Tonight
Ten for the evening
One to ten. Newest, most watched, highest on the Living Meter. Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Hallmark, Acorn, and Netflix.
Immigration as a family trying not to lose the child. Earnest and on their side.
The Mousekewitzes leave a pogrom, not a mood. Fievel falls off the ship and spends the film trying to rejoin a mother and a father who did not abandon him. The new world has cats, con men, and a labor that is not the postcard. The hope is not canceled. It is made specific: a family in one place.
Sentimental, and the sentiment is attached to the right object. A child can watch it. An adult who has ever lost sight of a small person in a crowd will recognize the pitch of the voice.
Industry
6/10
A new country means work, not a parade.
Household
9/10
The entire plot is parents and a child finding each other.
Piety
5/10
They leave because of a violence against their people. Faith is in the journey, not a speech.
Courage
8/10
A small mouse keeps looking.
Republic
6/10
The new shore has solidarity and it has swindlers.
Temperance
6/10
The con is condemned.
Truth
7/10
The promise of the new land is tested against a missing child.
Stewardship
9/10
Getting him back is worth more than the dream.
Live historicallyIf you have brought a family across anything, count heads before you count prospects.
Greed corrected by children in the house. A good adventure for the middle years.
Scrooge McDuck is a miser with a talent for the expedition. The show's good idea is that the talent is not enough once Della's children are in the mansion. Webby wants a family so badly she studies it. The adventures are treasure and grudges. The stake that holds is whether a man who counts coins can count heads.
Loud, and worth it when the family is in the scene. A child who likes a quest can have this. Say that the gold is not the happy ending. The sister at the door is.
Industry
7/10
Exploration as work. The fortune is also a moral problem.
Household
8/10
Uncle, nephews, a mother lost and looked for.
Piety
3/10
Luck and curse. Little reverence.
Courage
7/10
They go into the ruin. Scrooge has to go back for them.
Republic
5/10
A city, a mansion, rivals. Not a commons.
Temperance
6/10
His greed is the vice the children interrupt.
Truth
7/10
The family's missing chapter is the real mystery.
Stewardship
8/10
A house restored is worth more than the next artifact.
Live historicallyTake a child somewhere you know well and tell them one true story of how you learned it.
A little place, told truthfully and quietly. One of the best things for a small child on this shelf.
Puffin Rock is small on purpose. Oona has a brother she is responsible for, parents who are present, and an island that does not rearrange itself to flatter her. Nothing in it teaches a child to sneer. Put it on without anxiety, and still turn it off. A good short show becomes a bad long habit if it replaces the walk.
Industry
5/10
The island has work: fishing, nesting, weather.
Household
7/10
A mother, a father, a brother. The family is the safe place the adventure returns to.
Piety
5/10
The natural world is treated with care, not with a speech.
Courage
4/10
The brave thing is a short trip past the nest.
Republic
6/10
An island of neighbors, each with a nature that has to be respected.
Temperance
9/10
Soft, short, and done.
Truth
8/10
The facts of the animals are the story, and they are not bent for a gag.
Stewardship
7/10
A child may learn to look at a real bird twice.
Live historicallyAfterward, look out the window longer than the episode lasted.
Parents still in the house, a teacher who stayed. Soft, and on the side of raising a person.
Riley is not Cory, and the show is not the one her parents were in, but it keeps the right inheritance: a mother and a father who are present, a teacher who thinks a classroom is a moral place, a best friend who is not a romantic prize. It is earnest to the point of a lesson written on the board. Earnest is not a defect when the lesson is about how to be a friend without abandoning your own mind.
Good for the middle years and young teens. You can laugh at the speech and still keep the speech. A house where the adults stayed is the rare picture.
Industry
5/10
School as the work. Parents have jobs and histories.
Household
9/10
The family is intact on purpose. The whole series is about that not being an accident.
Piety
4/10
A moral classroom. Close to a creed of decency.
Courage
5/10
The brave acts are social and real: telling the truth to a friend.
Republic
6/10
A school as a commons across two generations.
Temperance
7/10
Feelings are large and then put back.
Truth
7/10
They talk it out until it is actually said.
Stewardship
8/10
A daughter handed a way of being a person, by people who are still there.
Live historicallyEat with your children and ask one question you do not already know the answer to.
A diary for the youngest. A mother, a father, a house full of children. Keep it.
The premise is stewardship: Charlie is unexpected, the parents are tired and employed, and Teddy decides the baby will need a map of these people. The jokes are sitcom jokes, including some that a parent should be in the room for. The structure is not a joke. Four children, a mother who works as a nurse, a father who is present, a house that is the set because the house is the point.
Good family television of the ordinary kind, which is the kind a week can use. Skip the episodes that go crude for a laugh. Keep the ones where the baby is actually being thought of as a person who will one day watch.
Industry
7/10
A nurse's shifts, a father's work, homework, a video that takes effort.
Household
10/10
The family is the entire subject, including the child who cannot speak yet.
Piety
3/10
Decency. The diary is an act of care, not a prayer.
Courage
4/10
Ordinary nerve: telling each other the awkward thing.
Republic
5/10
Neighbors and school. The public is not the plot.
Temperance
6/10
Sitcom excess, usually pulled back by the parents.
Truth
7/10
The diary is an attempt to tell the baby the truth about who they are.
Stewardship
9/10
She is making a record for someone who will outlast the week. That is the definition.
Live historicallyRecord nothing tonight. Tell the youngest child one true story about the family, in the room.
A mind, a block, a family. The dinosaur is extra. The grandmother is not.
Lunella is smarter than the room and the show enjoys it. The correction, when it arrives, is a family and a neighborhood that are not her audience. Devil Dinosaur is a partner who is not verbal and is loyal. The inventions would be the whole show if the Lower East Side did not keep being specific.
Good for the middle years. Watch whether genius is allowed to be a service or only a spotlight. Encourage the service. A child who is ahead still has to set the table.
Industry
7/10
She builds. The lab is a craft, and it has consequences.
Household
7/10
Parents, a grandmother, a block. They are not fools.
Piety
3/10
A girl's confidence. Little beyond it.
Courage
6/10
She steps in for people who cannot.
Republic
6/10
A neighborhood with a name and a history.
Temperance
5/10
Being the smartest is the appetite.
Truth
6/10
The family will not let her narrate her own exception forever.
Stewardship
6/10
Inventions that stay in the community are the good ones.
Live historicallyLet a bright child teach you one thing they know, and make them do the boring part of it too.
Songs a very young child can use. Not a story. A good ten minutes, then stop.
Gracie's Corner is a music teacher that looks like a cartoon. Counting, kindness, a family, a body that has to wait its turn. There is no plot to measure beyond whether the lyric tells the truth to a three-year-old. Most of them do.
Use it the way you would use a hymn for the very young: one, with a person in the room, then the actual brushing of teeth. A queue of them is a bright noise. A single one can be a tool.
Industry
6/10
Learning a song is a small craft, repeated.
Household
7/10
Family is in the lyric. Parents are the implied audience.
Piety
4/10
Thanks and kindness, aimed low and clear.
Courage
3/10
No danger. The bravery is trying the word.
Republic
5/10
Sharing is the civic lesson, at preschool size.
Temperance
8/10
Waiting, whispering, one thing at a time.
Truth
7/10
The facts are simple and not faked: numbers, colors, a feeling named.
Stewardship
6/10
A song is one of the few things a small child can carry into the day.
Live historicallySing one of the songs while you do a real task together — hands, coats, the table.
King's real subject is allegiance. The series is uneven and the subject survives.
After the flu, the story is not about the flu. It is about whether the people left will gather around a frail good or a charming destroyer. That is a story worth telling. This version is not the strongest telling, but it does not hide the choice.
Adults. Talk about the two towns, not about the set pieces.
Industry
5/10
They have to rebuild kitchens, watches, a town.
Household
5/10
The new societies are households first.
Piety
7/10
The plot is which god you will serve. It is not coy about that.
Courage
6/10
People walk toward the place they believe is good, at cost.
Republic
6/10
Two constitutions: Boulder and Las Vegas. The contrast is the point.
Temperance
4/10
The dark side is glamorous longer than it should be.
Truth
7/10
Evil has a face and a sales pitch. Good has a duty.
Stewardship
6/10
The question is what kind of people will inherit the empty world.
Live historicallyName which of the two gatherings your own habits are walking toward.
A sequel against empire, including the empire of niceness. Better than it looks.
Poppy's first idea of leadership is that everyone should sound like her, for their own good. The film spends its runtime refuting her. The hard rock tribe, the classical, the country, the funk — each has a history, and a queen who wants one music is a conqueror with glitter. Barb is wrong. So is Poppy, until she hears it.
That is a better political lesson than most family films will risk. Difference here is not a slogan. It is a repertoire. A house with more than one taste can use this.
Industry
4/10
Performance, not labor.
Household
4/10
A queen and a father. Thin.
Piety
3/10
Music as a people's memory.
Courage
6/10
She admits she was the threat.
Republic
8/10
Unity by erasure is named as tyranny.
Temperance
6/10
Her appetite to be the good queen is the vice.
Truth
8/10
One song for all is a lie.
Stewardship
7/10
Each people keeps its own.
Live historicallyLet the other house keep its song. Do not call that unity.
A child, a useful machine, and a day that ends. One of the few that respects a small viewer's time.
Trash Truck is built for a small child and then it stops, which is a moral quality. The truck is useful, the boy is not the mayor of the universe, and nobody's father is the punchline. It will not carry an evening. It will carry twenty minutes without teaching contempt. That is a pass.
Industry
6/10
The truck has a route. The work of the town is not a joke.
Household
6/10
A boy and the people on his street. Home is where he starts and finishes.
Piety
4/10
Kindness is the weather. No one is mocked for it.
Courage
4/10
The brave thing is a new block, and it is enough.
Republic
6/10
A town small enough to have a route.
Temperance
8/10
Soft, finished, and not selling the next want.
Truth
6/10
A truck does a job. The show does not dress it up as magic.
Stewardship
6/10
A child can copy helping with a real chore.
Live historicallyLet the child take one real thing to the bin and call that the rest of the episode.
