Odd Squad is a Canadian/American children's live-action educational television series that premiered on TVOKids in Canada and PBS Kids in the United States on November 26, 2014. The series was created by Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman and is co-produced by The Fred Rogers Company and Sinking Ship Entertainment in association with TVOKids and Ici Radio-Canada Télé.
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Plot
The series follows the exploits of Odd Squad, an organization run entirely by children, that solves peculiar problems using math skills. In particular, it typically features two employees of the organization's investigation division who work in precinct 13579 of the organization— Agents Olive (Dalila Bela) and Otto (Filip Geljo) in the 1st season, and Olympia (Anna Cathcart) and Otis (Issac Kragten) in the second season. Selected episodes feature other types of employees of the fictional organization, like security officers, so-called "tube operators", and scientists. The names of the employees, with one exception, always start with the letter O.
Why These Seasons Are Odd
- These seasons have been a very fun way to learn about math. The show's math curriculum is woven deftly into every storyline and doesn't feel forced and/or unnatural.
- It has very interesting plots, story arcs, and even some mysteries to energize you like the mystery of who Olive's old partner was in Season 1 and the backstory of Agent Otis in Season 2.
- Unlike season 3, these seasons have extremely clever comedy and pop culture references. They even reference Doctor Who in an episode.
- The child actors and actresses are impeccable actors despite their age, as they portray their characters with as much emotion as possible. The actor for Agent Otis has even gotten an Emmy.
- The characters are great, in season 1, we have Olive, Otto, and Oscar.
- Olive is the practical one.
- Otto is the silly one.
- Oscar is a very charming, adorkable character.
- Their replacements in season 2, Olympia, Otis, and Oona, are also very good.
- Olympia is an adorable ball of energy.
- Otis is a cool agent with a mysterious backstory.
- Oona is also very adorkable.
- Their replacements in season 2, Olympia, Otis, and Oona, are also very good.
- Ms. O, their boss, who appears in both seasons, is unlikable at first but she gets better over time.
- The show has a diverse cast of characters and strong female and male role models for preschoolers to look up to.
- The character dynamics and emotional scenes are well done, so a fan can't be blamed if they have a ship.
- Awesome and realistic-looking set designs.
- The villains, such as Odd Todd and the Shapeshifter, are very interesting and genuinely threatening villains. So much so, that the villains were even given their episode dedicated to them. And it was glorious.
- Odd Todd was a great recurring villain he was essentially a family-friendly Expy of The Joker, with a Large Ham personality and personal connection to one of the agents. So naturally, instead of keeping him as the Big Bad, he gets scared straight by oddness, undergoes a Heel–Face Return, and becomes a gardener and that's the end of that chapter. Although, he does get one more go-around in the movie World Turned Odd, which involved an alternate timeline with him in charge of not Odd Squad, but Todd Squad not to mention his cameo appearance in the Season 2 finale.
- The show's movies Odd Squad: The Movie and World Turned Odd, were pretty good movies, as they both featured awesome plots and emotional scenes.
- After being removed in season 2, Agents Olive, Otto, and Oscar (who was in the first few episodes of season 2) made guest appearances in the movie Odd Squad: The Movie.
- Although it doesn't have many songs, the music is quite good. The background music that plays during the show intro is catchy and gets you pumped for the show. The songs by the boy band Soundcheck are funny due to being parodies of boy bands like NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys, and One Direction. And "Stop It Now" is an elaborate Broadway-esque number.
- The show once had its web show called "OddTube", which was a pretty good web show.
- These seasons teach good morals, such as "don't judge a book by its cover" and "work as a team".
- Despite the series going downhill in season 3, the series ended perfectly with the finale, "Odd Together Now", being heartwarming.
Bad Qualities
- The CGI special effects look very tacky and cheap.
- Some of the main characters, along with some side characters, aren't always likable for various reasons
- Ms. O could be considered an unlikable Karen by some because she yells at the agents a lot. Not to mention that she looks way more like an artist than a person who has lived for centuries, but that's because it's an organization run by kids.
- Olive and Otto can be unlikable too.
- Olympia gets several jerk-ish moments throughout season 2, despite being the more optimistic and cheerful one: For instance, she infamously refuses to believe villains are capable of redeeming themselves, which comes back to haunt her in the Season 2 finale. There's also her constantly overworking herself due to wanting to be the best Odd Squad agent to the point where she refuses to relax or take a vacation, or the fact she can be a perfectionist which tends to cause her coworkers and other people serious harm.
- Xena and Xeva from season 2 are terrible side characters, and they don't even get a proper punishment for their actions in the end.
- Upon debuting in Season 2, Olympia and Otis got some backlash for replacing Olive and Otto. However, over time fans began to appreciate them, especially when it came to Otis's Backstory, which served as the main mystery of the season.
- While the show certainly has better continuity than most PBS Kids shows, it's still far from perfect and it contains a lot of details from episodes and prior episodes that don't add up.
- Overall
- Delivery Debbie and Delivery Doug were introduced as being rivals to each other with competing businesses before "Mystic Egg Pizza" had them eventually burying the hatchet and combining forces to open a restaurant that serves egg salad pizza, which is never brought up again in subsequent episodes. "Disorder in the Court" implies that the duo split up, revealing that Debbie is still running her pizza business, while "O is For Opposite" shows Doug moving his own business's operations from his mother's basement to an alleyway in town. "Safe House in the Woods" depicted them as rivals again (albeit on a friendlier scale than "Mystic Egg Pizza"), while "Teach a Man to Ice Fish" reveals that Doug has opened another egg salad restaurant in the Arctic.
- Season 1
- A couple in "Switch Your Partner Round and Round".
- It's revealed that Oprah didn't pair up with Olive and Otto initially, cycling through numerous different pairings before settling on them being together. However, "Training Day" showed her presumably picking Otto off the bat for Olive to be paired up with following the firing of Odd Todd. It's possible that Ms. O knew she was going to have to fire Odd Todd eventually and was hesitant about pairing Otto with Olive, or Otto was only one of her options alongside Oksana, Oren, and Orchid.
- Some of the stills shown during the activation of the What-It-Would-Have-Been-Like-inator helmets are from "My Better Half", depicting Oren and Orchid getting half of their bodies removed by Symmetric Al. This doesn't even work, because unlike Otto's name, Oren and Orchid's names aren't symmetrical.
- In "Jinx", Dr. O and Oscar don't understand that Ms. O holding up a rattle was her way of telling agents to see Baby Genius, even though Dr. O held up the same rattle in "The Odd Antidote", and Oscar was present when Ms. O held it up in "My Better Half". Both of those episodes came out before "Jinx", meaning they both should have understood the rattle.
- "Oscar of All Trades" has Oscar revealing his backstory to Olive about how he started the Science department in Precinct 13579 when he was 11 years old... except, "Rise of the Hydraclops" previously depicted him in Scientist attire at 5 years old.
- "Disorder in the Court" is about Odd Todd getting Olive kicked off of Odd Squad via framing up because he's mad at Olive for getting him kicked off the squad. But the flashback for "Training Day" never shows Olive conspiring against his firing, and was very submissive when he was going rogue due to her shy nature. (Although considering Olive was the one who told the story of ex-Agent Todd in that episode, it's possible she left some details out, about her involvement.)
- A couple in "Switch Your Partner Round and Round".
- Season 2
- Despite being a direct sequel to the Season 1 finale, "First Day" appears to take place in summertime (or at least in a warmer month), whereas "O is Not For Over" takes place in the wintertime. Given that this is mostly a live-action show with different filming times, though, this has some justification.
- "Villains in Need Are Villains Indeed" depicts Precinct 13579's Headquarters as being situated aboveground, when numerous past episodes have shown that it's an Elaborate Underground Base.
- Overall
- The episode Shapely University ended terribly.
- Adults can be portrayed as idiots sometimes. Odd Squad: The Movie is a perfect example.
- Some scenes can be too intense for a TV-Y-rated program, like the Pie-nado scene in Training Day or Ohlm's big reveal at the end of Season 2. Plus, the show has a lot of dark and disturbing moments and implications of death and violence, among other things. It could likely be because the show was initially slated to be on PBS Kids GO!, a sub-block of PBS Kids meant for older children (ages 8 and up), before its discontinuation and was originally a drama instead of a Work Com.
- After these seasons, the show underwent a lot of unnecessary changes that caused it to go downhill.
- During that season, the show went under a Retool, with a new setting, new characters, a new focus on STEM in addition to math, and a new formula of traveling the world to solve cases rather than working in a single town. While there are a few fans both young and old who still enjoy it, a majority of people dislike the season because of the massive changes, although there are fans who enjoy the season before Opal's departure.
Reception
The first two seasons of Odd Squad received positive reception, it holds a rating of 7.2/10 on IMDB.
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