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Thursday, February 01, 2024

Arthur: Season 23: Episode 3: The Pea and the Princess/D.W. and Dr. Whosit

Arthur PBS 




Episode 3a : The Pea and the Princess 

    The Cold Open:  No, this episode isn't Arthur doing a whole episode in the world of the Princess and the Pea. Though kind of. Prunella is running a play with the 3rd graders (Arthur's class) and has done the Disney thing of making the play one name "The Pea" instead of you know. (We found it would test better with boys if it just didn't have the word Princess in it. Francine didn't like the new name and gets into a skirmish and causes a heavy vase to hit Prunella's leg. We get a break a leg joke. Proud of her taking out Prunella, Francine talks to us and says now let's go back to the beginning.  (Apparently this was the middle?) 

The Episode:   Rewinding back, Prunella has done her own version of a public domain story (Public domain rules!) and is able to cast students for it.  So first, there are auditions.  Francine and Muffy have both been made into princess. This episode makes two behind mentions, good for it.  Apparently, Prunella's idea is her play has two princesses because Francine fits the role of a strong princess and a prim and proper one.  Binky has been made the pea, which apparently is a role now.   

          Prunella makes instant changes to play like somehow, both Buster and Arthur are both horses' rear ends. (someone thought that was funny)  Francine thinks its annoying and wants to fix the play.  It seems the final straw was her renaming the play "The Pea".   And the events we saw earlier happened, and now Francine made some changes. Binky quits.  This also goes badly. Then there's a quick apology and then there's work to fix the play. Francine gets Binky and now the evening showing of the play. 

            Then it goes fine. This episode is simple, mostly Francine getting annoyed and not quitting, strange play moves, and random things in-between. The idea of the episode is that Prunella made a play her way and wasn't really being bossy or rude, but trying to make her vision work and Francine didn't like it, especially after having some lines cut.  That's really it.    I don't know 6/10? If we're grading here. 

The Kids segment: Improv is cool. 

More after the jump 




Episode 3B: D.W. and Dr. Whosit 

The cold open: I will comment that D.W is trying to make pancakes, this won't be good.  Arthur is talking about it's good sometimes to do things when you get the proper age. There's an image spot where like Bud has decided to invest the Reads' life savings in gum and stuffed toys for example.  The episode is about something like this, but not as interesting. 

The Episode:  Dr. Whosit sounds like someone saw those kids liking "The Doctor Who" and went parody name. I do have to point out that  I'm surprised the show took that long to make one. This episode aired on television in late 2019.  I'm not sure it's fully a Doctor Who parody. 

         Anyway Buster and Arthur are talking about it, saying it's a new show. D.W wonders why they are saying weird things and notices other and some adults  are saying words from it.   D.W wants to see it but her Father thinks it's not a show younger kids should be watching.  She even gets tricked by the Tibbles because of course she does. 

            I do love how Arthur automatically asks how much she paid. well done. The episode turns into D.W really wanting to watch the show and finding out her parents actually use the parental locks thing. (They don't want their kids watching FX) Then she does creative things to try and find the four letter passcode.  Even get a moment about the parents not being good at remembering the passwords to things  and they have a book of all their passwords and stuff.  

            D.W calls Bud to help her distract her dad while she figures out the passcode. The passcode for the TV is READ, because yes. They the duo watch the show and do get scared and then bored. The parents find out and Bud runs away. They talk to D.W and tell her that parents want to make sure they do what's best for the kids. They tell her no TV for a week.   That'd be fine, the ending isn't very good  because they parents then tell Arthur that he shouldn't be watching it either.  That comes out of nowhere and it's dumb.  Arthur wasn't the only kid his age watching and really had nothing in this plot to add to a reason for that, so that was not purposeful. 

            Anyway, that's it, uh not the strongest episode either, very simple and only slightly brings anything entertaining. They did want to try something besides the classic don't watch something and then the kid gets scared. Though, I kind of liked that D.W watched it and got bored, might have been better that way. Like the whole episode she wants to watch the show, watches it and finds it boring. Oh well.  (Realistically, D.W in current times would have just found clips on Youtube, somehow)   

    That's it for now, tune in next time when you have to unlock a post with a four letter word. 


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