Caillou has got to be the most controversial kids show to exist in my time period. Anytime parents are worried about bad influences on kids, Caillou is almost always brought up. So when I heard about this reboot, I thought "What the hell are they thinking?" But I figure if I'm gonna write kids shows as is a lifelong dream, believe it or not, I figured I might as well see a couple episodes of this to see what the state of modern kids entertainment.
There's one thing I like about this show. Caillou might groan more than a kid's supposed to, but at the end of each episode he imagines a fantasy scenario, and in each scenario he ends up teaching himself the lesson he needed to learn. Caillou's big problem is that he's over eager to do things, and he often gets easily frustrated. But I think a lot of non-bratty kids end up going through some of these situations at some point or another. In fact, I noticed distinct similarities in how Caillou wanted to lead the pretend pirate crew in the first episode, often ignoring Rosie, to the way the much lauded Bluey did the same to Bingo in her pilot episode.
Of course, if we're gonna make comparisons to Bluey of all shows, then there are some obvious things to take into consideration. First, the plots are very predictable and don't offer any of the charm or humor that Bluey has. Secondly, whoever plays Caillou is like the only actor in this show who has any semblance of talent. Any realism that this show has comes directly from experiences that kids may have, but chances are they won't be able to teach themselves the lesson every time just by imagining they're in space or in a castle. So the realism also suffers in comparison to Bluey.
My last comment: I like the way they handle the faces in this show. The CGI is simple and doesn't involve a lot of detail, but it's not "horrendous" and the facial animations feel a little more real than in the original 2D show because the eyes and mouths are more well-handled.
So I wouldn't say that Caillou's attitude here is as bad as people would make it out to be. I grew up with Angelica Pickles, and I saw her getting her comeuppance a lot. This show's a little more lighthearted than that. At least Caillou's smart enough to teach himself important lessons.
