Series · Netflix · 2018

Cobra Kai

A man trying to redo his youth. Sometimes he teaches courage. Often he teaches the feud.

Johnny Lawrence is a useful mess: a man who was used by a teacher and is now in danger of becoming him. The early episodes understand that. A boy needs a man to show him he can be hit and get up. The series then cannot resist the war with Daniel, and every teenager in the valley is enlisted. Strength without a reason is the original mistake, repeated with better footage.

Older teens, maybe, with you willing to say when the sensei is wrong. Not a moral education by itself. The original film is the cleaner lesson.

The eight

Industry
6/10
A handyman and a sensei. Work is in his hands, and so is the shortcut.
Household
5/10
A son, an ex, a rival's family. The home is real and constantly recruited into the war.
Piety
3/10
Honor is a word on the wall. Mercy loses to the next tournament.
Courage
6/10
Kids stand up to bullies. Then the show makes the standing-up into a gang.
Republic
4/10
A valley full of parents who have handed their children to dojos instead of to themselves.
Temperance
3/10
Revenge is the renewal plan. The series knows it is poison and pours another round.
Truth
5/10
It tells the truth that the old villain had a life. It can't stop rehabilitating the cruelty.
Stewardship
5/10
What he wants to hand a boy is strength. He keeps handing him an enemy.

Live historicallyTeach a child one physical skill, and also the moment they are required to stop.

Series · Netflix · 2021

Centaurworld

A serious horse and a silly world. The show knows the difference, and then it sings too long.

Centaurworld puts a horse who knows what a war is into a world that would rather sing. When the show remembers that contrast, it is sharper than the rest of this row. When it forgets, it is the musical. Older children. The question to ask is which world she owes, and whether a song is an answer.

The eight

Industry
5/10
She is a war horse with a duty. The new world keeps offering her a distraction.
Household
3/10
No herd of her own. A rider she is trying to return to.
Piety
3/10
The silly world worships comfort. She does not.
Courage
7/10
The errand is to get back to a fight that is not about her feelings.
Republic
4/10
One world is at war and the other refuses to hear it.
Temperance
4/10
Songs, many of them, some of them a real refusal of duty.
Truth
6/10
It tells the truth that a bright place can be a way of hiding.
Stewardship
5/10
What she wants to hand on is a return, not a musical.

Live historicallyAsk which world needed her, and which world only wanted an audience.