Would Be Perfect Except for "the Barn Gang."
If you can imagine that Lassie at some point has been crossed with a cat, a mountain goat, and a monkey to explain her wonderful athletic ability in this series (she can leap from the top of a ferris wheel compartment, to the side of the superstructure, to another ferris wheel compartment, while the ferris wheel is moving or hang upside down on a horizontal bar or rapell off the sides of cliffs without ropes) this is a not-bad piece of entertainment where Lassie and her human, 10-year-old Zoe, run free on adventures with Zoe's best friend Harvey, bookworm and climbing/photography buff. (Zoe's dad is the head ranger at the Grand Mountain National Park and her mom is the park vet; Harvey's mom works in the visitor's center. They get in all sorts of predicaments in which Lassie always manages some amazing move to get them out of trouble.
Lassie interacts with humans as a dog, but "talks" to the four animals that hang out in an old barn, and thereby hangs the problem: the Barn Gang is just annoying. There's Looper, a perpetually hungry raccoon; Pika, a magpie that Lassie rescued; Houdini, a hamster that somehow is allowed to run loose and never gets eaten; and Biff, the pug who belongs to Mrs. Lee, the owner of the Happy Camper store (you'd never know it, he's never with her), who has this tremendous crush on Lassie, which is eye-rollingly bad. I guess the Barn Gang is there as humor for the youngest kids, but really, the series would be best if it was just an adventure with Lassie, Zoe and Harvey and got rid of the silly animals.
For a story originally made in 2014, it's not very multicultural. The only African-Americans you ever see regularly are Harvey and his mom, and Mrs. Lee is apparently the only Asian person ever at the park. Some good (a girl named Olive) and bad (a ringmaster's assistant) persons of color appear occasionally, but the park guests seem to be universally white. No Latinos are represented, and, for a show that looks like it takes place out in the western US or Canada, there are no Native characters. Very surprising in this day and age.
Lassie interacts with humans as a dog, but "talks" to the four animals that hang out in an old barn, and thereby hangs the problem: the Barn Gang is just annoying. There's Looper, a perpetually hungry raccoon; Pika, a magpie that Lassie rescued; Houdini, a hamster that somehow is allowed to run loose and never gets eaten; and Biff, the pug who belongs to Mrs. Lee, the owner of the Happy Camper store (you'd never know it, he's never with her), who has this tremendous crush on Lassie, which is eye-rollingly bad. I guess the Barn Gang is there as humor for the youngest kids, but really, the series would be best if it was just an adventure with Lassie, Zoe and Harvey and got rid of the silly animals.
For a story originally made in 2014, it's not very multicultural. The only African-Americans you ever see regularly are Harvey and his mom, and Mrs. Lee is apparently the only Asian person ever at the park. Some good (a girl named Olive) and bad (a ringmaster's assistant) persons of color appear occasionally, but the park guests seem to be universally white. No Latinos are represented, and, for a show that looks like it takes place out in the western US or Canada, there are no Native characters. Very surprising in this day and age.
- LindaY
- May 4, 2020