and will make the most out of these 12 episodes.

And because even this show isn't immune to the curse: if you like what you see here and want more episodes to come beyond the 12 we're getting, watch the ever-loving hell out of this show. Legally, of course. Boost its ratings. The crew is definitely up for making more.

...And donate to your local PBS station if you got a Lincoln or two lyin' around. That too.

Thanks for reading. If you want to view the trailer for yourself, you can do so here:

youtube

#seren's studies #odd squad #odd squad uk #odd squad pbs kids

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serendertothesquad · 2 months ago

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Seren's Studies: The Second (And Final) Odd Squad UK Trailer

Cute that FRP suddenly cares about Odd Squad when they haven't even so much as peeped about it for...what, over a year now? Two years, maybe?

Yeah. Anyway, it seems that PBS had to step up on their alt -- the franchise's social medias, you see -- and grab it from them, because it's clear they weren't gonna do it. Especially not during Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month when Alma's Way is the top dog. (You know how Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is PBS Kids's golden kid? Alma's Way is FRP's. It's like the Spongebob of the prodco, really.)

But enough stick-up-the-anus cynicism. I did one Seren's Study on the gadget competition results video, and now I'm moving on to the one for the second trailer for Odd Squad UK. Some of it repeats bits from the first trailer, but it's otherwise completely new.

Let's dive below the break!

If you look closely, the badge number says 86.

Which would be fine, if I hadn't run numbers only to realize that neither Orli nor Ozzie have a badge number of 86.

So either someone's trippin' balls or I'm the one trippin' balls and can't math correctly.

What sleep deprivation does to a motherfucker: I saw this and immediately thought of "Two Agents and a Baby" because of the equipment Ozzie was holding. So I thought, "Okay, so they're babysitting?"

It's actually from "Planes, Trains and Oddmobiles". And as I've said before, I can predict, with stunning accuracy, what shots and what scenes line up with which episode. If you've seen the synopsis for "Planes, Trains and Oddmobiles", this brief snippet speaks for itself.

(Makes me wonder...anyone wanna set up a PonyGuessr game, but for Odd Squad screencaps? Would be fun to test your knowledge! I know I'd love one.)

*in about the best Bill Nye voice I can do*

Please...consider the following.

Dino Dex crossover.

(Hey, it's not impossible. If you've been watching this franchise, you know it's not impossible.)

They didn't even try with the house thing.

Is that not the same row of houses from "Training Day"? Am I delulu? Am I tripping? Or is that the same row of houses? Different color, maybe?

...I CHECKED. IT IS THE SAME FUCKING ROW OF HOUSES. BY G O D I'M ON FIRE!!!

Ah, I see we've also got some not-so-subliminal advertising for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in here.

(See, it's funny because, IIRC, they made a jab at the UK in the trailer. So in a way, you could say they've come full circle!)

Funny how we go from the appropriate reaction one should have to having lightning shoot out of your head to "this is going to fuck up my entire life because I can't wear hats now" in...oh, I don't know...a scene or two, maybe? Five at best.

Ah, and we have our first look at Dottie Doubloon from "A Dicey Situation"! I will say, she does kind of look like a pirate attire-wise, which is what I was hoping for. Maybe she'll talk like a pirate too aaaaaaaand I just figured out the connection between her and Captain O and I need to go absorb my fat lil' body into the grass outside now thank you.

new villains

shows the Icy Mousey about to do a Hadouken

I don't think I need to explain what the direct distinction between creatures and villains are. It's like looking at a dog that bites your hand and equating him to a guy who killed his son. They both did bad things, but only one is an antagonistic animal in the more instinctual sense while the other one is a straight-up villain.

At least they show The Trifler right after...but still. It's all about sentience. Do I need to make a whole-ass sentience chart and tell- just keep rolling with it?

*sighs* Okay, fine...if I must.

I'm sorry...I honestly didn't believe this trailer would make me laugh, but then this guy comes in with a "Gadzooks!" while holding something gross and I lost it.

Behold: genderbent adult-aged Willow from The Owl House has made his way into Odd Squad UK. He's even got the hat on and everything!

new gadgets

shows the tubes

I'm just...I'm fuckin' tired, man. Is this some kind of joke? Is this a game? Because I want a Perplexus ball and not this shit, thank you.

It's like blinking Oprah...Oprah...she do the blink...in "Dance Like Nobody's Watching"...but...but 's Captain O...with a squinty squint...

Alternatively: I lol'd, until I serious'd.

I see Orwell Kubrick has some charm beneath all that "scare the kids but not too much". Good for him.

*with the tightest fucking smile any doctor has ever seen on a person*

"Is that his house? I- Is that Onom's fucking house? Take me to my best friend's house, I loved you then like I love you now? T- The iPod touch circa 2011?!"

I will say, I appreciate the analytics behind each pose here. Lots to dissect, if the Discord server is any indication.

Those five words might've just put a dent in my "ah, they'll drop 'em all on the 1st and forget about it" theory.

It could still happen -- PBS still hates the show, mind you. Netflix, Hulu, and most other streaming services do the same thing. There's a chance. You watch. You watch and see.

--------------------------------------------

Overall, a nice solid trailer. Doesn't exactly stoke any hype in me, but it did stoke my curiosity in finding out what happens. Funny enough, unlike the Season 3 trailer, there's no mention of the big bad or anything. At least there, The Shadow got a couple seconds of screentime. For the Terrible Three, though, there's nothing. Which...concerns me on a number of levels in terms of how well they're going to handle the story arc.

But either way, we've got a week to go until launch date, so I'm not expecting too much else news-wise. Still waiting for BBC to drop those teaser images, and for PBS Kids's main Twitter account to recognize the show and rep it with not-so-subtle lil' hints using past seasons. (Only one of those sounds more plausible. I don't think I need to say which one.)

Like I've said before, my first Seren's Study regarding the new series/season, when it drops, will be an episode followup on "Odd Ones In". And before you ask me if I'm going to be reuploading episodes onto my YouTube channel: clearly you haven't been there for all the times I bitched and moaned on Twitter about PBS, their distribution branch, or their security partner taking down my videos that contained snippets of episodes. It's not happenin'. Given how the series/season getting another season/more episodes is dependent on legal viewership, promoting illegal means of watching it feels wrong. If Odd Squad UK gets a continuation of some sort, maybe they can take steps towards improvement. That's what I'm hoping for, personally.

Seren out!

So, with all that being said, I will see you all sometime in early October for that first followup. Keep your eyes peeled for more news in the meantime, because we could either get a trickle or a flood.

Oh yeah, and if you wanna watch the trailer, view it below!

(Editor's note: Managed to kick open the floodgates last night before I even published this. Teaser images are already up, news articles are sharing bits of info...don't ask me how, just accept it.)

youtube

#seren's studies #odd squad #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad uk #Youtube

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serendertothesquad · 3 months ago

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Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- Episode Titles! Crackpot Theories! Venting! Excitement?

Honestly? I expected at least something from Odd Squad UK. It's the first of August (at the time of writing), advanced schedules have been put out and now go through October...I mean there was bound to be something, right?

Well, yes. Inverse Pandora's Box. (Or is it an actual Pandora's Box, given my criticisms?)

Episode titles. Synopses (of the basic kind). That promo image up there that came from PBS Kids themselves after I tweeted about my findings. It's like going to the bathroom after having not been in it for nearly a year, opening the door, and suddenly being hit with a flood of bathwater coming at you. When I say there was absolutely nothing of substance that I could dig up over the course of that time beyond a 30-second trailer and a Kidscreen Magazine image that everyone and their mothers use to talk about the series, I mean it. Go ahead. Go punch in "odd squad uk" into Google and get back to me with how long it takes to see my username in the search results.

I'm going to set aside my Seren's Study about PBS's mistreatment of Odd Squad and shift gears just a little bit. This Seren's Study will cover all of the theories, discussion, and thoughts I have about these episodes and characters, in lieu of a Seren Reacts video (an XP-era laptop does not good for OBS Studio recording make). You will see me scream, cry, melt (shit's hot outside), and ask if I can put any of this on my job resume.

Before we begin, I'm going to warn folks that there will be spoilers ahead for those that haven't seen the episode titles and synopses, nor the trailer for OSUK. If you want to take a peek at those, I made a handy-dandy Google doc here. As for the trailer, I made a Seren's Study on that a while back.

Oh yes, and I'll be referring to Odd Squad UK as a whole as a series, not a season. Technically, it is a spinoff series, just marketed in America as Season 4 of Odd Squad.

All right, warnings are out of the way...now we can dive in. Less'go!

A Refresher

Let's get caught up to speed on what we know so far. Couldn't hurt, y'know?

Odd Squad UK -- or Season 4 of the regular Odd Squad series, in the delulu minds of PBS Kids execs -- is a spinoff series of Odd Squad, following Odd Squad Mobile Unit (Season 3). The premise involves a girl named Orli, an Odd Squad agent working on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls who is transferred to a precinct in the UK to boost numbers and help deal with the rise of oddness. She eventually partners up with Ozzie, an agent of the UK precinct, and begins working under one Captain O, a Director who loves anything nautical and aquatic. From there, we see a lot of other characters who take the spotlight -- deadpan Security agent Orwell, quirky Scientist guy Onom, a Chef O, and a girl in a rather mysterious department.

Keeping in line with the reputation of Britain having series with shockingly low episode counts (there's even a trope for it!), Odd Squad UK has 12 episodes in total, the lowest of any season/series to date. However, the crew is open to making more episodes if there is enough demand for them -- a cliche that has plagued a ton of animated kids shows as of late due to the flakiness of the industry.

...That's really all I can give you in the way of a refresher. So let's move on to what the episodes contain.

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What's the Story, Seren?

Press releases and articles for Odd Squad UK have touted focus on Orli. Once. Exactly once. By all accounts, it seems like the focus of the series is on her struggling to fit in with British culture, customs, and of course, their wacky mathematics. That, however, is not the case -- instead, Ozzie is the focus of the series' story arc.

...Yeah, it has a story arc. They're pullin' an anime with this one and I don't know if I like that.

The arc features Ozzie and his relationship with the Terrible Three, a villainous trio of (what I can presume are) youngsters who seek to spread oddness throughout the town. And guys, I feel obligated to put this tweet from my moot here:

Because they're right. On every single account. This leads into my first criticism, which I will compile at the end. Moving on, though.

Due to that arc, a majority of these 12 episodes feature villains in some kind of capacity. This is not unusual for Odd Squad as a franchise, of course -- villains to them are what air is to a living being. Goes hand-in-hand, and there are many episodes that have villains as antagonists. What is unusual, however, is having well over half of your episodes feature a villain in a major capacity, and while I do love myself a good villain, it seems like one hell of an overdose.

Outside of that, though, the series will feature Orli attempting to fit in to British life. Because after all, she isn't just transferred to the UK -- she has to upright pack up and move nearly halfway across the world. Which I won't deny is a nice premise...but again, 12 episodes.

Enough complaining, though. Let's move on to what I'm sure y'all came here for.

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The Episodes, or: Netflix is Quaking in their Boots

ISS' CRACK THEORY TIIIIIIIIIME.

In this section, I'll go over each of the episodes revealed thus far, share my thoughts, theories, and what I, for one, hope to expect. (I'd use the colloquial "we", but different strokes for different folks and not even I know what's gonna happen.)

So let's dive into our very first one...

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Odd Ones In

James Rallison is marching his way on over with a nice fat happy lawsuit as we speak.

...Okay, I kid. He's not. He knows about PBS Kids, but trust...trust me guys, he is not suing anyone.

While this synopsis, like all the other synopses PBS Kids has ever put out ever, is barebones, most of the stuff in this episode can be gleaned from the trailer. The episode is split into two parts for a 22-minute episode in total.

The first part basically deals with Orli transferred, and by extension moving, from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to good old Britain. Touted as being "the best agent in the world" to help solve oddness, the British agents realize that she sure as hell can't stand on the same pedestal as the thirteen already-existing living legends do, especially since she has no idea how the fuck British people go about their lives. The second part features Orli and Ozzie teaming up to deal with a creature known as an Icy Mousey that is freezing agents left and right.

Let's be honest right out the gate: this is already a better premise for a 22-minute season premiere than "Odd Beginnings" was in 44. And yeah, I know "First Day" is similar, but Olympia didn't have to move to an entirely different country when she graduated from the Odd Squad Academy, y'know? Nor was she branded a "best agent" because she wasn't one yet. Here, we have Orli becoming a Canadian transplant who echoes the sentiments of everyone who has ever traveled to another country and failed to do the research beforehand. Which makes sense, because she's supposed to be an audience surrogate.

I really can't discuss this episode at length without heading into the next episode, though, because it ties into that and the trailer. So, may I present:

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A Dish Served Odd

Died in 2015. Born in 2024. Welcome back, Seren Taking Food-Oriented Odd Squad Episode Titles to Reflect Episodes About Food That Are Not About Food At All.

*the longest sigh I have ever taken in my life*

Following up from the season premiere, this episode takes a look at the UK town of [REDACTED], where Orli wishes to explore. Most of the stuff in the trailer is taken from this episode, up to and including the alternate-angle image included in the initial press release of Orli and Ozzie telling someone to "stop right there". We have Orli fighting a woman for tour bus tickets using Rock-Paper-Scissors (and I am not talking about the Nickelodeon cartoon, thank you), Brits attending an Odd Squad movie event, and The Trifler.

...I mean okay, there's more, but the hell do you think I have, an eidetic memory or somethin'?

I do find it odd (hehehe lol obvious joke) that an episode out of 12 is dedicated to Orli learning about her new hometown. I get why -- if you discount the fact she does not magically learn all about a goddamn country within a day, she really needs the tour, and we really need the tour, because Let's Go Luna got the axe and someone needs to pick up the slack -- but to not, say, expand "Odd Ones In" to include a tour seems like a waste, especially since the "watch our shit or the show gets killed off" guillotine is hanging over this franchise's head. You can compare Toronto to this -- I'm a dumb lil' American who sees Canada as the land of free healthcare, maple syrup, and a choir of red-shirted children singing "O Canada" with an orchestra in the near-dead of night. Seasons 1 and 2 take place in Toronto, though they never say it outright. There's signage and places that scream Canadian. So why, then, did we not get lessons about Canadian culture? Because if Olive and Otto took the time to teach me lessons about Canada, the writers probably would have fumbled the bag and ruined the world tour story arc of Odd Todd. Which...wouldn't really be a good thing.

I don't know. My opinions will probably shift when I watch the episode itself. At the very least, it's gonna give us McDonald's product placement, which will give me good leverage the next time I roll up behind an asshole in the drive-thru.

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Odd Jubilee

Not to be confused with Ruby Jubilee, a popular pegasus character from G5 of My Little Pony. This is her...odder cousin.

...No, actually, if you think about it, it fits, because Pinkie Pie and Olympia. Bite me.

So this episode is the start of many, many Ozzie-centric episodes. Which, given whom this series' story arc is about, makes sense. In this one, "Party Agents" (Party Department?) arrive with a box that, of course, contains a party. Like Pinkie Pie's party ca- okay, you know, I joke a lot about Olympia being Pinkie Pie (and I even have a pretty smeggin' good fanfic goin' about it right now!), but the comparisons are fucking writing themselves here. Lest we forget this franchise made a Friendship is Magic reference back in Season 2 with Party Pam's balloon colors.

But I digress. The conflict of the episode comes in the form of Ozzie, who has the key needed to open the box. Unfortunately for him, and for the rest of the UK precinct agents, he's vamooshed and needs to be found.

...If this isn't tying into the story arc, shove an apple into my mouth and send me to Walmart. You couldn't put a sign on any episode here that wouldn't make it any more obvious that there's a story arc. At least Season 1 was humble about it and kept all the 43s hidden as cool lil' Easter eggs. (Season 2 stumbled a little. Season 3 was when shit hit the fan and the smell and the sight of it was made obvious to everyone.)

I might as well get this out of the way now: there's a bit of a problem when it comes to whom, exactly, the series focuses on. We have a core cast of seven main characters. The franchise as a whole is notable for focusing on two agents in particular, mainly two Investigation agents. Orli is an audience surrogate and we're supposed to see the world through her eyes. Ozzie has a bitch-ass past and a wild-ass story arc, hence why he gets the most focus. While residing in seasons with higher episode counts, Olive and Otto, as well as Olympia and Otis, have an equal balance of screentime between each other, despite two of them having an ongoing story arc.

So lemme ask: who am I supposed to focus on here?

Looking at it now, a core cast of seven main characters instead of the four we've gotten before is a great shakeup, but not if you have 12 episodes and a threat of cancellation hanging over your head while your body's infected with Network-Don't-Care-Anymore Disease. Even the synopses alone tell me that this is 100% going to be a hell of a mess, and more than one main character is going to be lacking in the character development section.

Maybe I'm being a little too cynical, especially after Odd Squad Mobile Unit. But this is a franchise that is going on 10 years and made a "jumping the shark" joke only 3 years in. Odd Squad is not immune from rot, so I'm not surprised when it happens.

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The New Ozzie

Congrats everyone, we now have a name we can pin on the Mysterious Department Girl. Only took us nearly a year!

Opie -- not to be confused with the Opie from Season 1, mind you; different gender, precinct, and department -- is in the Department of Help and Human Services and is being promoted to its topmost position, called a Head. (The Season 3 episode "O For a Day" implied there were head agents of departments in Odd Squad, but nothing was outright confirmed in terms of the organization as a whole -- it likely was exclusively for the Seattle precinct.) Ozzie, who was the previous Head of the Department of Help and has since moved to the Investigation department (neither a promotion or a demotion; both departments have the same shape with the same number of sides), needs to help her learn the ropes. Problem is, he also has to solve oddness in town. What do?

This episode pretty much solves the question of "is he wearing an H on a hexagon or is that a bridge?" It's an H. The department's logo is an H. I can't even be mad at that, but I'm not happy about it either. Ozzie was a leader, and now he's a run-of-the-mill Investigation agent, which could raise some interesting conflicts given the story arc. It can be a superiority complex. It could be the "British people evil" cliche. Or it could lead to absolutely nothing. It's 12 episodes, take your pick.

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Bad-Luck-itis

Okay. They paid the "Find the Cure" fee. Can they please get their paychecks and go the fuck home already, guys?

Seems the gadget competition video served as some weird foreshadowing, if you replaced Orli and Osgood with Captain O and Orwell and the Mondays with...well, Bad-Luck-itis. Basically, Ozzie becomes a walking disaster area, and his partner, plus another agent named Osgood, have to find ingredients to make the cure.

This can reasonably go one of two ways: either we get an episode that's a direct copy, or we get an episode that's actually unique and puts a spin on things. Until we get a bigger and more explanatory synopsis, it can go either way, and, well...we don't right now. So I can't really say much about this. I will say, however, that given "Off the Clock" from Odd Squad Mobile Unit, I'm hoping "Bad Luck-Itis" "Bad-Luck-itis" can keep up the pace. That was a solid episode, for what it was worth.

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The Triangle Sisters

Not to be confused with the Triangle siblings from "Crime at Shapely Manor". Thass'...thass' a whole 'nother ball game.

There's really not much to this one either. The synopsis tells of Orli and Ozzie attempting to hunt down villains -- the eponymous siblings, natch -- who have stolen shapes from a museum. That's about it. Either this is "Crime at the Britain Museum" or it's something unique. Like with "Bad-Luck-itis", it's too soon to know yet.

...But that wording is very suspicious, given Ozzie's story arc...makes you wonder.

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Miss Information

Ah. Three for three with the "is originality as dead as chivalry" comments.

This one concerns "Bad Lemonade" in particular, in that it's about a villain using bar graphs to bring some kind of harm to a character. Imagine Odd Todd, then imagine him slandering an entire pseudo-government organization instead of just Polly Graph. Now make him an adult woman, and you've got this episode.

If they really wanna spice it up, they could slip in some wondrous British social commentary that dumb lil' Americans like myself would never get. But Odd Squad as a franchise has never really been about that (I am slapping the word "really" so hard my hand is red, thank you), so here I'll sit in my delusion for two months.

...Also, Canada slander. Just to get under Orli's skin.

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A Dicey Situation

Oh yeah, we had a Director character, didn't we? Let's employ her in a- ohhhhhhhhh, it's another one of those episodes.

Look, I love "Totally Odd Squad". Provides some excellent backstory for Oprah, gives us some lore as to the inner workings of Odd Squad as an organization, and it had O'Donahue flirting with his boss in one of the most expressive romantic things in the entire franchise. Same goes for "Fistful of Fruit Juice"; I loved that too.

On a more negative note, if you've ever seen my Seren Reacts video on it, you'd know that "Mission O Possible" is on the lower end of the ladder for me. Among other criticisms, it's a parody of Mission Impossible that utterly bombs due to network restrictions and poor choice of central character. I'm not exactly banking on "A Dicey Situation" to parody anything, but I'm not holding confidence that it's going to be good either.

At the very least, the villain's name is unique. If her last name is Doubloon, I'm hoping we can get a financial math moral that can put me and the rest of the fandom at ease when it comes to the sheer irony of this franchise tackling every aspect of math but finances. You can't say "kids today don't wanna work anymore" if the shows made for them are too afraid to teach them about a new app called The Fucking Dollar Bill.

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Lift Off

Now here's where shit gets good.

Imagine, if you will, me, going to Japan to buy some Precure merch and not understanding any cultural customs.

Now imagine Orli in the same spot, in Britain, with elevators. Oops, sorry, lifts.

Here's a fun fact some of you may not know: there was an episode with a working title of "See You Later Elevator", all the way back in Season 2. No one knows what that episode was turned into, if it went beyond the script and name-registering stage, or what it was about. And while it was made sometime in 2017, predating this episode by a good 7 years, it makes you stop and think for a moment about if "See You Later Elevator" did get past the script stage but was retooled to fit Orli instead. Depending on who you ask, it's at least a better title than "Lift Off".

This episode could best be summed up as "how does Britain work?", as Orli must send an interdimensional clam (God did not create enough animals to populate Europe, clearly) back to its home but has trouble working the lifts because they're different from the elevators she had in Canada. And I gotta be honest, folks...this might be one of my favorite episodes of the entire series. 11 minutes of Orli being a silly ding-dong and toying with a machine that can cause immediate death is gonna be real fun to watch. (Only...y'know...no gore. For obvious reasons.) It's like if you had 11 minutes of Orla trying to figure out some item in the modern world and kept messing things up, and I'd enjoy that too in spite of what I think about Season 3.

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A Tour of Odd Squad

Not to be confused with "Welcome to Odd Squad" from Odd Squad Mobile Unit; I'm sure this episode won't be as bad as this one.

...

I'm overshooting the mark, aren't I? Shit.

Old-timers to the fandom might remember all the tours held of the studio set the first two seasons used. In-universe, "Disorder in the Court" is the only episode I can vividly recall where a tour is offered someone who wasn't an Odd Squad agent. As a freebie, to boot. (When I first saw "A Tour of Odd Squad" as a title and its synopsis, I was under the impression that tours given to non-clients and non-agents were not a concept that existed. I was wrong.)

This episode, however, has an Odd Squad Superfan tour. A bit of a different breed, though if you want to believe the Odd Squad Superfan Tour exists in "Disorder in the Court", feel free! I know I will.

Basically, it's a "spot the imposter" type situation. One villain has come into the tour in disguise as a fan of Odd Squad, and Opie must stomp them out. This is another episode that raises quite a few suspicions concerning Ozzie's story arc, because we don't know if it's a child disguised as an adult, a child that looks like a child, or an adult that looks like an adult. The synopsis doesn't tell us that much. If it is a child that looks like a child, though, I have to wonder if they'll pull an "I'm separated from my mommy and she's in the group, help me get back to her" gambit. It's a villain trio that describes one of the worst periods in a parent's goddamn life. Kids are smarter than most would think. I can envision it.

Good premise either way, though. I look forward to seeing how things play out.

I am also expecting as much meta commentary as Oprah did in "First Day". Hey, they did it once 8 years ago, and I wanna see them do it again. Clap back!

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Club 37

Not to be confused with Club 24- okay, look, this is fucking annoying and I can't keep doing this. Just set your bars low, people. Set them seven feet from the ground and call it a day.

Oy...okay. So this episode involves the exclusive titular club. To gain access, an agent or a partner pair must solve a total of 37 cases, which Orli and Ozzie must do. Because...in 6 episodes, they haven't solved that many? There goes Orli being Odd Squad's best agent to stem the rise of oddness in the UK.

...I dunno, guys. You think the crew saw my "What Odd Squad Got Past Censors" video, realized the implications of Club 24, and made a kid-friendly variant instead? It's a very slim chance, next to nonexistent, but I can't help but wonder. After all, not every day you see two preteens enter a nightclub where the line is full of solely adults.

This episode does have a few similarities to "The O Team", though, just in the way Olympia and Otis have to solve a select amount of cases. Hoping it isn't a retread, because "The O Team" was a great way to shine some light on two side characters and "Club 37"...isn't. PBS synopses do not pull red herrings, people.

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Odd Way Round

Go ahead, take a shot for every "odd" pun they make in this season. At this point, Popularity Papers did a funnier thing with their Odd Squad title reference. (And also has better, more inspirational titles than just making puns out of "popularity" and "papers".)

Putting aside the title, though, the episode has a pretty straightforward premise -- Orli needs to get to the Odd Squad Test Center, but is repeatedly stopped by villains as she's trying to get there.

All right, first question: exactly what does Odd Squad need a Test Center for? I'm not buying that it's a British thing, because even with my dumb lil' American ways that's the stupidest shit I ever heard. And second of all, how the hell are they keeping that shit staffed? Who's staffing it? How much money does the Britain HQ have in the bank to keep that shit staffed?

Best way I can really sum this up is that it'll be 11 minutes of battle scenes with a payoff of her coming to the Test Center and being told "lol your test is on another day". Not exactly enthused, but I'm not going to actively hate it out the gate either.

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Strictly Odd Dancing

Now this. This is the kind of punny shit I live for with this franchise. It's another "odd" pun, sure, but it's also a pop culture reference very few people would get. Hell, it took someone in the Odd Squad Discord server to tell me they were referencing the British version of Dancing with the Stars! This is what I like!

Moving on to the premise: the episode features two minor characters, Ostin and Olyla (you'd think with the latter name, PBS would be all over it...'cuz Lyla in the Loop and all that), who tell a story to some agents about how they went from "singing and dancing gross" to "singing and dancing great" due to a villain's influence.

It's...another storytelling episode. Which, again, I'd be fine with, if there weren't 12 episodes in the entire damn series. Focusing on minor characters (not side characters; "minor" here refers to oneshots) is nothing new for the franchise, but most episodes that do it are in seasons with high episode counts. This series does not.

Let's be honest for a moment: the only saving grace this episode has for me is if we get a musical number. It's a singing and dancing episode. It'd be a crime not to have a song. LET ME HEAR THE BELTING OF THE BRITISH CHILDREN, GOD DAMN IT. I DESERVE IT.

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Villain of the Year

If this synopsis refers to Ozzie as the "unlikely villain", I am going to throw myself onto my front lawn, scream into the grass, and let the ticks consume me.

And that's not even getting into the other times we've gotten award mentions and episodes. Do we really need a villain variant of the Agent of the Year award that Odd Squad Book of Games introduced? What is point? Why is point? I was fine with the villain report cards Season 2 introduced! Leave it at that!

I'm just...I'm tired. Only a select handful of these synopses are inspiring confidence in me. If Season 3 came up with more original synopses than this series, with a return to form, does, then we're in trouble. That is with a capital T. A T as big as the Titans Tower, that's right.

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Planes, Trains, and Oddmobiles

God this is a good pun. God I love this pun. Best title of the franchise, hands down. Even beats out "Assistants' Creed". Took them ten fucking years to make the pun, but...it's here, and I love it. It barely even relates to the episode from what I can tell from the synopsis, but damn if they didn't do good.

And speaking of the synopsis, this one has a sort of similar plotline to "Nature of the Sandbeast" from Odd Squad Mobile Unit, in that there is a female creature with eggs missing who is incredibly pissed off and is seeking to harm anyone and anything until she gets them back. That episode had the titular creature; this one features a Huggle Monster. That episode had Orla, Osmerelda, and Omar fighting off the creature; this episode has Orli and Ozzie. Not exactly a repeat, but we'll see where things go.

...Okay, I'm taking my above comment back about the title not relating to the episode, because I just figured out what the math moral is.

It's about which mode of transportation is the fastest: a plane, a train, or a car.

I don't know whether to cackle because kids can't drive either of those things (and for "car", I'm talking about big-boi cars like Audis and Toyotas, thank you), or clap because they made a pun that encapsulates the math moral.

God bless them.

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Part of the Furniture

Now here's an episode title I really am scratching my head about. It's not a pun. It's not some kind of typo. It doesn't relate to the episode as far as the synopsis goes. It looks like a lost memo from a Bob's Discount Furniture employee meeting.

You wanna know the best part, though? The episode deals with Orli joining a bunch of clubs but not having time for all of them and helping Orwell at the same time. Which...I...look, if she doesn't join some kind of furniture-related club, then what is point? Is this some British pun I don't- ah fucking hell, it's a British pun I don't get, isn't it. God damn it.

Not really much to go off of with this one, but man is that title gonna be eating away at me for the next two months. I have to sleep at night, people. 15 years of sleep deprivation weighs on a person!

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The Odd Ness Monster

Look. The Oddverse has kraken. It's only justified that it'd have the Loch Ness Monster, too.

Me, I'm just surprised it took them way too many franchise installments to get to this point.

The synopsis for the episode, however, is a little confusing. The best I can gather is this: Onom and Orwell are doing something when the Loch- shit, the Odd Ness Monster wakes up. From there, they have to put it to sleep before it destroys Headquarters (which, I will remind you, is fucking underground and doesn't need much protecting against a creature commonly depicted in fiction as a seafarer).

It's incorrect, but this is PBS we're talking about. Wait until mid-September when we get stuff from the BBC.

Outside of the "destroying HQ" stuff, I look forward to seeing how a Scientist and a Security agent with differing personalities handle Odd Squad's take on Nessie. I guess the Britain HQ lacks a Creature Care department, otherwise either Onom or Orwell would be replaced.

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Oddtober the Thirteenth

Died around 2016.

Born 2024.

Welcome the fuck back, Oddtober.

For those out of the loop, Oddtober is the name of an event PBS Kids held to celebrate Odd Squad having new episodes in October. Because, y'know, they actually loved the show back then and didn't treat it like shit. The event died off when Season 2 premiered and was replaced by a more generalized "Celebrate Halloween All Month Long with PBS Kids" event, which has been in place for years now and covers multiple shows on the lineup. And now it's back, in episode title form.

If this wasn't intentional, you're lying to my face. If this was intentional, you're giving me a chance to gloat.

But what about the episode itself? Well...it's not another Halloween episode, unfortunately. It's not even airing on October 13, which sucks, but...that's a Sunday and PBS Kids doesn't premiere new content on a Sunday in most cases. The episode's premise is actually pretty unique -- the British agents wants a day off from oddness, which villains are, surprisingly, more than happy to give them...provided their happiness meters break the limit. To do this, agents throw them a party.

I...another party episode? Really? The fuck were they celebrating over in the writers room, the fact that Odd Squad got greenlit for another season and PBS didn't kill it off like it was forest game? I mean it's a good thing to celebrate, but again...12 episodes. And the crew was the one who gave the "you want more OSUK stuff, watch what we got to offer" ultimatum to begin with!

Given the title of the episode, though, I expect things to go down south very quickly. At the very least, we know where it falls on the incredibly messy franchise timeline.

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Agent Overhill's Last Day

Oh, another episode focusing on a minor character. I'd actually spit more fire at this if it weren't for the fact that this episode inches the line closer to the season/series finale. It's up in the air whether the "one last villain" is Ozzie or not. However, I can appreciate the use of "Overhill" as a name. As in, "over the hill". As in...someone who is old and past their prime.

...Yeeeeeeah, 10 fuckin' cookies they won't touch on that shit. Established rules for that haven't changed in 10 years, and just because it's Britain doesn't mean it'll be changed. I do like how they're willing to go further into retirement from Odd Squad after only featuring it for a one-off gag or an offhand mention here and there, though.

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The Ne- Wait, I Mean The Other Ozzie

And the prize for Most Unoriginal Episode Title goes to.

Seriously, there are a host of puns involving the color purple they could have gone with. Instead, they pulled from a previous episode title and changed the goddamn adjective. Now there's something to confuse the kids.

But what is the episode about? Well, Orli's being featured this time around, partnering up with an agent named Oz from the Movie Star Dimension to find out who is turning civilians purple.

I'm going to shove the elephant in the room out the door and let it go back to its native habitat: this Oz has absolutely no relation to the Oz from Season 1, nor Ozelprazelwixelmist from Season 1, and if you believe otherwise then I will respect that but you are wrong. Realistically, they could bring Oz back, especially since Odd Squad Book of Games brought him back via a mention and...well, he's an invisible agent, so there's no need to cast another kid to act physically. But this episode looks to involve a counterpart of Ozzie, which neither Oz nor Ozelprazelwindowsmistplay is. And I highly doubt they'd bring the latter back from the "silly lol gag" dead and put them in a major role.

Putting that aside, though, this episode actually contains what is known in TV Tropes parlance as a Mythology Gag, which is when a franchise references previous installments that are not canon to the work containing the gag.

In this particular case, I'll direct your attention to the pilot. Some of you reading this may have seen it, others may have not, and others I probably melted your minds just by telling you it exists. (Mass apology to those people.) At the beginning of it, Olive explains what Odd Squad is and what they do, coupled with slides that show oddness in action. One of these incidents is a family and their dog, who are all colored purple.

And thus, you have the basis for this episode.

Given how the pilot and Odd Squad UK have different staff and different prodcos, I don't know if this was intentional or not...but Tim McKeon is at least working on it, so it makes you wonder. What better way to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary than a throwback to the piece of media that started it all 12 years ago?

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Three is the Oddest Number

Huh. Did I just crack the code for why this franchise is keen on four-person teamups? Because it feels like I just cracked the code for why this franchise is keen on four-person teamups. (Okay, fine, five if you count Odd Squad Mobile Unit with both Oprah and Orpita. But this episode's not called "Five is the Oddest Number" so weh to ye.)

Anyway, this episode kicks off the two-part sea- sorry, series finale. I have no confirmation it is the series finale, but I've seen PBS Kids execs throw this franchise around like a ragdoll for the past few years and I can see a very clear path ahead. Almost crystal, even.

This is an 11-minute episode, similar to past season finales ("Who is Agent Otis?" as well as "Odds and Ends", "Sunny Sides Add Up" as well as "Old Odd, New Tricks"). Here, we're introduced to the Terrible Three in proper, who begin to bring their reign of terror upon Britain. We also get to see why Ozzie seems to know them, and unravel the story arc.

Again, I will refer to my Twitter mutual's tweet at the beginning of this post, and reiterate that the "main character knows the villains somehow" schtick is getting a little old. They would have had something good going with Olando if they didn't fuck things up, because that story was actually kind of unique. (Yes, discounting that Olando is a male Orla.) If they want people to watch Odd Squad UK so it gets more episodes, then they better hit a homerun with this go-around of an apparently popular story.

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Should Odd Acquaintance Be Forgot

I won't lie: before I found out what this title was alluding to, I genuinely thought PBS fucked up on the grammar. I thought, "Shouldn't it be 'Should Odd Acquaintance Be Forgotten'?"

But lol, no...it's a reference to a lyric in "Auld Lang Syne". God bless Google. God bless search engines.

This episode, the second part of the two-part series finale that is 22 minutes in length, picks up where "Three is the Oddest Number" left off, natch. It seems that the Terrible Three have broken into Headquarters and are close to securing a win against Odd Squad, but have hidden from the agents, who need to find them.

...I don't know about you, but I'm getting some Secret Catch Teenieping vibes. Only, y'know, there's no "the Teenieping is hiding in one of three objects". The episode could lean that way, though...wouldn't be unlike them.

In any case, the second half of the episode has the Terrible Three still on a rampage, opening up some containment units that will spread oddness throughout the town. The Britain HQ's agents are now forced to answer the question that I'm sure they'll be asked: "Oh yeah? You and what army?"

By finding other kids to help them.

...I know exactly what the fuck you're thinking right now and I'm here with the thorn in my foot squashing your hopes and dreams and letting the thorn go even deeper in.

If you have ever seen any reaction I've ever had to "Odd Together Now", you're probably aware that I died a little inside. With the ending involving clips of past seasons, even moreso. The Seren Reacts video...I had already gotten up once and came back when they showed Olive and Otto. That ending made me want to physically leave my house. And I have depression.

Smart is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wise is not putting it in a fruit salad. Peak intelligence is realizing that nearly every single child actor that has been on Odd Squad is now too old to reprise their roles and then not begging for them to come back. I want them to come back too, but that's what fanworks are for. Fanfics, fan videos, animations and skits, all that jazz. It can be done. Hell, I've made fanfics with Odd Squad characters. Other people have too. There are Odd Squad fanpieces all over the 'Net, if you look. Some are good, some are bad. But the fact of the matter is that they all have the creator's own personal brand of creativity to them.

But fanworks are a topic for another Seren's Study on another day. For now, I'll just say that I hope they go out with a bang with this one, for being only 12 episodes.

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The Future of Odd Squad UK: Cancellation or Resuscitation?

I will forever stand by my theory that Odd Squad UK was birthed merely to fill a quota, and the extra win for SSE and FRP of financial gain. But the quota part is what I'm specifically focusing on, because when it comes to this franchise, my ire largely falls with PBS Kids execs. Last I read, Sara DeWitt wanted about twenty shows by end of year. I lost count somewhere around March, but I don't know...if you count the season premieres (and Lyla in the Loop), I'd say it's nearing or exceeding that number.

...No, actually, they probably do count season premieres. Look at our very own OSUK.

The issue with PBS Kids and OSUK is something I'm setting aside for another Seren's Study that is currently a work in progress. However, it's no surprise that execs frown upon Odd Squad as a whole and include it in promotional media only for gratuity purposes. Like a way to remind the audience that yes, however creator-driven they may be, they do own the Odd Squad IP and they will shove it up as many hairy nostrils as humanly possible.

Because of this, it's entirely up in the air whether Odd Squad UK will get greenlit for another season, maybe with a higher episode count than just a meager 12.

...You would think. Bitch you would think.

It is worth noting that this is a coproduction, so PBS didn't solely produce this -- BBC Studios Kids and Family had a hefty hand in it, because, y'know, it's their own damn fault country. Hence, it's largely up to them whether Odd Squad UK will continue. And unlike PBS, they salivate over ratings over most anything else, and Odd Squad's is pretty well up there...so it does make you wonder.

Either way, I can't reiterate this enough: if you want OSUK to continue, watch it. TV, on the app, through official streaming services, anything that's legal. Hatewatch it, even; like I've said before, hatewatching is a nice happy form of reverse psychology at work, and everyone involved on OSUK could not even give a shit about you satisfying your curiosity if you gave them Bezos level of monies. Every little bit counts.

As for me, I'm not going to hatewatch OSUK, but rather, I'm going to try and go in with a relatively open mind and then rip into episodes accordingly. We do still have that gadget competition results video coming in September, so that'll be another tease that people who have read titles and synopses can see. And then they can judge the quality of the show itself with that in mind, of course.

If you've read all this and digested it and didn't just click on the links above, then thank you. Expect another Seren's Study on PBS's mistreatment of Odd Squad as a whole franchise soon.

(Would you believe me if I said I wanted to take a break for August? But the franchise never sleeps, and apparently neither do I.)

Seren out.

#seren's studies #odd squad #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad season 4 #odd squad uk

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personinthepalace · 5 months ago

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ODD SQUAD UK (2024) TRAILER

#odd squad #odd squad uk #odd squad uk gifs #odd squad gifs #odd squad edit #oddsquadedit #oddsquadgifs #odd squad cbbc #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad season 4 #yes I am so excited that I made a gifset haha #(and I will most likely make another one haha)#ODD SQUAD IS BACK #AHHH I AM SO EXCITED #gifs in the palace #edits in the palace

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serendertothesquad · 2 months ago

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Seren's Studies: The Odd Squad UK Gadget Competition Results Video (Part 2)

Damn Tumblr and their 30-image limit. And damn them putting a higher limit behind a paywall. Truly, we have fallen from grace.

(And if you think I am paying for that, hell to the no I am the not.)

Anyway, let's move on to the back end of this results video. Peep below the break!

(But make sure to read Part 1 first -- find it here!)

unamused_andalsogotohell.png

Sure, this video might have much better editing, but it doesn't stop this error of Orwell standing stock-still from popping up.

It's like the Odd Squad equivalent of enjoying the beach from the comfort of inside your car when you can just walk onto the beach and be more comfortable.

And this one goes out to everyone who's afraid of having seaweed touch them.

Like me, Doug Heffernan, and a good chunk of the UK population.

Somewhere in Canada, Olive was able to fit her entire small body under a couch.

She's staying there for the foreseeable future.

Security deposit, rent, and utility costs have all been waived.

"I'm going to snap your neck."

"Clean the pie off of your face first and maybe I'll take you seriously on that."

"...Go to hell."

"I've been in hell for a decade. Try me."

DO Y' GEDDIT??? BECAUSE OLIVE??? D' Y' GEDDIT????? FUNNY LAUGH??????????? KNEE SLAP???????

...WHAT DO YOU MEAN "NOT FUNNY, DIDN'T LA"-

Bent-ass lesson coming from the kid who was laughing at his coworker just before.

A little jarring, but I respect this spin on the "Odd Squad, Odd Squad, stop right there" catchphrase. It's like a four-way thumb war challenge!

Yeah, well, "gazillion" isn't a real number...Onom.

(You know it had to be done. I knew it had to be done. They laid the reference on a platter and I am using it for its most practical purpose.)

Hey, remember Oswald's number-carrying bit in "Portalandia"?

That was funny. It took me aback because it's a commonly-applied mathematical cliche pertaining to incorrect math in a show that is about correct math.

This...feels like they're trying to replicate that, and failing. Like now that they're focusing on STEM, they don't need to be overly correct anymore.

It's not funny, is my point.

OH WHO-HO-HOOOOOOOOOA HEY HI HELLO SHOT FROM THE INTRO HOW YA DOIN'.

So I guess 1) Orli is narrating the opening, which, really, does not surprise me, and 2) we're going back to the "huddle and badass armfold" roots of Season 1 and Season 2. And in this tinny lil' fandom, you can bet that people are analyzing the hell out of both.

(Yeah, we have fun playing with what little food we're given. How about you?)

-----------------------------------------------

So overall, this was a much better video than the initial briefing video. It definitely seems like they were holding everything back and saving it for this one, and frankly, I don't blame them. If this is what the actual show looks and feels like, I'm even more game than I already was before.

Odd Squad as a franchise is no stranger to contests -- they've held many in the past ten years, most with little fanfare outside of one social media post. However, this is the first one I've seen that is just straight-up advertising. And somehow, it hooked me solid.

Big congrats to Safiyah for her grand win with the Memory-inator. Whether she won both the UK and the US contests or just the UK one remains to be seen, but I'm not going to do a separate Seren's Study for both versions of the video because, put simply, there is no second version of the video. Corporate needed me to find the difference between the CBBC video and the PBS Kids video, and I told them straight out, "They're the same goddamn video."

You know what I will do a Seren's Study on next, though? The second trailer. So I'll see you folks around for that.

Seren out!

(And if you haven't seen the results, you can view them here!)

#seren's studies #odd squad #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad uk

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serendertothesquad · 29 days ago

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Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "The Odd Ness Monster" Episode Followup, Part 1

10 years and we finally get our first look at Odd Squad's take on Nessie. It's sure to be an odd-essie.

...Yeah, even I cringed halfway into that pun.

I hear this is a good episode, so let's hope those folks are right. At this point I'm like a kid at Christmas who didn't get what they wanted from Santa but will abso-fuckin'-lutely keep screaming and begging.

Below the break!

And your writer for this episode, who has an extensive resume and has written for quite a few things, including some kids stuff. Already off to a solid start, but I'm very cautiously optimistic.

Hey, remember the Thrimes from Season 2? Meet their sister.

Wouldn't be the first time we've had a cold open with mimes, either. I'm blanking on which episode, but I distinctly remember a Season 1 cold open that had a mime who threw berets at Olive and Otto and had terrible rapping skills.

(Editing note: It was "A Case of the Sing-Alongs", that's it!)

God, it's like dangling fuckin' keys with these children. Byootiful.

"Ma'am, you're not really trapped in an invisible glass box!"

Which, of course, is the mime equivalent of telling a magician to their face that magic isn't real. Way to be an ass, Orli.

At the very least, Orli's more patient with mimes than Olive and Otto combined. And the entire Season 2 cast bar Oona.

Yeah, speaking of Season 1...this is reminding me of the cold open with the man who had to apologize to the ocean because he said it was cold, then Olive running right into a barrier because she complained about the sand being too hot.

I think you can tell which one's played better.

If you listen real close, you can hear Pink's "Get the Party Started" playing faintly in the background.

...Oh. It's New Year's. Which was already done better in Season 1 and guys, really, can we stop with the Season 1 references? God sakes, they're getting old and I'm trying to keep the cynic glasses off for this one.

I'm...not too clear on what you have to do to win the raffle, but it sounds like "find the next" after playing it back five times over.

Is it...find the next season? Because I can do that! Gimme that copium, bitch, and lemme rip!

(Few seconds in: it's "find an X".)

Ohhhh come now. Y'all knew they were gonna win it. They have side character superiority. They're part of the main plot. Of course they're gonna win it.

*giggles uncomfortably*

My mind, tainted by years of watching horrifying PSAs and PIFs, is going in very dark places right now.

LOOKIT THIS SMUG SONUVABITCH. SHE KNOWS SHE'S LEADIN' 'EM TO THE ODD NESS MONSTER. SHE K N O W S .

Their prize is a chance at death. And not just their deaths.

(On a side note: this elevator is playing the smooth jazz version of "Take Away One", which is a brilliant touch, but I find it was better executed in "Old Odd, New Tricks". Apparently it was also in "Lift Off" too, but my point still stands.)

"A place where no one has been in many moons."

Hehehe byootiful. All right, fandom, get crackin' on what constitutes as a moon in the Oddverse and let me revel in the deja vu of seeing this argument often in the MLP fandom.

Here, it's implied to be years. Centuries. Millennia even. Certainly longer than a month.

Okay, I'd be laughing more genuinely if not for these unsettling lift shots because this subba-hubba-hubba gag is actually funny.

The floor is not lava.

But if you fall, it damn well will be lava.

Okay, I can appreciate the twist, but no amount of money in the world will be able to convince me that this is a dinosaur Nessie. And I'm not talking about plesiosaurs. This is a Dino Dex dinosaur that found its way into this show and this is really just a thinly-veiled crossover.

Headcanon accepted. Try me, bitch. Trailer came out today. Try me.

"The monster was here first. We built HQ over her, that way we can stop her when she wakes up."

So this HQ is underground, to a certain degree. The multi-sub basement is probably near the Earth's core, hence why it's so hot...and since this is a flipped version of Nessie, of course it prefers heat.

Huh. All right. I dig it. Already more sane than building Walmarts on Native American burial grounds, though if she prefers heat sources then I'm sure there's tons of those in the UK.

I honestly don't know who said "worst prize ever" here, but I'm cackling because they haven't even tried to stop her yet and are still in the exposition stage and they're already complaining.

Frankly, though, they're in the right.

Wh...but how, though? Lasers? Gamma radiation? Some kind of opioid released in waves?

I'd think a simple violin could do the trick -- get Orli on that shit -- but this is Odd Squad and so this shall be complicated.

"We just need two worthy agents to be here when she wakes and send her back to sleep."

And you decided on a raffle, wherein you pick...a Scientist and a Security agent? Not, y'know, a Creature Care agent? Are you so low on numbers that you don't have any Creature Care agents?

...No, wait, that's a rhetorical question.

Hoooooold up, hold up. So this episode is gonna run through the span of a year...in 8 minutes?

That's shit I expect from 5-minute My Little Pony Tell Your Tale, not 11-minute Odd Squad.

Putting aside that this is a pretty wild spin on the calendar math moral, Captain O insisting that she's always serious will never not be hilarious.

AND THEY DON'T EVEN USE THE TIME CARD??????????

NOOOOOOOOOO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. WHOEVER IS IN CHARGE OF EDITING, YOU SADISTIC SHIT I HOPE YOU GET STUFFED INTO A CANNON AND SHOT TO JUPITER. WHY NOT USE THE TIME CARD HUH. H U H .

You know that if Tim had his way, this episode would be over in less than 11 simply by fiddling about with a time machine.

Hey, crazy idea: maybe they could use the TARDIS if it's still in town!

Oper- Agent Ook?

Wow, I didn't realize a cut character from Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble was in this show. My little Odd Squad crossover fan project premise is gonna come along real nice.

(This is a joke. There is no Agent Ook in the premise.)

Oh my God...we somehow went from Oswald, to Octavius, to...Ook.

Sure, they tried with the main and side characters' names. One-shots, though? Nope. "Over" was a better name for a character who had Starscream-like motives!

And it's so dusty that she dug it out of the goddamn archives!

Ohhhh...so it's a calendar math moral, but it deals with UK seasons.

Okay. All right. I can dig it, so long as the writing is good and the plot is interesting.

So the UK seasons are just the US seasons but...pushed back by a month?

Oh no. Ohoho no. I can't fault the episode for this. No, no, I'm faulting the entire fucking UK culture. Love you bunches, but what the fuck are your calendar seasons?

(On to Part 2!)

#seren's studies #odd squad uk #odd squad #odd squad pbs kids

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serendertothesquad · 1 month ago

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Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "Odd Ones In" Episode Followup, Part 1

May the days of the whiteness of the Big O's desk be forever remembered in favor of this thing that flashbanged me and made me nearly drop my glasses.

No, guys, seriously. I am looking at this thing. It is floating. Why is it floating.

But enough whining. It's October 1st and that means Odd Squad UK has officially premiered! With it, we get a bunch of episodes that have been graciously pulled by a friend, @personinthepalace. Many thanks goes to them! (And all the work they've had to do throwing them up in other places where YouTube failed.)

For those unfamiliar with how these work, it's pretty standard: I watch the episode, plop screenshots into this post, and react accordingly in text form. Sadly, until I can get a new laptop and some privacy, Seren Reacts videos will be on hold.

So join me below the break for screaming, crying, and much, much asking of "did I hear that right", "what did they say?" and "hi doctor, I might need hearing aids".

(This will also be Part 1, due to Tumblr's 30-photo limit. I can amass as much as 50-120 screenshots for a single episode, so this will be broken into many parts. To find them all, peruse the #seren's studies tag!)

(Oh, and spoilers. Don't read this, or any of the other parts, unless you've seen the episode in full.)

With huge props to those who guessed Captain O would be doing the intro, in line with how Oprah used to do it in the past in order to not spoil new characters.

It's funny because from what I've seen, Captain O goes out onto the field a lot more and doesn't just play the role of Ms. Exposition. I like that change!

I'm...well...okay, maybe this doesn't surprise me given how Ozzie was literally in the first promo picture...but sure. Fine. I dig it.

Osgood has his own cookbook, and quite frankly, I'm just mad they didn't give Oksana one. You're telling me the girl cuts food with diamonds and she doesn't have her own cookbook? Piss off the roof and pray it rains.

"I'm in charge of an organization of kids like these...but...not these..."

OH MY GYAHD THEY BROUGHT BACK THE BIT FROM SEASON 3 ONLY IT'S LESS SPECIAL NOW.

Look, I was there when people went nuts over Oprah bringing all six main characters (at the time) back for a cameo in the intro. I went nuts. It was beautiful!

This just doesn't hit the same. It tried to aim for my heart and instead got me in the nose.

...I still laughed, though.

Most of the stuff in here is taken from the trailer, but there is some new stuff here too, like Captain O giving a big "fuck you" to what I have to assume is a construction worker seeking help on a nearby project.

...Look, I'm a dumb lil' American. You are bound to get fed misinformation up the wazoo. I am bound to not use Google because I am allowed not to and also I am lazy and tired. Don't ask me how shit works.

Ah yes, I see that, in addition to upgrading the special effects used for exiting the tubes, they also upgraded the special effects and animation used for riding the tubes themselves.

Once again, I will point to "Down the Tubes" for a comparison and ask you which one looks better to you. My vote is down easy.

This is a wooden ship and they have couch cushions.

WE ARE NOT ON A LUXURY PRINCESS CRUISE THIS IS A CAPITAL SIN PREPARE FOR DESTRUC-

My God, it's like they saw Season 3, saw people hated it, and upped the ante more than if literally anyone else sane bought Twitter from Elon.

The fact that I could probably tell you what episodes these bits all came from is terrifying. Terrifying still, I'd only get half wrong.

*deep inhale*

Two things: who thought this was a good idea, AND WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT HAVING AN OFFICE BEHIND A WATERFALL WAS A GOOD IDEA.

Caves behind waterfalls are where villains run off to. Where treasure is buried. It's not- oh my God...oh...my God.

Okay, legally, you can't have finger guns in the UK, so Captain O is committing a crime AND GET YOUR KEYS AWAY FROM MY CAR THAT I SPENT THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FIXING UP IT IS A JOKE. A JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

From a height angle, this is as jarring as Omar and Oneta up against Maine Mr. O.

Back then, when there was the followup for "The Void",there was a joke that he could probably be their little sibling. Like, little little. Like "generation gap" little.

The latter most certainly holds true here.

OH THANK GOD THEY DIDN'T BRITISH-FY THE LOGO. THANK YOU JESUS. BAD ENOUGH I GOT FLASHBANGED ONCE YOU WANT IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN?????

But also, rest in pieces to the creator credits appearing here. Usually that only happens when the creators have done some egregious thing and episodes are edited to remove their name in most capacities. (And I'm staring The Loud House down with the fury of a thousand suns. You are better off not knowing.)

Here...Tim and Adam have done nothing egregious, but it's still jarring to not see their names up here. They're not showrunners, but give the men some credit, damn it!

I gotta say, one second in and I'm already digging this episode. Most Precure episodes I watch don't even get that far enough in to make me say "wow!"

But oh man is this Tube Lobby crazy retro. I mean if the film reels back there didn't give it away...

And your writer for this episode! Mark is basically a pioneer within the franchise, having written some fantastic episodes that, if I listed them all, would derail the entire followup. He's got strong writing chops and I can't wait to see what he does with this one. Basically, if you see his name pop up, you know shit's gonna be real good.

And your...ah...producer. I don't think we've ever seen a producer credit on here before. The name's not familiar, so I'll assume she's one of the British staff and hope she can work her magic better than 70% of Season 3's writers.

Not even past the first ten seconds yet and already I've spotted my first criticism: the audio balancing.

I went into the gadget competition video thinking it would be fixed. Much to my dismay, it has not, and that means my eardrum hairs will have to suffer for a good 22 minutes.

...

Scratch that and make it 12 episodes' worth.

To my body, I am so sorry in advance.

And your director for this episode. This guy had an interview regarding references in Odd Squad UK that I unfortunately never found, even after asking about it and spreading the word around. Quite a shame, but now that the show's here, I can go play Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Delusion Edition and cry profusely.

Honestly, as much as I want to be a sour realist and say that no one is this excited walking into work...I'm more focused on the planet/glowing Perplexus maze ball/good God what is that Seymour.

The guy has his own cheer team waiting for him when he comes into the bullpen, and either this is some weird-ass Department of Help perk or this is the happiest Odd Squad precinct I have ever seen in 10 years.

See, Otto was a happy guy. Olympia was a happy gal. Omar was a happy guy. Where are their cheerleading teams, hehh?? Where are their teams?!

*spits out Pepsi at such an insanely fast speed it beats Comcast by ten thousand miles*

THEY HAVE AN AGENT WITH DOWN SYNDROME?!?!?!

IT TOOK THEM

10 YEARS

TO HAVE AN AGENT

WITH DOWN SYNDROME?!?!?!?!?!

...Okay look, I had a friend with cerebral palsy and from watching this bit repeatedly I don't think this agent has it...

BUT THEY PUT IN AN AGENT WITH DOWN SYNDROME ALL THE SAME AWWWWWWWWWW HNNNNNNNNNNGH MY HEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHT

I'm not even mad they did that before a canonically autistic agent. I'm not mad. I'm not mad it exists. I'm not mad they could have done this 10 years ago and given a raspberry and a "fuck you" to all the ableist critics. How the fuck do you expect my ass to get mad at this? I'm not fucking barbaric, sweet Jesus Christ.

Only a minute in and this is by far one of the best things of the episode, right here. I can't gush about this enough. You ask me why I love this franchise, and this is one of the reasons.

"I work in the Department of Help. It's my job."

Thank you, Ozzie, but I didn't spend a year waiting to get slammed face-first with exposition. I could teach a college class on this entire show/season at what was my dream college before nu monies crushed that.

Just to note: the last time we ever saw a PA system used by a Director was -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- Oprah in "The Jackies", a good 10 years ago.

The fact it's become a mainstay for Captain O and her precinct is a lovely bit of continuity, if unintentional.

I remember seeing part of this set a long time ago in a BTS photo. Nice to see another angle of it!

I like the seafaring stuff in here too. Scuba helmet, what looks to be maps of islands, a telescope...the only funny thing is that Ozzie staring down Captain O here is the equivalent of Otis staring down Orson aaaaaaaaand I can't get that out of my head now. Beautiful. Thank you.

As if the Oona image Easter egg wasn't enough, they have to go and reference toast again?

I'm not even mad, this literal humor is on-brand and hilarious, but this being the 10th anniversary series, it's funny they choose to reference this and not Sheila.

...Or maybe they will reference Sheila later. She does have that Bizarre Brigade show...

It's probably unintentional on Alexander Shaw's part, but this line here sounds so artificial it's like maybe, just maybe, he has something to do with it.

...

MA GET MY TINFOIL HAT I'M GOIN' OUTSIDE-

"I'll be brief: I have no idea why all this is happening."

Very few kids shows can sell a character to me and make me slam my wallet chock-full of bills down on a single line, but Odd Squad UK did it with Onom and I have no regrets.

Is...hold on, is this is a whole-ass meeting Captain O's having in here? It's not just Ozzie, Onom and Orwell?

Either I'm trippin' like hell or this is the live-action equivalent of needing background characters to fill up spaces in a scene.

And just like that, 13 chances for name-drops of past "living legend" agents were shot with bullets going into all the crucial arteries in the bodies.

How does he know about Orli? Who the fuck knows! He's got a better chance of knowing about the 13 "living legend" agents in question than some girl working behind a goddamn waterfall!!

You ever watch Adult Swim and it cuts right from the show to an ident scene?

That's what this is. Only there's no ident, it's mid-episode, and it's so sudden that it's like half of the ASMR memes on the Internet that jumpscare you.

(On to Part 2!)

#seren's studies #odd squad #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad uk

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