When I heard that they were rebooting this I was rather sceptical. I loved the original series and have recently read all of the books to my son.
I was pleased to discover when watching this that it is less of a reboot and more an outright sequel.
This series makes some changes to the book that it was based on. Some I enjoyed... some did irritate me a tad.
On the positive side... I liked that they added more links to the previous series. Bringing back a couple of the original kids was a nice touch... although it is a shame that they couldn't get the original actors back. This gave the series much more of a sequel feel and just made it feel a bit more complete than the book did.
I also quite like the alterations they made to the headmaster. In the book he is rarely seen in person and uses holograms to hypnotise people at the start of the book. His presence becomes much more felt later. This series instead gives us a different headmaster who acts much the same as the original... but who isn't quite the same. Which allows for another link to the previous series, which I thought was good.
I have to give points to the actor who plays Blake... because he pulls off being completely unhinged very well. They made Blake's character much better than he was in the books. In the books he was just kind of there until the last few chapters. With this, his presence is much more signnificant and he actually has a backstory, instead of basically just being an arse for no reason.
I also enjoyed the changes that they made to Angelika's background. Instead of simply being a rather spoild bratt (prior to the headmaster) like she was in the books... she was formerly a green peace freedom fighter type individual. Which makes the headmaster turning her into a ruthless businesswoman much more significant.
In the book the skills that the children get chosen to excel at are diameteically opposed to who they are. The idea being for the headmaster to show how he can make anybody good at anything. Which is what I like avout the changes that they made to Angelika, but it also brings me to my negatives.
In the book Ethan is a tiny weed of a child... it is commented on multiple times that he looks incredibly out of place when surrounded by the athletic lads on the football team. He is made to be good at football because he looks lile he shouldn't be. I know that he is still a former computer geek turned football star... so the contrast is still there... but I would have prefered it if they kept him smaller stature from the book.
In the book Lizzie becomes an expert in Shakespeare's use of language. Which is not what you would expect from a girl who recently had to be dragged before the head for assaulting another child (even if she did do so to protect her brother). The fact that it isn't what people would expect it from her is precisely why the headmaster chose it for her.
In this series however, Ethan absolutely looks like a footballer. He doesn't look out of place om the football team at all and is in fact taller than many of his team mates. The actor does a great job... he just should have been small and weedy.
Lizzie's special skill is changed from Shakespeare to martial arts. Which is a sensible way to chanel aggression and absolutely what I would recommend for a real child with anger management issues. But the headmaster is meant to be highlighting how he can make any child an expert at anything... so I think sticking with Shakespeare would have been better. Although I imagine it was changed because watching her do matial arts is more entertaining than watching her read books and write essays.
My only other negative is the amount of fluff that they have in this series. The original series took three half hour episodes to do book one. This is ten half hour episodes to do book seven.
The books are a pretty similar length... but the series is seven episodes longer. So obviously, they have had to add a lot of stuff in to fill that extra time. Not all of the added stuff is bad... some of it was actually well done. But I do feel they probably could have shaved it down to seven episodes by removing much of the fluff.
Other than those things I think the series does well. The acting is pretty good. I was highly amused by Blake's accent, because when reading this book to my son, that is exactly the accent that I used for Ethan. Not really relevent, but I found it an amusing coincidence.
The one thing that I like about this series over the original series is that nobody is safe in this one. In the original series and the earlier books the members of SPLAT are all immune to the headmaster (except for Dinah). So they have a level of protection. In this book... nobody is. Which means any mistakes can seriously screw the heroes over. It adds en extra layer of threat that I think is good.
I still prefer the original series. But this is a solid sequel.
I was pleased to discover when watching this that it is less of a reboot and more an outright sequel.
This series makes some changes to the book that it was based on. Some I enjoyed... some did irritate me a tad.
On the positive side... I liked that they added more links to the previous series. Bringing back a couple of the original kids was a nice touch... although it is a shame that they couldn't get the original actors back. This gave the series much more of a sequel feel and just made it feel a bit more complete than the book did.
I also quite like the alterations they made to the headmaster. In the book he is rarely seen in person and uses holograms to hypnotise people at the start of the book. His presence becomes much more felt later. This series instead gives us a different headmaster who acts much the same as the original... but who isn't quite the same. Which allows for another link to the previous series, which I thought was good.
I have to give points to the actor who plays Blake... because he pulls off being completely unhinged very well. They made Blake's character much better than he was in the books. In the books he was just kind of there until the last few chapters. With this, his presence is much more signnificant and he actually has a backstory, instead of basically just being an arse for no reason.
I also enjoyed the changes that they made to Angelika's background. Instead of simply being a rather spoild bratt (prior to the headmaster) like she was in the books... she was formerly a green peace freedom fighter type individual. Which makes the headmaster turning her into a ruthless businesswoman much more significant.
In the book the skills that the children get chosen to excel at are diameteically opposed to who they are. The idea being for the headmaster to show how he can make anybody good at anything. Which is what I like avout the changes that they made to Angelika, but it also brings me to my negatives.
In the book Ethan is a tiny weed of a child... it is commented on multiple times that he looks incredibly out of place when surrounded by the athletic lads on the football team. He is made to be good at football because he looks lile he shouldn't be. I know that he is still a former computer geek turned football star... so the contrast is still there... but I would have prefered it if they kept him smaller stature from the book.
In the book Lizzie becomes an expert in Shakespeare's use of language. Which is not what you would expect from a girl who recently had to be dragged before the head for assaulting another child (even if she did do so to protect her brother). The fact that it isn't what people would expect it from her is precisely why the headmaster chose it for her.
In this series however, Ethan absolutely looks like a footballer. He doesn't look out of place om the football team at all and is in fact taller than many of his team mates. The actor does a great job... he just should have been small and weedy.
Lizzie's special skill is changed from Shakespeare to martial arts. Which is a sensible way to chanel aggression and absolutely what I would recommend for a real child with anger management issues. But the headmaster is meant to be highlighting how he can make any child an expert at anything... so I think sticking with Shakespeare would have been better. Although I imagine it was changed because watching her do matial arts is more entertaining than watching her read books and write essays.
My only other negative is the amount of fluff that they have in this series. The original series took three half hour episodes to do book one. This is ten half hour episodes to do book seven.
The books are a pretty similar length... but the series is seven episodes longer. So obviously, they have had to add a lot of stuff in to fill that extra time. Not all of the added stuff is bad... some of it was actually well done. But I do feel they probably could have shaved it down to seven episodes by removing much of the fluff.
Other than those things I think the series does well. The acting is pretty good. I was highly amused by Blake's accent, because when reading this book to my son, that is exactly the accent that I used for Ethan. Not really relevent, but I found it an amusing coincidence.
The one thing that I like about this series over the original series is that nobody is safe in this one. In the original series and the earlier books the members of SPLAT are all immune to the headmaster (except for Dinah). So they have a level of protection. In this book... nobody is. Which means any mistakes can seriously screw the heroes over. It adds en extra layer of threat that I think is good.
I still prefer the original series. But this is a solid sequel.