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argentum_lsBecause of my viewing history, Netflix recently started recommending the Nickelodeon show Henry Danger to me.
While I've heard of this show, I've never tuned in before. My child has passed the age where I'm a captive audience of Nick and Disney, and I've had plenty of programming on other channels/services to keep me from tuning in on my own. I often like kids' shows, though. My bedrock fandom is The Tomorrow People -- both the 1973 and 1992 versions aired on Nick in my part of the world -- and I've more recently gone head over heels for Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix. But they're not a medium I typically seek out.
Netflix's algorithm was persistent, though, so I decided to give the show a try -- and it has been an absolute delight. This show is amazing! Now I'm deep into a binge-watch, which has led me to reflect on why I'm enjoying this show so much.
Upfront: Henry Danger is very much a kids' show. Four of the six main characters are children or teens, played by actors who are close to being the same age as their characters (no 35 year old teenagers here!), the plots are often insipid or banal by adult-TV standards (an episode's plot might be entirely about what happens when you text the wrong person by accident), there's a lot of body-function humor, and the acting involves a great deal of shouting and overly dramatic gesturing.
I'm fairly immune to bad acting, and I know how to use the fast forward button when something hits my embarrassment squick, though, so those factors aren't contributing ones for me one way or the other. The fact that the characters are played by same-age actors is a draw because it's one place belief doesn't have to be suspended, which buys room for all the other places where it really does.
The premise is that the titular character, Henry Hart, gets hired to be a superhero sidekick named Kid Danger to the town's superhero, Captain Man. The show then proceeds through the list of superhero- and teen comedy-related tropes.
Apparently, Henry Danger was Nickelodeon's most popular one ever, so it lasted 128 episodes before ending early in 2020. There are also at least three crossovers with other popular Nick shows, including Game Shakers, The Thundermans, and Knight Squad and a couple different spin-offs: The Henry Danger Motion Comic, The Adventures of Kid Danger (animated), and Danger Force.
Right away, Henry Danger has a lot going for it for my tastes: secret identities revealed/discovered, found family, characters looking out for and supporting each other, humor, coming of age. However, where it really seems to hit is that the show is a superhero farce that is not only perfectly aware of the tropes, but actively delights in poking fun at them. Sometimes it's hard to tell where the lampshade ends, starting with the superhero names of the main characters: Captain Man and Kid Danger, and moving into the characters actively commenting on how they're meeting or challenging different tropes. One of my favorite lines comes late in the 5th season, when the characters find themselves involved in another time travel escapade, and Henry comments: "The rules of time travel change every time we do it, Dude!"
The biggest draw is that the show is light -- as in the storylines are ridiculous, the villains are silly and played-for-laughs, and the actors are clearly having a good time. It reminds me a lot of the early seasons of Psych in that regard. There's certainly drama and serious moments, but the show always manages to regain its lightness. In an era where grimdark has become the order of the day, the absurdity and silliness of this show are a relief. And, because this is a kids' show, I know it's going to stay light, unlike Supergirl and The Flash which started out light (or at least more so than Arrow) and then got darker and heavier with each season.
It's also light in that the sets are well-illuminated, and holy shit is it nice to be able to see what's going on.
As with a lot of kids' show plots, there are a lot of situations played for laughs that are truly horrific if you think about them for more than two seconds. In one episode, for example, a rando extra comes to the Hart house for a cheap spray tan and ends up having his memory wiped because he caught Kid Danger without his mask on. The show has already established that a memory wipe leaves the person able to eat and talk and "that's about it." In another episode, a character is bitten by a snake, and across the span of the episode we get to see his hand swell and become necrotic while the character begs (to no avail) to be taken to the hospital. However, because this is a kids' show, there's a certain amount of safety built into these events. The rando is never heard from again, though one can presume everything turned out fine, and the snake-bitten kid makes a full recovery before his next appearance.
However, at no point is a character going to get brutally murdered (because it's realistic, yo), and no one is ever raped or sexually assaulted nor are rape/sexual assault the motivating factor for anyone. The latter is one of the things that keeps drawing me back to Leverage. It's so off the table here, though, that the couple of times the show dishes out an innuendo-based sex joke, it's easy to laugh at the innocence of that too.
I also love superhero violence, and there's no shortage of characters getting punched, flipped, and thrown into walls in ways that should cause permanent injury or death (especially since Henry doesn't actually have superpowers for most of the show), but the kids' show platform again provides that safety of knowing nothing really bad is every going to happen, which means I can enjoy the violence (and the stunts) and the satisfaction of watching the bad guys take it on the chin.
I'm not going to claim the show has everything I want since I'm still a whump fan at heart and I still loathe body function humor. There's also some hints of skeezy content because it's a Dan Schneider show (and some recurring jokes I actually get because I've seen his other big show, iCarly).
However, it's such a relief to watch a show without having to worry about the writers going for tautological shock value.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a show to keep binge watching.
While I've heard of this show, I've never tuned in before. My child has passed the age where I'm a captive audience of Nick and Disney, and I've had plenty of programming on other channels/services to keep me from tuning in on my own. I often like kids' shows, though. My bedrock fandom is The Tomorrow People -- both the 1973 and 1992 versions aired on Nick in my part of the world -- and I've more recently gone head over heels for Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix. But they're not a medium I typically seek out.
Netflix's algorithm was persistent, though, so I decided to give the show a try -- and it has been an absolute delight. This show is amazing! Now I'm deep into a binge-watch, which has led me to reflect on why I'm enjoying this show so much.
Upfront: Henry Danger is very much a kids' show. Four of the six main characters are children or teens, played by actors who are close to being the same age as their characters (no 35 year old teenagers here!), the plots are often insipid or banal by adult-TV standards (an episode's plot might be entirely about what happens when you text the wrong person by accident), there's a lot of body-function humor, and the acting involves a great deal of shouting and overly dramatic gesturing.
I'm fairly immune to bad acting, and I know how to use the fast forward button when something hits my embarrassment squick, though, so those factors aren't contributing ones for me one way or the other. The fact that the characters are played by same-age actors is a draw because it's one place belief doesn't have to be suspended, which buys room for all the other places where it really does.
The premise is that the titular character, Henry Hart, gets hired to be a superhero sidekick named Kid Danger to the town's superhero, Captain Man. The show then proceeds through the list of superhero- and teen comedy-related tropes.
Apparently, Henry Danger was Nickelodeon's most popular one ever, so it lasted 128 episodes before ending early in 2020. There are also at least three crossovers with other popular Nick shows, including Game Shakers, The Thundermans, and Knight Squad and a couple different spin-offs: The Henry Danger Motion Comic, The Adventures of Kid Danger (animated), and Danger Force.
Right away, Henry Danger has a lot going for it for my tastes: secret identities revealed/discovered, found family, characters looking out for and supporting each other, humor, coming of age. However, where it really seems to hit is that the show is a superhero farce that is not only perfectly aware of the tropes, but actively delights in poking fun at them. Sometimes it's hard to tell where the lampshade ends, starting with the superhero names of the main characters: Captain Man and Kid Danger, and moving into the characters actively commenting on how they're meeting or challenging different tropes. One of my favorite lines comes late in the 5th season, when the characters find themselves involved in another time travel escapade, and Henry comments: "The rules of time travel change every time we do it, Dude!"
The biggest draw is that the show is light -- as in the storylines are ridiculous, the villains are silly and played-for-laughs, and the actors are clearly having a good time. It reminds me a lot of the early seasons of Psych in that regard. There's certainly drama and serious moments, but the show always manages to regain its lightness. In an era where grimdark has become the order of the day, the absurdity and silliness of this show are a relief. And, because this is a kids' show, I know it's going to stay light, unlike Supergirl and The Flash which started out light (or at least more so than Arrow) and then got darker and heavier with each season.
It's also light in that the sets are well-illuminated, and holy shit is it nice to be able to see what's going on.
As with a lot of kids' show plots, there are a lot of situations played for laughs that are truly horrific if you think about them for more than two seconds. In one episode, for example, a rando extra comes to the Hart house for a cheap spray tan and ends up having his memory wiped because he caught Kid Danger without his mask on. The show has already established that a memory wipe leaves the person able to eat and talk and "that's about it." In another episode, a character is bitten by a snake, and across the span of the episode we get to see his hand swell and become necrotic while the character begs (to no avail) to be taken to the hospital. However, because this is a kids' show, there's a certain amount of safety built into these events. The rando is never heard from again, though one can presume everything turned out fine, and the snake-bitten kid makes a full recovery before his next appearance.
However, at no point is a character going to get brutally murdered (because it's realistic, yo), and no one is ever raped or sexually assaulted nor are rape/sexual assault the motivating factor for anyone. The latter is one of the things that keeps drawing me back to Leverage. It's so off the table here, though, that the couple of times the show dishes out an innuendo-based sex joke, it's easy to laugh at the innocence of that too.
I also love superhero violence, and there's no shortage of characters getting punched, flipped, and thrown into walls in ways that should cause permanent injury or death (especially since Henry doesn't actually have superpowers for most of the show), but the kids' show platform again provides that safety of knowing nothing really bad is every going to happen, which means I can enjoy the violence (and the stunts) and the satisfaction of watching the bad guys take it on the chin.
I'm not going to claim the show has everything I want since I'm still a whump fan at heart and I still loathe body function humor. There's also some hints of skeezy content because it's a Dan Schneider show (and some recurring jokes I actually get because I've seen his other big show, iCarly).
However, it's such a relief to watch a show without having to worry about the writers going for tautological shock value.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a show to keep binge watching.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-01 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-01 02:26 am (UTC)And then you should squee with me.