Disney+ Week 1 Recap

I've already covered my thoughts on Lady and the Tramp, Noelle and the first episodes of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, The Mandalorian, Encore! and the World According to Jeff Goldblum in other blog posts. In this post I will be discussing the second episodes of the shows mentioned above as well as any thoughts I have on any of the other shows or shorts on the platform that I haven't talked about yet.

THE IMAGINEERING STORY, EPISODES 1 AND 2

First off, was it just me who thought that the four shows named above were the main shows offered on Disney+? I thought there would be more full length episodes of original content available. I didn't think it would literally just be those four shows plus The Imagineering Story if that makes sense. So since The Imagineering Story is the only other full length show available, I will now be adding that to my weekly discussion of the main *five* original shows offered on Disney+ right now.

This original show was the one I was looking forward to the most and was one of the main reasons why I wanted to subscribe to Disney+. So far, this show is hands down my favorite original content that is offered on the platform right now. Anyone who is a Disney parks fan needs to watch this show. I have always loved seeing concept art and behind the scenes. One of my favorite things to do in California Adventure is to just sit in the Animation Academy lobby and look at all the concept art and sketches of Disney classics while listening to the music. Literally every shot of this show is full of old footage or concept art that you just can't look away from.

I do think the show needs to take it a step further behind the scenes. So far there hasn't really been any completely new ideas being shared with the public. If you're a huge Disney fan like me who spends a lot of time watching Youtube videos about Disney history, I don't think there was too much new information being shared in this show. At least so far there hasn't been any information that you couldn't already find somewhere else. One example of this was in episode 2 when they are explaining the Pepper's Ghost effect in the Haunted Mansion ballroom scene. I've heard this effect explained to me a thousand times, but I still can't picture how it works. I've always wished that I could see what it would look like standing in the ballroom looking toward the buggies, being able to see the real models and how the lighting works. And they had the opportunity to actually show us what the Haunted Mansion effect looked like! She was standing right there in the ballroom! All the cameraman had to do was swing the camera 90 degrees to the left, but no. However, I don't mind being reminded of these facts and history and I think Disney tells their story really well.

I also love seeing all of the old footage. Most of this footage is pretty rare to find. I really like being able to see old versions of rides, like the old Space Mountain footage that they showed in Episode 2. Old ride footage prior to maybe 1990 is really hard to find.

The episodes have had a good storyline and have both ended on really good cliffhangers. I have already teared up several times during each episode. These episodes are so good and so interesting to me that I almost want to savor them and save them to watch for later because I don't want them to be over so fast. But I want my data blip to be in Disney's system so that they know that I like this show and I need a Season 2! I also want to be able to have a discussion with everybody else who's watching it at release.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES, EPISODE 2

One thing I'm mad about. THIS EPISODE WAS ONLY 32 MINUTES LONG! I thought all of these episodes were supposed to be more around an hour long. That's pretty disappointing to me.

***SPOILERS FOR HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL BELOW, SCROLL TO THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JEFF GOLDBLUM IF DESIRED*** Now this might get into spoiler territory, so if you haven't seen it yet, skip to the next section. If you haven't watched it yet, you probably wouldn't even know what I'm talking about anyway. In episode 2 it seemed like they were starting to force the idea that Nini is supposed to be with Ricky (I had to look up their names because I don't remember). And I started thinking more about some of the things that happened in the first episode. Am I supposed to be rooting for Ricky?? Because like why? I like her new boyfriend, EJ, better. Ricky broke Nini's heart by dumping her right after she said she loved him by making this huge, romantic, public, display of affection. She wrote him this song, and what did he do? He said he needed a break. (I'm gonna interject here, and say I know it's not that serious. It's a show intended for kids. I'm just having a little fun here. And I'm not saying that the show is romanticizing toxic relationships. It's just not that deep. But I'm just saying I am NOT PARTICIPATING IN YOUR FORCING ME TO SHIP NINI AND RICKY TOGETHER. NO! HE DOESN'T DESERVE HER. EJ IS ACTUALLY NICE TO HER smh) But anyways, then once Ricky sees that Nini is over him and has a new boyfriend, then Ricky gets upset and jealous and realizes that he loved her this whole time. Nah, he had his chance and he broke her heart. He's just jealous that she's with someone else now. Then, he decides to force himself into Nini and EJ's passion, musical theater, to try and win Nini back. Then, remember the song that Nini wrote for Ricky to tell him she loved him? And he told her he wanted to go on a break? Yeah that song. At the audition (in front of everybody, including Nini's new boyfriend, EJ) Ricky sings the song back to Nini. That was totally inappropriate (Again, I'm not mad at the show writers, I'm just saying Ricky is a meanie)! It was not cute, and I refuse to ship Nini and Ricky! Also in episode 2 they start introducing some plot lines to make EJ the bad guy here (like trying to find a way to get rid of Ricky from the musical). When based on the first episode, EJ would never do this stuff. He's the nice guy! And anyways Ricky deserves it because he's harassing Nini at this point. But yeah so now they're trying to manipulate the story to make it seem like EJ was evil this whole time and Ricky was good this whole time and is meant to be with Nini. But no I refuse to believe that! That's about all I have to say about that. Rant over.

Also, there wasn't enough singing in episode 2. There was another original song which was pretty good! I really enjoy this show and look forward to continuing on!

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JEFF GOLDBLUM, EPISODE 2

This episode was about ice cream. Again the topic was a little too general and boring for me. I also don't like how they try to force the topic to be more interesting and meaningful than it is. Like this whole episode they tried to explore the idea that people like ice cream so much because it reminds them of their happy childhoods. I just like ice cream because it tastes good and because it's refreshing on a hot, summer day. There's no deeper meaning to it. So it just feels a little contrived to force a deeper meaning onto something that isn't that deep to me. If you want to explore something deep, then choose a different topic?

At this point, I definitely have to force myself to continue on with this show. Once more original content is added I will be dropping this show. At least until better topics are chosen.

THE MANDALORIAN, EPISODE 2

***MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN. SCROLL TO ENCORE! IF DESIRED*** I don't really have much to say about this one other than again...THIS WAS ONLY 33 MINUTES LONG! This is just ridiculous. This is supposed to be the grandest show on Disney+ and they're only 33 minutes long? That's pretty ridiculous.

Pretty much the only thing I have to say about this episode is that the baby Yoda was so cute! Literally every 5 seconds while watching this episode I kept saying how cute it was. I really couldn't handle the cuteness. But even the cutest baby creature ever can't distract from the fact that it felt like nothing happened in this episode? Also, something that I'm starting to get annoyed at is that the Mandalorian never takes off his mask. Which I guess is his thing, but how am I supposed to get attached to his character and how am I supposed to care about what happens to him when I never see his face? And he barely talks so we don't really know what he's thinking either. I still can't tell if he's going to take the baby back to the people who hired him, or if he's going to save the baby, because I haven't seen his face react to anything. And now that I'm looking back on episode 1, I'm thinking of the part where he's at the welding "shop" and he's getting flashbacks to his childhood and it looks like he's in a war zone. I didn't notice it then, but I feel like if I watched it over again it would be kind of comical to watch. Because they were flashing back and forth between these traumatizing memories of people dying and destruction everywhere and... his emotionless helmet? So now we know that he had a rough childhood and was some kind of refugee, but we didn't see anything of his emotion regarding that experience so it's all pointless.

ENCORE, EPISODE 2

The musical they did this episode was Beauty and the Beast. I like the cheesy, therapy type stuff they do in this show. They make these people talk about their dreams and secrets and make them address them. I liked this episode better than the last one. Maybe it was because I liked the musical better, maybe it was because there were less awkward moments with the cast? It helps not to have that element of cringe that makes it a little uncomfortable to watch. The last episode dealt with some darker themes too so that could be why. But so far I like the variability between episodes and seeing the dynamics of each cast. The scene where Susan Egan came to mentor them for a day was beautiful! I loved it! I loved seeing them sing together and Egan trying to direct Belle to get the right emotion out. It was so good! I'm looking forward to the next episode!

ADORE OR SNORE?

Every week I'm going to put each show either on the adore list or the snore list. Adore is a thumbs up and snore is a thumbs down. I'm just gonna keep it simple. Within each list, I'll also order the shows in order of importance (the show I liked the best will be on the top). While I don't think any of the original shows are bad, I do think some of them are boring or not really worth subscribing to Disney+ for. I don't really have much to say on some of the shows, so this way you can see generally how I feel about a show without me having to dedicate a section to talking about a 3-minute short for example. My rankings will change week to week depending on how much I liked the latest episode.

ADORE

The Imagineering Story

Noelle

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

Float (Pixar Spark Shorts)

The Mandalorian

Encore!

Lady and the Tramp

SNORE

The World According to Jeff Goldblum

Forky Asks A Question

The Marvel Hero Project

Family Sundays

Pixar in Real Life

Which original shows and movies do you like and/or dislike? What is your ranking? Let me know!