Thursday, December 16, 2021

The Book of Rannells: Ridley Jones: Season 1, Episode 2 – “Fly Like an Eagle / My Dinner with Ismat” (2021)

Another animated show, featuring Andrew Rannells on a couple episodes. This Netflix kids' series seems cute and offers up some interesting stuff for kids, although the messaging definitely feels like it skews pretty young.

The eponymous Ridley Jones helps her mother and grandmother as caretakers of the Museum of Natural History. Little does the public know, all the exhibits are actually alive, and while they stay stock still during the day, they come out at night. Ridley does her best to learn the ropes of maintaining the museum, as well as safeguarding her friends, the living exhibits.

In “Fly Like an Eagle,” a dodo named Dudley causes some trouble when he decides he’d rather live in the eagle exhibit, since he’s always wanted to fly. Ridley wants to support Dudley’s dream, but she also knows the exhibits need to stay historically/geographically accurate. And in “My Dinner with Ismat,” Ridley worries that her mummy friend Ismat is hiding something from her and the exhibits when Ismat avoids letting them see her home in the Egyptian wing.

There’s some nice stuff here. I like the image of three generations of women looking after the museum, and the premise is fun, even if “the museum exhibits are alive!” is pretty well-trod territory. The theme song is catchy, and the voice actors all do a fine job. Noteworthy here are Sutton Foster as Ridley’s mom and Blythe Danner as her grandma.

On the other hand, this is really kiddish, which I’m sure is perfectly fine for kids but isn’t all that interesting to me, an adult who’s only in it for the Andrew Rannells appearance. Each story has a worthwhile message – history matters and you can’t change it to suit your preference, honesty about what’s bothering you is better than sneaking around – but they’re also telegraphed from space.

Andrew Rannells appears in the second story as Aten, one of Ismat’s dads (it took me a while to place the voice of the other one, but it’s Chris Colfer, which is fun.) The fairly-casual LGBTQ inclusion is nice, although I’m sure it was more than enough to set off claxons in intolerant circles. I like Ismat’s explanation that having two dads just means “twice as many dad jokes,” and I enjoy the “cozy family with embarrassingly-doting dads” image transposed onto Egyptian mummies.

Not a demanding performance for Rannells, but it’s cute and he and Colfer are fun together. What’s inexcusable, though? There’s a song in the Ismat story and neither of them get to sing! Why would you cast Rannells and Colfer and then do that? Come on, show, get it together!

First impressions:

Recommend?

In General – For kids, probably. For adults, not so much.

Andrew Rannells – Eh. Cute but not essential.

Warnings

Nothing really.

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