5/1/21

The Baby-sitters Club Netflix TV Series: Claudia and Mean Janine

Netflix has a new original series: The Baby-sitters Club! The first season covers the first eight books plus a sort of adaptation of of the second super special, Baby-sitters Summer Vacation. AND...it's set in the present day (2019/2020), updated accordingly, and much more diverse. The plots are broadly the same as the original books. Here are some things that I noticed...

What stood out as surprisingly (not necessarily good or bad) different to me:    

Claudia and Trevor spend more time together--not really dating at this point, but getting to know each other better.

The BSC redecorates Mary Anne's room together, with Claudia leading the charge. First, Claudia and Stacey talk with Richard about a misunderstanding from earlier, and all make amends. Mary Anne doesn't feel that the room is quite right at first, but when she and her dad put up some mementos of her mom's, she loves it.

Sam hangs out more with the BSC, which helps develop his relationship with Stacey.

Mary Anne meets Logan here, who's not a transfer student. His sister (Kerry, I assume) is showing pottery at the same art show Claudia shows her paintings at.

With the plots being set a couple decades later than in the books, Mimi's age is adjusted accordingly. Thus, she was a child during World War II...living in the US...and spent three years in an internment camp. Mimi's awful memories about her time there resurface after her stroke.


What I was happy stayed the same:

Claudia has her junk food art show!

The show depicts stroke recovery and Claudia's worry and confusion well.


Other interesting touches: 

Claudia's earrings look hand-made.

There's speculation that Janine is on the autism spectrum. Same for Mary Anne's dad.

I liked seeing the BSC families coming together to support the Kishis.

I'm glad the internment camps were brought up. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I learned about them at a young age, but a lot of people in other parts of the US have said they were never mentioned in school.

The Humpty Dumpty picture from Mary Anne's infancy is revealed to have been her mother's when Alma was a baby.

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