Of all the shows custom-built to suck in my five-year-old daughter Sandy, the ones I resent most are the Magic Girl ones. This is primarily because the girls in them are special and perfect and basically Poochy inasmuch as, when they aren’t there, it’s clear that the other characters are standing around asking themselves, “When will the Magic Girl be here?” I think there’s a way to make an enjoyable Magic Girl show, even one aimed at little kids—one that adults wouldn’t hate. But Lord, this ain’t it.
One day, Leah (Alina Foley) gets a genie bottle necklace at a carnival. It just so happens to be the bottle of fraternal twin genies, Shimmer (Eva Bella) and Shine (Isabella Crovetti). She can’t tell her best friend, Zac (they went through several Zacs), but the genies grant Leah three wishes a day. Because they’re not good at wishes, preschool-aimed hilarity ensues. In season two, Leah and Zac go to live in Zahramay Falls, the city that genies live in, which is ruled by Princess Samira (Nikki SooHoo). Or anyway they can “visit as often as they’d like,” which since the kids don’t seem to have parents basically means they live there.
This show is designed to suck in my daughter and sell her toys. Lots and lots and lots of toys. After the action moves to Zahramay Falls, we introduce a dozen or so other recurring or regular genie characters—and they all have pets. Princess Samira has a peacock. Zac gets a genie named Kaz (Jet Jurgensmeyer), and Zac wishes for Kaz to get a pet Zifflion (like a griffin, apparently?), named Zain, which they ride even though Zac himself has a magic carpet because of course he does. Shimmer’s got a gibbon and Shine’s got tiger. Leah gets a fox.
Oh, and there’s a villain starting in season two named Zeta (Lacey Chabert), who has a pet dragon named Nazboo (Dee Bradley Baker). And Nazboo’s got family. And there are winged unicorns called Zoomicorns. A pirate genie exists and is immediately given a pet. So there are toys for all of them. So many toys. So far, Sandy doesn’t seem particularly interested in them, though she’ll point them out when she sees them in a store. But I can’t watch the show without knowing she’s expected to have a favourite and demand toys of it.
Then there’s the issue with the Magic Girl For Kids genre in the first place. In the first season, Leah’s got to keep the genies secret, and Shimmer and Shine are only happy when they’re hanging out with her, doing—let’s be real—whatever she wants them to. They don’t get a choice. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even be able to say, “Maybe this is a better way of getting what you want?” I don’t want to get into the racial issues, especially on a show created by Farnaz Esnaashari, but it’s worth noting that most of the characters are at least white-passing and the humans are definitely just white.
Let’s also go back to Alina Foley real quick, because she’s the reason I’m writing about this show this month. Sandy watches it now and again, but as established it’s not something she’s deeply into. However, last month, I was watching the new episodes of Kids in the Hall and looked into the idea that Dave is the baby of the group at merely 59, and . . . it’s true. And while I was at it, I discovered that his daughter was on a show I can’t stand. Also, weirdly, they redubbed most of the voices with British people for the British release, and I don’t understand why this is so frequently a thing.
