WondLa And How To Make Sci-Fi Kids Shows
WondLa Understands Expostion Better Than Most
WondLa is what a children’s television series should aspire to be. It’s kid-friendly but doesn’t disrespect its audience. It uses tropes but doesn’t fall into them completely. Despite having a very fleshed-out world to build, it doesn’t stop and shove exposition. At every point in the first three episodes, you are expected to pay attention to small details and look for answers to its many mysteries.
But, and this is the thing that impressed me the most, this isn’t a series that’s about secrets. It’s not obscuring stuff. It’s not stretching things out. We get answers to things as they would organically arise, and the characters are (seemingly) almost always in the dark as much as we are. It’s a show that rewards speculation and is very good about not breaking its own rules. It’s what Wolf King could’ve been.
And if that wasn’t good enough, WondLa also has a great premise—at least from what I currently know is going on. It’s a classic Rapunzel situation with a sci-fi twist. Our main character—a girl named Eva, who we see grow up until she’s 16—is isolated to a small underground chamber where she’s raised by A.I.s and told she’ll eventually get to meet with other humans. But it’s implied (though not confirmed) that the system is faulty and won’t actually let her out. She may be trained in survival, science, math, and so much more in preparation, but has no understanding of how to interact with people and doesn’t quite know to distrust anything that’s presented to her. Until—as you can obviously guess—stuff goes wrong, and she has to leave the shelter to a new world.
WondLa Adds So Much Depth To Its Sci-Fi Premise
A world that is supposed to be our world, but has many alien cultures actively inhabiting it, as well as tons of dangerous plants and animals. Basically, it’s the perfect scenario for a character to have adventures and to learn things organically. It’s the perfect justification for why Eva can climb mountains and keep herself alive, but also makes her charmingly naïve and justified in asking any question she wants to ask. If making a series that keeps people watching was a math problem, WondLa would be the solution.
It’s just a shame about that animation. I’m not saying it’s awful—there are a lot of cool tableaus—but characters sometimes look like they don’t actually belong in the scene. In episode 3, we meet a family, and I swear the dad doesn’t look like he was fully rendered. And then there are the mouth movements. What a character says versus how their mouth moves is frequently bafflingly different. The show is originally made in English, and I watched it in English, so I don’t know how a dubbing issue might arise. It’s very distracting.
It’s also distracting when the dialog does a few things that make me concerned it’ll become an overarching issue with WondLa. One is ableist jokes. We get a few of those, primarily about an older alien creature similar in job to a (very small) racing horse with some sort of eyesight issue. It’s irritating how many times series—even otherwise good ones—have moments like that. The other is the possibility of making some kind of cultural allusion with the aliens. When creating fake species, especially when doing so for a show intended for kids, there’s so many chances to accidentally recreate a stereotype. Multiple characters that Eva meets are intended to be quirky or eccentric, and though I’m not knowledgeable enough to spot what might already be problematic, I did have a lingering worry. So, watch with that in mind.
Do give WondLa a try, though. As long as it doesn’t do anything else that it really shouldn’t, it’s an incredibly bingeable series, with tons of interesting plot points. Unlike so many other animated series, there are no aggressively juvenile jokes yet, barely any moments of pure convenience, and clear science fiction ideas underpinning the story. The pace is good. The voice acting is good. It’s good. If you’ve already watched the usual recommended serialized cartoons, WondLa is a good next option.
Possibly Related Posts:
Comments