Need a new show to watch?
Netflix’s newest books-to-movie adaptation, the 10-episode The Baby-Sitter’s Club serves as the perfect modern adaptation of the beloved children’s book series. When Kristy’s mom needs a sitter, but can’t find one, she comes up with a great idea: one place for parents to call where they can reach several babysitters at once. The series follows Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn as they take on challenging babysitting jobs and major life changes during their middle school years.
Was the series adapted well?
Whenever a book is adapted into a movie or television series, readers always wonder how everything they love about their favorite series will translate onto the big screen. The Baby-Sitter’s Club, a series that lasted between 1986 and 2000, brought excitement to many readers when the series was announced, as well as many questions. Could this series reach a modern audience?
This Netflix series perfectly balanced playing homage to the original characters and storylines of the original series, but also updating the characters and the content for a modern audience. Every character maintains true to their personality in the book, especially how they react to current events, such as activism. Every episode of the series, each thirty minutes long, follows one of the original series (however, I can’t remember if episodes 9 and 10 appear anywhere in The BSC timeline) with slight plot changes to make the series more relevant.
How is the casting?
There are few book-to-movie adaptation where I can say every single member of the casting is spot-on. In fact, the only time where I’ve ever thought the casting was near perfect was The Hunger Games franchise. Like with The Hunger Games, the casting for this Netflix show set the bar high for other book-to-movie adaptation.
Every actor, from the main members of the BSC to the side characters like Karen and Kristy’s stepfather, completely embodied their role and brought the characters from the book to life. As each episode balances humor and emotion well, every actor balances the humor and emotion of their characters as well. For me, each character felt like a real person, not like someone just playing a part on a television show. I also appreciated that Netflix diversified the cast of main characters.
My Last Thoughts
This book-to-movie adaptation will please fans of the original series, as well as children in the show’s target audience. I can see the original Baby-Sitter’s Club series, as well as the graphic novels, growing in popularity after the release of this series and many young children wanting to be like the characters on this show. I give this series five out of five stars.
Beauty and the Bean Boots 