A.N.T.: Achtung Natur-Talente

I have watched Disney Channel since I was 6. At that age, they had some good shows, like Lizzie McGuire and That's So Raven, and Phil of the Future and Life With Derek, as well as So Weird, also worked too. However, with the birth of "Hannah Montana," Disney went majorly down-hill. Wizards and Good luck Charlie were amusing and tolerable, but Fish Hooks is really stupid and annoying -and Shake it Up?!?! Come on, I loathe the THEME SONG of that...that...(It's so dumb I cannot even call it a show.) However, A.N.T. Farm (and maybe their new show,Jessie) may bring Disney, while not to its former prime (that can never happen again), at least a bigger fan base and less patheticness.I think A.N.T. Farm is, while sometimes cheesy,Cute, eye catching, and watchable! I like the principal a LOT, and Wacky The Wolf random appearances,well...that's ant-tastic! Hahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaa! OK, that's enough random ANT-humor.

I had no high hopes for this show, and I was right, this show is awful. Let me start with the characters, we have: The smart fun girl(Chyna Parks); The crazy wacky Girl (Olive Doyle) ; And the Guy who hangs out with them (Fletcher Quimby) and has a crush on Chyna. Hasn't iCarly already done this? The characters are 2 dimensional, by that I mean they have no deep character what-so-ever. The acting is mediocre and sounds too forced and fake, making the show quite bad in general. Also, the premise is very simple and plain, I'm assuming the idea was: "Hey! How about we take middle-schoolers, and put them in High School! Genius!" The comedy is very dull and annoying, relying on randomness and visual gags. For example, Chyna opens her locker and a bunch of plastic balls fall out; Fletcher paints his teacher as a skeleton, etc. This show also uses young children in attempt to connect to the audience, which doesn't work.

Take my advice, watch something else.

It's cute, silly and a bit of fun. Although it will never win any awards it still has it's charm. The characters may be a little weird and out there but they are entertaining in their own ways. China Anne McClain is certainly the star of the show and has great potential. The occasional catchy fun song is thrown in from time to time which also adds to the likability of the show. While it is not superb television it will entertain you.

There are good episodes and bad ones and luckily they ended the show on a high before it dragged out too long. It is great for kids, not so much for people with short attention spans but it really is not that bad.

Advanced Natural Talent, that's what an ANT is in the world of high school Magic Kingdom style. Some of these kids are stretching the boundaries of what might be talent. One young lady has a photographic memory, another kid makes robots, one is an aspiring gymnast. But our protagonist young Chyna Ann McLain only sings beautifully. All the kids are too young for high school and none of them really fit in, nor do the others try. In fact one of them is Carlon Jeffrey who is Chyna's older brother and he's more of a traditional misfit.

ANT Farm is neither the best or the worst of Disney's juvenile comedy shows. It's like Hannah Montana in that it really only comes alive when a very talented young lady like Miley Cyrus opens up and sings.

When I decided to attempt to give everything on Disney Plus a try, it was the show's like "ANT Farm" that I was particularly concerned about. There appear to be endless, witless, crappy, canned laughter shows like this, that I'm going to have to have a shot at. I watched two episodes before deciding that life was too short, which equates to just over 3% of the shows complete output.

11 year old music prodigy Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain) joins high school early, as part of the advanced natural talents (A.N.T) programme. There she meets Olive (Sierra McCormick) and Fletcher (Jake Short) fellow wunderkind who warn her about the tribulations of the older kids at the school. These include Lexi (Stefanie Scott) the schools head cheerleader who immediately takes against Chyna, but also her older brother Cameron (Carlon Jeffery) who isn't keen about sharing a school with his younger sister.

I am miles away from the target audience for something like "ANT Farm" and had it not been for my stupid quest to watch stuff blind, would never have come across it. Though there's potential in some of the cast ultimately I can't say that I enjoyed it. I'm not going to criticise the kids for their stageschool overacting (any further than just mentioning it there). I'm sure it's what they were told to do and depending on the character performances run from promising to nails down a blackboard. I will throw some shade in the direction of Zach Steel and his character of Gibson, the student councillor. He's spectacularly awful, a gurning unfunny jackass. It's a hugely broad style of comedy, that I'd imagine might appeal to kids of that age. Silly, slapstick style humour that I felt got old pretty quickly. I should say that each of the two episodes I watched, did raise a smile in me at some point though.

I feel like, though I didn't care for "ANT Farm" much I fear that further investigation of shows available on Disney Plus may end up with me looking back fondly on it.