Episode 36 – The Unicorn King

In which She-Ra discovers Brexit Island.

Hordak and Mantenna are out for a pleasure cruise in the Horde’s new boat, the Sea Fright, when they discover the legendary Unicorn Island. Mantenna brainlessly suggests sinking the island, a suggestion which Hordak treats with the derision it deserves. On the other hand, his plan isn’t a lot better: build a Horde base on it, and enslave the unicorns. Less than specific though this plan is, Mantenna is sent out to make a start.

Hordak: “Mantenna, I can still see you even if you can’t see me.”

Over in Whispering Wood, Swift Wind suddenly gets some kind of telepathic hint that something is wrong. He doesn’t know what, however, so he and She-Ra fly off to see Light Hope to get more details. For once, Light Hope proves useful, and fills our heroes in on Hordak’s plan, then suggests that She-Ra find the Unicorn King and win his trust.

She-Ra starts by heading straight over to Unicorn Island and disrupting Mantenna’s unicorn capturing activities. Once that’s attended to, She-Ra and Swift Wind meet a gruff unicorn wearing a stupid helmet, who introduces himself as the Unicorn King. The King doesn’t trust humans, and demonstrates why by bringing out another unicorn called Bright Wing, who cannot fly thanks to having once been captured and enslaved by humans.

She-Ra: “Magic and unicorns! This must be Brexit Land!”

The King then goes on to say that now that the island has been discovered by the Horde, he and the unicorns must leave and find a new home. She-Ra offers to help defend the island, but the King spurns her offer. She-Ra then uses her healing powers to cure Bright Wing, after which the King – rather grudgingly – accepts her assistance in defending the island.

Mantenna intervenes to bring this tedious scene to an end, shooting a freeze ray at She-Ra. She-Ra immediately mounts Swift Wind and gives chase; once she is safely offshore, Hordak generates a force shield to surround the island. He seems pretty confident that the force shield will prevent She-Ra from returning to the island, but in this – as with so many other things – he is deluded. She-Ra simply swims underneath the force shield and emerges on the island, wiping the stupid smile off Hordak’s snorting face.

Hordak: “You’d think I’d be able to find something better to watch on my banging new HD TV.”

She-Ra and the Unicorn King then work together to destroy the force shield generator, after which the King concludes that maybe some humans are trustworthy after all. After gratuitously sinking Hordak’s shiny new ship, She-Ra accepts the King’s grateful thanks, and offers to help again if she is ever needed. I for one am very relieved. Just imagine if Hordak had captured all those unicorns. It simply doesn’t bear thinking about.

 

In today’s adventure…

There’s Loo-Kee, yes, yes, hiding behind a bush in Whispering Wood. This Loo-Kee malarkey is equally boring whether I find him or not. His moral lesson this week is also very boring: it’s cooperation, yet again. I’m certain that if viewers don’t understand about cooperation yet, they never will.

 

Character checklist

A smaller cast than usual today: it’s just Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, the Unicorn King, Bright Wing, Loo-Kee, Hordak and Mantenna. I may not have been watching carefully enough, but I don’t think I even saw one of those ubiquitous Horde Troopers.

 

Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance

Believe it or not, she doesn’t bother.

Spirit: “What do you mean, you can’t be arsed with an excuse? People are going to question MY disappearance too. Didn’t you ever think about that?”

 

Insults

Mantenna has a particularly bad day today, all thanks to Hordak, who calls him a “fool” twice, as well as various other, more imaginative, names, such as “floppy eyes”, “nincompoop” and “bugbrain”.

 

Does it have the Power?

If it weren’t for Hordak and Mantenna, who make for a pretty entertaining double-act, this would be a really very dull She-Ra-by-numbers episode. As it is, it’s still basically a dud, but with a few redeeming moments. I don’t care about the unicorns, who seem to have the same plotline as everyone else on Etheria: not trusting She-Ra, then changing their minds once She-Ra does something for them. This episode treads incredibly familiar territory, and I’d recommend that you don’t bother treading it too.

Episode 35 – Gateway to Trouble

In which Modulok defects from Snake Mountain.

I genuinely had no idea that He-Man was going to be such a regular presence on She-Ra. I thought he’d only pop up for very special episodes, not every other week like he has done lately. This time, Adam and Cringer visit Etheria simply for the dubious pleasure of seeing Adora, though of course they are quickly called upon to intervene when an evil mastermind sets a cunning plot in motion.

That evil mastermind, unexpectedly, is Skeletor, and his cunning plot is to create an enormous interdimensional rift, and to send the entire Eternian Palace through it to Etheria. His motivation is, apparently, so that he can rid himself of his Eternian nemeses and annoy Hordak at the same time. Assisting him in this noble venture are Modulok, introduced in a few rubbish He-Man episodes, and Tung Lashor, who we last encountered in Book Burning. I have no idea why Tung Lashor would now be working for Skeletor, but let’s not question it.

Tung Lashor: “It’s a great honour to work for you, Skeletor. Better than my previous boss, anyway.”

Modulok is the brains behind the interdimensional rift, having invented a device called a Gate Maker. For whatever reason, he suddenly takes it into his head to betray Skeletor and to head to Etheria himself, where he offers the Gate Maker to Hordak. Skeletor enters into hot pursuit, arriving on Etheria just before the gateway closes behind him.

Observing Skeletor’s arrival, Adam and Adora transform into He-Man and She-Ra. I know I harp on about this every time it happens, but the way the stock transformation footage is edited together is so incredibly awkward that I think it needs constant mentioning to try to encourage the creators to stop doing it. Admittedly, this would be more effective if I were writing this in 1986 when the cartoon was still in production, but I was barely capable of lucid thought at that time.

Cringer: “Just hanging out in a bush.”

Anyway, He-Man and She-Ra waste no time in capturing Skeletor and asking him why he’s on Etheria. Skeletor merrily spills the beans, and offers to work with He-Man and She-Ra to prevent Hordak getting his hands on the Gate Maker. This proposal is met with a less than enthusiastic response, but our heroes agree to it and set off.

Weirdly, Skeletor’s first move is to head to Whispering Wood, where he fashions himself a new throne out of rock. He then randomly insults a Twigget before deciding he’s had enough of the truce and clearing off. He reaches the Fright Zone easily, but discovers that Modulok has already passed his Horde entrance exam, and handed over the Gate Maker to Hordak. Skeletor and Hordak have a brief battle, in which Skeletor prevails, and he heads off to find Modulok.

Modulok: “People say I’m clever, but it’s simply in comparison to Mantenna.”

Unfortunately for him, Modulok has departed the Fright Zone and headed back to Whispering Wood, where he demonstrates the Gate Maker’s power for Hordak and Shadow Weaver. Hordak is about to send a fleet of spaceships through the gateway to invade Eternia, but He-Man and She-Ra re-enter the episode at this point and blow up the Gate Maker. The Sorceress then opens her own gateway back to Eternia for He-Man’s use, and Skeletor seizes the opportunity to head home as well.

 

In today’s adventure…

Loo-Kee was quite nicely visible in the rebels’ camp, just before He-Man and She-Ra learn that Skeletor has done a runner. It’s a possibility that Loo-Kee’s visibility is in direct inverse proportionality to the sanity of his moral lesson, however; this week, he cautions us not to go through any gateways to trouble that we might encounter. I’m not even going to dignify that with a discussion.

Loo-Kee: “Have you ever stopped to consider why I’m always hiding? It’s because the police want to interview me under caution.”

 

Character checklist

This one has a fairly outre cast list: Adora, She-Ra, Kowl, some Twiggets, Loo-Kee, Hordak, Mantenna, Shadow Weaver, sure, but also Prince Adam, Cringer, He-Man, Battle-Cat, the Sorceress, Skeletor, Modulok and Tung Lashor. Oh, and obviously a load of Horde Troopers, but they go without saying really.

 

Excuse given for Adora and Adam’s transformation

Adora transforms into She-Ra twice, and Adam into He-Man once. None of these occasions comes with an excuse, though in fairness, there’s only Cringer and Kowl around at the time.

Skeletor: “Say, guys, you haven’t seen Adam and Adora around, have you?”

 

Insults

Kowl gets surprisingly aggressive in the early stages of the episode, calling one Horde Trooper a “swamp slug” and addressing another as “rivet head” and “coward”. We are also witness to Modulok calling Tung Lashor the possibly misheard “long lips”. The real delights in store here are, of course, between Skeletor and Hordak; the latter addresses the former as “bonehead” and “bone-faced bog wobbler”, to which Skeletor retaliates with a wonderfully sneering “oversized rust bucket”.

 

Does it have the Power?

I can’t deny I’m pretty happy with this one. As noted above, He-Man’s appearances on Etheria are two-a-penny, but Skeletor showing up is a much rarer treat. It doesn’t hurt that he’s brilliantly written in this episode, with some excellent lines given great life by the voice actor. On the downside, I’d have liked his truce with He-Man and She-Ra to last more than 30 seconds, as it would have been very entertaining to watch him try to work together with them, but at least we did get his very amusing battle with Hordak.

Skeletor: “This is my favourite moment in the entire series.”

The other elements of the story were good as well; Modulok seemed to fit here better than he did in either of his appearances in He-Man, and he seems to have made the permanent transfer from Skeletor’s crew to the Horde, so I expect we’ll see him again. Tung Lashor’s appearance in Snake Mountain was just random, though; there was no reason for him to be there. I suspect it was a bit of product placement.

Anyway, while this isn’t quite as good as Horde Prime Takes a Holiday – another episode in the same vein – it’s definitely a highlight. Enjoy!

Episode 34 – Troll’s Dream

In which She-Ra teams up with some trolls. Actual trolls, not online trolls.

As the episode opens, a troll comes to visit the rebel camp in search of Adora. Naturally, Bow, Kowl and Sprag the Twigget think he’s evil, so they waste precious minutes fighting him, before Adora finally appears and reminds the others that trolls aren’t actually baddies, as we learned in The Crystal Castle some time ago. This particular troll, Grox, has brought a message from King Argo, who would like to see She-Ra as soon as possible.

Adora: “Don’t worry about Bow. He’s useless. He can’t hurt you.”

Adora takes the time to tell all her friends off for attacking Grox, before turning into She-Ra and travelling to Spykont to meet Argo. She takes Bow, Kowl and Sprag with her, in an effort to force them to abandon their anti-troll prejudice. Once there, Argo explains to She-Ra that he has recently had a dream in which he saw Horde machinery uncovering an ancient door bearing the symbol of the Spider of Crystal. She-Ra doesn’t know why this is a particularly bad thing, so Argo elaborates that the Spider was a terrible monster from another world, imprisoned long ago in the mound that the Horde are now breaking into.

She-Ra knows what’s coming next, and sure enough, Argo explains that his dream was prophetic and that he would like She-Ra to go and stop the Horde. He sends Grox along with them, and so the rebels and the troll spend their journey trying to learn how to get along with each other. This is made easier by their need to work together to defeat the evil spells of a wizard called Dreer, who has no apparent motivation for getting involved.

Dreer: “Dreer’s the name, dreary’s the game.”

Once Grox is captured by Dreer, the rebels divide their forces. One contingent, consisting of She-Ra and Swift Wind, heads off to the mound to stop the Horde from awakening the Spider, while the other contingent, formed of Bow, Kowl and Sprag, break into Dreer’s castle to rescue Grox. You might expect that with this division of labour, Grox would remain in prison for ever, but in fairness Bow and co. achieve their objective with remarkably little difficulty.

She-Ra, on the other hand, is too late to prevent Shadow Weaver and Scorpia from reviving the Spider, and the Spider therefore begins a tour of havoc and destruction across Etheria. Perhaps not unexpectedly, the rebels and trolls are required to pool their resources in order to defeat it, which is nice, since everyone learns something about cooperation and not being prejudiced. As the episode ends, the Rebellion and the trolls celebrate their joint victory with a few half-hearted cheers and some platitudes about the end of hatred.

Bow: “Can you explain it again, She-Ra? I’m not sure how this hokey-cokey thing works.”

 

In today’s adventure…

It’s back to the bad old days of ridiculous Loo-Kee hiding places today. He’s in a tree, of course, but the tree is the exact same colour as him, and he’s got his back to the camera, which means you’d have to have a Sherlock Holmes degree of observation to be in with a chance. He doesn’t trot out the same old tired story about accepting people for what they do rather than what they look like, which is what I rather expected from this story. Instead, he opts for the very odd suggestion that we should always go to bed when we’re told to. In case you’re looking for the relevance here, it’s tenuously linked into the episode with the fact that Argo had a dream.

 

Character checklist

Today, we have the pleasure of the company of Adora, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Bow, Kowl, Sprag, another Twigget, Loo-Kee, Argo, Grox, Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Greer, and a bunch of villagers. I hope your lives are suitably enriched by this information.

Scorpia: “They really do sell some tat in Claire’s Accessories these days.”

 

Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance

Adora doesn’t even make her transformation on screen this week, and certainly doesn’t see fit to wheel out any implausible excuses.

 

Insults

Sprag calls Grox a “big creep” and a “coward”, and Bow gets in on the act by calling him a “sneaky troll”. Grox retaliates with the uncomfortably true “troll-haters” directed at Bow, Kowl and Sprag. These three are also subject to the mildest possible insult from Greer, who calls them “twits”.

Greer: “I believe that’s what they call a sick burn.”

 

Does it have the Power?

I’m beginning to feel like I need a break from reviewing this cartoon, and in fairness, no one’s forcing me to do it, so I could. The problem is that pretty much every single She-Ra episode feels very competent and reasonable, but very few of them manage to ever rise above that level into outstanding, and equally very few are downright appalling. It makes it very dull for me week after week watching episodes that are neither shining gems or total train wrecks. This episode is yet another example of fine but not amazing fare, which can be best summed up as a pleasant diversion but nothing more. Sorry I don’t have anything more interesting to say, but there we are.

Episode 33 – A Talent for Trouble

In which Madame Razz inadvertently refers to Orko’s sexual activities.

Orko is helping the Sorceress to spring clean Castle Grayskull, but of course he cocks up and accidentally transports himself to Etheria. He immediately meets Madame Razz, so we are faced with a character pairing that I’m sure won’t prove annoying. They are both then captured by Mantenna, who encases them in what look like giant ice cubes. Broom, luckily, escapes and flies off to warn the other rebels.

Broom: “Why do I have to be paired with these divs?”

Once She-Ra learns that Orko is on Etheria, she contacts the Sorceress, presumably hoping that she’ll have a clever trick to get Orko off the planet without delay. It turns out, however, that the Sorceress considers Orko should be kept off Eternia for as long as possible, so simply sends He-Man to Etheria to help out. When He-Man arrives, he wears a pained expression, as if he literally can’t believe he’s having to waste his time here again.

He-Man: “This is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

In the meantime, Mantenna has taken Madame Razz and Orko to the Fright Zone, where Hordak and Shadow Weaver try to work out what Orko is. For some reason, Orko is resistant to all of Shadow Weaver’s magic, so Hordak employs a scientific tool called the mind sweeper instead. If I wanted to be unkind, I might interject at this juncture that Hordak is also a scientific tool. It goes without saying, of course, that the mind sweeper has serious problems with Orko, because he doesn’t have a mind, and the end result is that the mind sweeper explodes.

Realising that they cannot determine what Orko is, Hordak and Shadow Weaver decide to send him as a present to Horde Prime. This gives us a dramatic moment to cut for the advert break, and when we return the story progresses to He-Man and She-Ra busting into the Fright Zone and causing all manner of havoc. They dispose of Grizzlor and Leech with the usual ease, and Catra proves even less challenging. Once they find Madame Razz, she informs them of the plan to send Orko to Horde Prime, so He-Man and She-Ra head straight to the space port.

She-Ra: “To quote Buffy, synchronised slayage!”

On arrival, they find that the rocket containing Orko has already been launched, and that Hordak is gallivanting about on a really strange green insect creature. She-Ra attends to Hordak and the other Horde representatives with another of her trademark pant-displaying kicks, while He-Man leaps onto the rocket. It should be noted that He-Man is clearly less powerful than She-Ra, since he is incredibly concerned about going into outer space without a spacesuit, whereas She-Ra does it regularly just for kicks. Anyway, He-Man successfully redirects the rocket and rescues Orko.

The episode ends with an unwelcome moment in which Orko decides that She-Ra is gorgeous, and tells her so. She-Ra rewards him with a kiss, which prompts He-Man to join in and tell She-Ra she’s beautiful. If he was expecting a kiss, he’s disappointed, at least until after the episode fades out.

 

In today’s adventure…

I found that beastly Loo-Kee again! I can feel my heart bursting with pride. If you must know, he’s in a bush by the path just after Orko arrives on Etheria. His moral is once again pretty stupid, being all about helping people when they need a hand and thus proving that you’re their friend. He tries to link this in to the episode by claiming that Orko was giving the Sorceress a hand with her cleaning, but frankly Orko’s contribution to that task was minimal. It might have worked better if it had been He-Man and She-Ra lending Orko and Madame Razz a hand with being rescued, but even so, it would still have been largely irrelevant to the episode’s story.

The Sorceress: “Let’s see … Orko, mops, and buckets of water. What could possibly go wrong?”

 

Character checklist

What blimey and what a treat this is. There’s Adora, sure, and She-Ra, of course, but what’s this? He-Man too. And Orko and the Sorceress. It’s like a high school reunion. Less excitingly, we see Spirit, Swift Wind, Madame Razz, Broom, Loo-Kee, Hordak, Mantenna, Shadow Weaver, Catra, Leech, Grizzlor and some Horde Troopers. Is that an Evil Horde full house? In case you really want to know, there’s also some weird skull thing with which Orko strikes up a conversation in Castle Grayskull.

 

Excuse given for Adora and Adam’s disappearances

Prince Adam doesn’t feature this time, and Adora’s only contribution is a muttered, “I smell trouble,” to the camera before her transformation.

 

Insults

A wide range of insults this week, and a special prize to the episode for not resorting to using the word ‘fool’. We have Mantenna calling a pair of Horde Troopers “useless tin cans” and Grizzlor calling He-Man a “muscle man”. Orko and Hordak have a brief exchange of sharp words, with Orko telling Hordak he’s a “bonebrain”, and Hordak retaliating with “insect”. Finally, Orko manages to break the mind sweeper in such a way that it begins chanting, “Hordak is a meanie”, prompting Hordak to blow it up, thus rather proving the point.

Madame Razz: “Orko, stop lounging around in your stupid chair! Do something!”

 

Does it have the Power?

Well, Orko and Madame Razz ganging up didn’t prove as irritating as I’d feared, largely because Madame Razz took a back seat throughout most of the episode. It was also almost pleasant to see Orko again; perhaps in small doses, he’s not so bad. Or perhaps it’s simply in comparison to the idiots who populate Etheria. As for He-Man, it’s always pleasing to see him, though I think it’s time for Skeletor to put in another appearance, please.

The storyline was nothing special; it does seem like the Horde waste most of their time capturing solitary rebels, rather than just dropping atom bombs or something equally devastating on Whispering Wood. This week’s effort did have a few nicely sinister overtones, especially the decision to send Orko to Horde Prime, where it is hinted that he will be dissected.

Mantenna: “Yes, this was the best plan I could come up with, but in my defense, I am very stupid.”

Overall, I think I’d describe it as a pretty decent episode, except for one thing. I know it doesn’t have the same meaning in the USA as it does here, but when Madame Razz refers to Orko and says, “I like that little guy’s spunk,” I can’t help but shudder.

Episode 32 – Friends Are Where You Find Them

In which She-Ra meets another irritating child.

I’m sorry to start with a vulgarity, but really, what the absolute fuck? This time, we open with She-Ra and Swift Wind flying through outer space for no purpose whatsoever, just for the sheer demented delight of it. And are they wearing space suits? Are they buggery. Are they merrily talking to each other as if sound carries in a vacuum? Yes they are. I’ve just about accepted She-Ra’s previous forays into space – implausible as they are – as being at least slightly justified by the plot. But this? It’s lunacy.

I think that to get over this insane beginning, I’m going to have to suppose that She-Ra has gone mental and this episode takes place entirely in her head. With that ground rule established, anything in this episode that’s completely nuts can be accepted. This is just as well, because She-Ra next comes across a platoon of Horde space robots, so she turns her sword into a tennis racquet and belts them halfway across the cosmos.

She-Ra: “45 love.”

It turns out the Horde space robots were attacking a spaceship, which now explodes, leaving behind only an escape pod which begins to plummet down to Etheria. She-Ra returns to the planet’s surface herself and is on hand to meet the inhabitant when he emerges. The inhabitant introduces himself as Prince Joel of Antares and he appears to have Filmation Irritating Child Syndrome. She-Ra takes him to see Queen Angela at Bright Moon to contact his parents and get him off Etheria asap.

In the meantime, Bow takes charge of Joel, and takes him to meet a bunch of Bright Moon’s local children, who are happily occupied in cleaning the castle. They offer Joel the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help them, but he explains that he has a RoboFriend who normally does that sort of thing for him. When the children ask Joel to lend them his RoboFriend to do the cleaning, Joel has a massive strop because this is a breach of etiquette. It seems that on Antares, borrowing a RoboFriend is akin to borrowing a dildo or something. In any case, his RoboFriend was damaged when his ship was destroyed, so the whole point is moot.

Bow: “I love hanging around ominously behind groups of children.”

After Adora and Bow retrieve and fix the RoboFriend, the rest of the episode divides its time between Joel learning how to share and Hordak trying to steal the RoboFriend. These plots come together when Adora and Bow take Joel and five other Etherian children on a hike to Big Ditch Canyon. Catra, Grizzlor and Leech cause a distraction, and Imp plants a remote control receiver on the RoboFriend, bringing it under Hordak’s command.

The RoboFriend starts off by grabbing Bow to take him prisoner, a development which pleases Catra immensely but doesn’t please She-Ra at all. She forces the RoboFriend to release Bow, but before she can smash it to smithereens, Joel comes running up to it and it immediately takes him prisoner instead. To the accompaniment of a funky She-Ra theme tune remix, She-Ra gives chase to the RoboFriend and rescues Joel.

Leech: “I regret to inform you, Catra, that you have failed your driving test.”

Back at Bright Moon, Joel gets on a ship to return to Antares, but not before he utters a pearl of complete bollocks disguised as wisdom: “robots are only friendly because they’re programmed to be.” This has the air of a writer desperately trying to make the episode’s events somehow relevant to the real life of 1980s American children, but forgetting that in the real world, the closest equivalent to a RoboFriend in the 1980s was a microwave. Though I’ll be the first to admit the 1980s were a bit weird, I have my doubts that there was a particular problem with children trying to programme their microwaves to be their friends.

 

In today’s adventure…

Got him again! There ain’t a place in this universe Loo-Kee can hide from me now. He’s in a tree outside Bright Moon. (Hint, for those of you who haven’t grasped the pattern yet: he’s pretty much always in a tree.) Anyway, Loo-Kee wants to let us know that people need friends. He stops short of saying that if you haven’t got any friends, you’re a complete failure of a person, but you can see it in his eyes.

Loo-Kee: “Get some friends, you losers.”

 

Character checklist

This excursion into lunacy features Adora, Spirit, She-Ra, Swift Wind, Bow, Queen Angela, Loo-Kee, Prince Joel, some other children, Hordak, Imp, Catra, Grizzlor, Leech and – no surprises here – some Horde Troopers.

 

Excuse given for Adora’s disappearance

Adora develops a stupid habit of directly addressing the camera for no reason whatsoever today. For her first transformation, she states, “I’ve got a strong feeling She-Ra’s going to be needed here,” and for her second she offers, “We’re going to need reinforcements.”

 

Insults

Hordak addresses a Horde Trooper as a “fool”, and seconds later, as a “worthless fool”. These are obviously pretty standard insults, but Hordak does put an impressive degree of vehemence into them, so points for effort, I suppose. Otherwise, it’s Grizzlor who gets a tough time of it, being called a “fuzzface” by Bow and a “furbrain” by Leech.

Catra: “Just gearing up for our big appearance on Jools Holland tonight.”

 

Oh Yes, Bow!

It’s only fair to point out that, far from being useless, Bow actually fixes the RoboFriend twice this week. Well done, Bow! Keep it up, and you’ll be as multi-skilled as Man-at-Arms in no time!

 

Does it have the Power?

Well, it’s completely crazed for its opening few minutes. What particularly got my goat about those minutes is that there was no reason at all for She-Ra to be in space. She could have simply seen the escape pod landing and had the episode proceed from there – but no, she had to be joyriding in space on her unicorn, and had to do that stupid thing with the tennis racquet.

Joel is your usual spoiled Filmation brat, and I don’t believe I’ve mentioned it before, but Imp is incredibly annoying. His voice actor seems to play him as an irritating young child; Kevin from Home Alone springs to mind, and I simply want to punch his stupid blue head off. Other than that, it’s a pretty middling offering, which hits every usual standard episode beat exactly when you expect it to. It does it all fairly competently, so it can’t be termed a failure, but I wouldn’t imagine it makes anyone’s list of favourites.