When this was announced in May of 2018, I was excited since I loved the original 2000 cartoon as a kid. I even have a plush of Clifford, and read many of the books.
However, this reboot turned out to be disappointing, very much so. It can easily be compared to the Powerpuff Girls reboot in terms of how far removed from the original it is. In this review, I will eloquently explain my points instead of insulting everything with no evidence. Also, here's a disclaimer: The people working on this show are super talented and I wish no harm on them (unlike some people on this site...), and the show clearly had a lot of heart put into it, however I just can't get into it.
If you look at some of the older Clifford books, and compare it to this reboot, you'll notice that they don't really look similar. Instead, this reboot's animation and art style looks like a poor man's Peg + Cat. I know it's by the same company (100 Chickens) but that doesn't mean you have to make the shows look nearly identical. The tweening also looks off in some scenes, like in the theme song when the kids are running. The character designs are pretty forgettable. The kids in the original show had memorable designs, but the characters in this show have the same body type (all skinny; no plus size people; so much for diversity, huh?) same head shape, just with a different skin tone and clothes.
Aside from the designs, the characters themselves are pretty bland. All the characters have the exact same trait: they're all nice. That's it, just nice. They have different interests, like sailing and music, but they're all goody two-shoes besides that. A show where everyone is a perfect angel is super boring and uninteresting, because there's no variety. The original show had jerks like Jetta, Mac, and Mr. Bleakman to contrast the relaxing, nurturing tone of the show. No such characters exist in the reboot.
Like I mentioned before, this reboot makes so many changes that it's hardly recognizable to the original. The original show had the plots of the humans and dogs separated. In the reboot, they're intertwined and it feels so unnatural. On top of that, Emily Elizabeth and Clifford talk to each other, which, too, feels unnatural. It ruins the sense of dramatic irony that the original series had, that the humans didn't know that the dogs could talk. T-Bone and Cleo were removed from the reboot in favor of Bailey and Tucker, as were Jetta, Charley, and Vaz in favor of Samantha, Pablo, and Jack.
This was extremely disappointing, and I can recommend many other kids stuff to watch (that are good, contrary to popular belief) such as the original, Clifford's Puppy Days, Ready Jet Go, Steven Universe, Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, Its a Big Big World, Bluey, Gravity Falls, Green Eggs and Ham, Blue's Clues and You, Molly of Denali, Nature Cat, Oswald, Xavier Riddle, Let's Go Luna, Frozen II, Andi Mack, Gumball, Infinity Train, Bee and Puppycat, and Maggie and the Ferocious Beast
