Series · Netflix · 2022

Is It Cake?

Skill, spent on a trick. The craft is real and the purpose is a gag.

The bakers can do something difficult, and the show's use for it is to fool a panel for a few minutes. That is a small sin and a real one: craft bent toward a trick. Harmless as a single evening for older children who like to see hands work. Do not let it be the picture of what skill is for. A cake that looks like a shoe is less than a cake that feeds a table.

The eight

Industry
7/10
The baking is genuine skill, visible in the hands.
Household
2/10
No house. A studio.
Piety
2/10
The reveal is the only reverence.
Courage
3/10
They risk looking foolish on television.
Republic
2/10
A panel, not a public.
Temperance
4/10
Light, and about an appetite only in the literal sense.
Truth
5/10
A fake that announces itself at the end. The show is not lying about the game.
Stewardship
3/10
A clever cake is not a meal and not a trade they mean to live in.

Live historicallyIf you watch it, bake something afterward that is meant to be eaten, not guessed.

Series · Netflix · 2007

iCarly

Inventive kids with no adults in charge. The laugh is disorder.

Carly, Sam, and Freddie making something together in a room is a better picture than a child alone with an app. That is the credit. The debit is that the something is a prank, the guardian is a joke, and the apartment is a world without a parent who can say no. Children like it because it is lively. Lively is not the same as good.

If it is on, watch with them and stop on the episode where someone is actually hurt by the bit. Ask whether the laugh was worth it.

The eight

Industry
4/10
They produce a show, which is a kind of work, aimed at nothing but the click.
Household
4/10
A brother is the guardian. He is a child in a larger body, and the show likes him that way.
Piety
2/10
Nothing is looked up to except the audience count.
Courage
3/10
The schemes are bold and pointless.
Republic
4/10
Friends are loyal. The public is a studio audience.
Temperance
4/10
Gross-out is regular. It is milder than what came after.
Truth
4/10
It is honest that they are making noise. It calls the noise a career.
Stewardship
3/10
A childhood spent performing for strangers.

Live historicallyLet them record one kind thing and show it to a grandparent, not to a crowd.