A.N.T. Farm: Accademia Nuovi Talenti

I cannot see how this show even passed the drawing board. I know Disney has had poor taste lately but this just adds to the idea of failure. Basically, the show is a bunch of pre-teens who are in an advanced program set at their local high school. One of them is a musical prodigy even though it is blatantly obvious that she cannot play any of those instruments. The other is a person who can memorize everything they see and hear. That is not exactly likely. The jokes are cheesy and overdone. I cannot see that plan even passing in the real world. Where do you get enough geniuses to create this program? The acting is lousy and very overly dramatic. Just skip A.N.T. Farm.

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.

As much as I did grow up on Disney, I do dislike most of the stuff on the Disney Channel nowadays. I do like very much Sonny with a Chance, Good Luck Charlie and Phineas and Ferb, but there are some like Hannah Montana and Shake it Up that I can't stand, I find those shows irritating and unfunny.

I actually wasn't expecting much from A.N.T Farm, but got far more than I expected and in a good way. I can understand though why some mayn't like A.N.T. Farm, some of it is cheesy(with a rather edgy reference to Satan at one point) and the pilot episode is not as funny or as exciting as the other episodes(the haunted locker episode was one of the better episodes).

That said, I do think A.N.T. Farm has potential to grow. A lot of TV series when they first start are rocky to start with, and get better until they're great. Although A.N.T. Farm has only just started, it's not bad, in fact I like it.

For instance, the production values are well above average, with trendy fashions, sets that don't look tacky and good(if not award-worthy) photography. The music is also very memorable and catchy, with nice melodies and lyrics that make sense and are intelligible.

The writing is amusing mostly, some of it is cheesy, but the dialogue does make me laugh and the jokes are not as clichéd or as stale as they can be on some Disney Channel shows. The story lines may have some predictable moments, but overall they're interesting and well paced.

I personally really like the characters. Chyna is very charismatic and fun, and the actress who plays her seems to be having a ball playing her, but my favourites are Lexi and Olive, played very appealingly by Stefanie Scott and Sierra McCormick. Paisley, Gibson and especially Fletcher are also fun characters. The actors do have chemistry, and I was most surprised by the singing, the lead actress has real talent and could go a long way with a voice like that.

In conclusion, this show to start with is not perfect, but it's far better than expected and has room to grow. 8/10 Bethany Cox

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.

This show really needs to be reworked. It seems to be a Hannah Montana knock-off. The lead character is a singer (without the secret identity). Since the show began I have come to seriously dislike the Chyna Parks character she is constantly bossing her friends around insisting that they do what she wants with little concern for their feelings of ideas. The show would be much better if she went from a lead character to a costar and they elevated the other characters to equal status. The two cheerleaders Lexi and Paisley are good though they should make Paisley a bit smarter (she is in High School after all). And Lexi's schemes always make me laugh. The Angus character just needs to go away he is absolutely useless. Since the show began he was only useful in one episode. Finesse Mitchell is hilarious as the dad (Darryl) but I think that there are some Cops out there that may not care for him. Overall if they tone down Chyna and spotlight the other characters this show will be a really good show.

Update: After watching pretty much every episode I think I have figured out the basic storyline for each episode.

The show opens with one or more of the cast members either wanting to do something not wanting to do something or doing something.

Enter Chyna. She sees what is happening and she either doesn't want the cast member do something, wants them to do something or wants to do it herself.

She comes up with a plan to get her way; regardless of what her "friend(s)" want.

She drafts her "friends" into helping her. Her plan fails. She sings a song.

Chyna's "friends" apologize.

I put "friends" in parenthesis because she doesn't treat them like true friends. Also they are still using the autotuner for Chyna's songs. This is usually used for people that do not sing very well. So its use confuses me since I cannot believe that Disney would have somebody sing if they really can't