With all the comedies, movies, and prestige dramas coming to streaming TV, many people may not realize (unless they have kids) that it’s also a channel with a growing number of animated series and kid-oriented shows. Knowing that often their target audiences are the kids of parents who grew up with “Saturday morning cartoons”, reboots and reinventions have made their way into this area as well. I assume that kids don’t really care whether it’s a reboot, but maybe the moms and dads are the ones saying, “Hey, why don’t you guys watch the new She-ra show on Netflix?” inspired by their own associations with the original 80s cartoons. This winter there are a few new and returning shows that kids (and adults) will love:

Carmen Sandiego

Based on an educational video game series from the 80s, which spawned a kids game show and TV series in the 90s, Netflix has now rebooted the series as an animated show. While in the past, players/viewers were meant use clues about geography and world culture to chase a glamourous international thief named Carmen Sandiego around the globe, the series now follows the adventures of Carmen herself as she plays “Robin Hood” by outwitting other spies, thieves and terrorist agents (while still teaching interesting facts about the world along the way). The animation is stylishly simple, but the characters and dialogue are snappy and fun. This series also starts out with an origin story of Carmen as a young orphan raised by a secret society of super-villains who wants to do right once she realizes the truth and breaks free from them. In her travels, she picks up a number of allies, including a mysterious kid hacker known as Player (an obvious nod to the video games that came before) who acts as Carmen’s global eyes and ears. When I watched the first few episodes, I was reminded of another show from a few years back, called Jackie Chan Adventures which had its titular martial-arts archaeologist character also hop around the world, playing cat and mouse with a variety of colourful enemies. Writer-director Duane Capizzi worked on that show and is now also the mastermind behind Carmen. True to its legacy, this series is a vehicle for making knowledge fun. While the breezy tone is definitely geared to the younger generations, even I have learned some new facts about Indonesia from episode three. I’m excited to find out where Carmen takes us to next!

3 Below

The Trollhunters series on Netflix may have escaped the notice of most adults, but I am guessing that many kids have discovered that show about a boy who finds a mystical amulet and discovers a destiny to fight the evil forces that threaten troll and humankind. The show was created by dark fantasy auteur Guillermo Del Toro, and has produced three seasons, all set in the fictional American town of Arcadia. That series was a lot of fun and featured many well-known actors in voice roles including Kelsey Grammer, Angelica Huston, Mark Hamill, Tom Hiddleston, Lena Headey, Ron Perlman, and Anton Yelchin as the lead. That show set up a pretty complex mythology centred around Arcadia, which intersects with the story of 3 Below. Also created by Del Toro, this series is not exactly a spin-off, but it’s kind of a successor to Trollhunters. Where the first series leaned into fantasy and magic, this series is more sci-fi and technology. The story starts on a far-off planet known as Akaridian 5 where the ruling royal Tarron family is overthrown by a rebellion led by the evil General Morando. The king and queen are injured, and prince Krel and princess Aja are rescued and taken away to earth by Commander Varvatos Vex. When they crash land on Earth, they use their tech to make their ship into a house and the two royals disguise themselves as teenagers, with Vex as their older guardian. As they try to find parts to repair their ship, they face not only dangers from bounty hunters and other agents of Morando, they also deal with the trials and tribulations of high school life. Again, some well known voices make appearances, including Tatiana Maslany and Diego Luna as the royal siblings, and Nick Offerman (doing his best blowhard voice) as Vex. Even though the stories are pretty separate, because the royals go to the same school as the kids from Trollhunters, there are actually a couple of episodes where the storyline overlaps and keen observers will recognize Krel and Aja from when they crossed over to the other series and the events are retold from another perspective in this show. It’s pretty clever. The animation styles of both series are the same, with CGI throughout and a kind of stylized, almost bobble-head, look to the characters. The show is a lot of fun to watch, and I believe that when 3 Below concludes, a third Arcadia-set series is supposed to complete Del Toro’s trilogy. I can’t wait!

Young Justice: Outsiders

The Young Justice animated series about the younger generation of Justice League (don’t call them) sidekicks ended a few years ago, but it was announced that the series would restart and return to the new DC Comics streaming service, DC Universe. So while new episodes of this series are not on Netflix, it is also not available by subscription outside of the US. Hopefully we’ll get new episodes of the show on Netflix soon. In the mean time, this show looks to follow closely in the original series’s footsteps, with the same animation style, and featuring many of the same characters. However, some time has passed, and many of the characters from the original series have grown up and moved on. In fact, in the first episode, the Justice League itself (the grown-ups) face a crisis of their own and Batman resigns with some of his allies. Meanwhile, Nightwing (aka Robin all grown up) starts to recruit some of his old team mates on a mission to help end a new global threat: the kidnapping and trafficking of super-powered metahuman teens. From the looks of it, this initial plot will grow into a much larger storyline, but I’ll have to see the episodes to know. I loved the original series not only because it brought to visual life a bunch of cool comic-book characters, but also because it took a pretty sophisticated approach to its story lines. This series is definitely meant for older kids. Younger kids will still enjoy the flashy action scenes, but older kids and adults will appreciate some of the weightier issues that are raised. I think DC does well with animated TV/movies, especially compared to their mostly-horrendous, big-budget, live-action films. I really hope this series has some legs and will stick around (especially once we get to watch it here).

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I consider this kids show one of the jewels of the Netflix collection. Based on a series of books, the adventures of the Baudelaire orphans and the conspiracy of colourful characters and the nefarious Count Olaf (played wonderfully by Neil Patrick Harris) is a lot of fun to watch. This series comes to a close with this new season, and we finally find out what happens to the orphans and Olaf in the end (Fair warning: I didn’t find the finale satisfying — but that’s what the narrator Lemony Snicket kept telling us would happen!). The whole conspiracy around a secret organization (VFD, the Volunteer Fire Department) and the MacGuffin-esque sugar bowl that everyone is chasing after is pretty confusing. When I get some spare time (haha!) I’d like to rewatch this series to see if I can’t follow the story more fully. Nevertheless, the overall plot is just part of what makes this show delightful. The style and art direction is top notch (it’s got a clearly Wes Anderson inspired style) and you can enjoy the show for the backdrops and costumes alone. However, the writing is exceedingly clever (in that way smart kids like to act and talk) and as a former smart kid, that made me quite gleeful. The characters are also zany and wonderful. Their exaggerated mannerisms and caricaturish quirkiness also makes them all very unique. It’s a one-of-a-kind show and a great one to watch as a family.