“The Baby-Sitters Club” Review by Brooke Daugherty : Pop Culture Leftovers

“The Baby-Sitters Club” Review by Brooke Daugherty

July 26, 2020 2:40 pm |

For those of us who loved The Baby-Sitters Club books by Ann M. Martin, the early 90s HBO series or the mid 90s film, Netflix’s series is a faithful and updated adaptation. All the characters are true to the core of the originals with even more diversity than the books.They tackle bullying, responsibility and young love as always, but also include LGBT stories and justice. If you aren’t for teaching your children compassion and understanding, skip it. If you have trouble figuring out how to explain some concepts to your children, let the BSC help you out.

Rachel Shukert serves as showrunner and writer. Producers include studio executive Michael De Luca, Director of three episodes, Lucia Aniello as well as the writer of the original material, Ann M. Martin. Shukert and her writing crew focus on one BSC member per episode in line with the books. Even with different writers on different episodes, the characters’ personalities remain consistent.

Kristy Thomas (Sophie Grace), Claudia Kishi (Momona Tamada), and Stacey McGill (Shay Rudolph) go virtually unchanged. Mary Anne Spier (Malia Baker) is still a buttoned up bookworm with brown hair and brown eyes, but now she is African American as well as Caucasian. Dawn Schafer (Xochitl Gomez) is now a California born Latina whose dad married another man instead of another woman. She still retains her laid back attitude and has included other causes to support. All these young ladies gave great performances. I particularly enjoyed the deadpan performance by Sophia Reid-Gantzert, who played Kristy’s step sister Karen Brewer.

The cast is rounded out with more children and several parents who you would recognize, even if you don’t know where you’ve seen them. The biggest parent star is Alicia Silverstone and yes, there is a Clueless joke. Her casting as Kristy’s mother Liz was brilliant in my opinion. Mark Feuerstein plays Liz’s fiance then husband, Watson Brewer. Marc Evan Jackson was the perfect choice for Mary Anne’s uptight attorney father Richard. Dawn’s free spirited, open mother was played by the effervescent Jessica Elaina Eason.

I don’t have kids, and I haven’t read the books in nearly 30 years, but I loved this series. It is wholesome but still tackles important issues. It is for children, but won’t bore their parents. I was pleasantly surprised with the writing and representation in this reboot. As a child, it is so important to see someone like you on TV and this series really has provided several characters to be a surrogate for young people to see themselves in the stories.

PCL Rating: Tupperware

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: FRESH 🍅