A quick Internet search tells me that the original Baby-Sitters Club book series ran from 1986-2000; I'm guessing that I picked them up in, say, 1988 or 1989, at age nine or ten, and read them until I was maybe fourteen or fifteen. A quick Internet search also tells me that there was a very short-lived HBO series in 1990; I remember seeing a few episodes and thinking it was fine. The episodes weren't based on any particular books, but were new stories featuring the Baby-Sitters Club characters. The Baby-Sitters Club movie came out in 1995, which maybe explains why, while I don't remember it that well, I remember not caring for it; I would have been sixteen then, so I had probably finished reading them relatively recently. I probably was still familiar enough with the series to be overly critical of any detail that wasn't just so while simultaneously thinking I was too old for it.
Now, in 2020, we get the Baby-Sitters Club Netflix series, a series where individual episodes are based on the actual first eight books in the series, plus there are two episodes that take place at camp, which the baby-sitters attended in a Super Edition. The Netflix series reminded me of how much the original series always did right, while making some smart updates in the spirit of the original series. In the original series, the sitters baby-sat for a deaf child and an autistic child at different times. Some of the sitters' parents were divorced or widowed. Once character was diabetic. Two books that I can recall dealt directly with racism. The girls dealt with real problems and weren't just different from each other in surface-level ways. Though the books were quick reads-- I would buy mine in a town about an hour away from where I lived and usually read the whole thing on the ride home-- there was much to be admired about the realistic, socially engaged, imperfect baby-sitters.
Since it's 2020, some of the original details about the logistics of the club are brought up as smart throwbacks; when Kristy's (Sophie Grace) mother (Alicia Silverstone) has trouble finding a sitter for Kristy's younger brother, she bemoans the days when you could just call a girl in your neighborhood and she'd actually answer the phone. Thus, the Baby-Sitters Club is formed with the simple yet brilliant idea that the actual baby-sitters will get together three times a week at a pre-appointed time, and parents will know that they can call during that time to get a sitter. They use a landline that club Vice-President Claudia Kishi (Momona Tamada) buys online; to get around having to network with adults on social media, they print up old-school fliers. The ten episodes deal with the girls getting the business off the ground; revealing secrets (Stacey (Shay Rudolph) has diabetes); making new friends (California transplant Dawn Schafer (Xochitl Gomez) joins the club in the fifth episode); experiencing personal milestones (Kristy gets her period; Stacey and Mary Anne (Malia Baker) both have their first kisses); and encountering family issues (Kristy's mother gets remarried; Claudia's grandmother has a stroke). Along the way, we're reminded what good people the girls always were: Kristy can be controlling, but is an amazing leader and go-getter; Claudia doesn't do well in school, but is artistic and fashionable; Mary Anne is shy, but knows when to stand up for herself and others (as when she advocates for a transgender child in the fourth episode); Stacey is boy-crazy but a math genius; Dawn is free-spirited but knows when to ask for help (as when the scatterbrained mother of a child forgets to tell her that the child's father will be picking him up). They all show that young girls are complicated, and can do and be more than one thing at once. As a whole, I loved it.
A few random thoughts:
1) I'd forgotten how weird Kristy's eventual stepsister, Karen Brewer (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) was, thinking her next-door neighbor was a witch but kind of enjoying it.
2) They did a great job with how they portrayed the adults. Particular shout-outs to Marc Evan Jackson (Agent Coulson!) as Mary Anne's father, Richard Spier, who is clearly still grieving his late wife and struggling as a single father but not a bad guy, and Mark Feuerstein as Kristy's eventual stepfather Watson Brewer, who is kind of a huge dork and tries too hard, but again: good guy. No real bad eggs among the baby-sitters and their parents, save for Kristy's (unseen) deadbeat father.
3) The actors playing Claudia and Dawn had some real charisma. Claudia and Dawn were always among my favorite characters, and Momona Tamada and Xochitl Gomez were great.
4) Reading the books as a child, I always thought Claudia and Stacey were just so cool. Watching the series as an adult, I stand by that impression.
5) Even though I sometimes was frustrated with things that Kristy did, I liked that the series let her be really awful at times-- being stubbornly unaccepting of Watson for way too long; getting into a fight with her own mother on her mother's wedding day; being pretty awful to Dawn because she's jealous that Mary Anne has made a friend independent of her. I don't recall many shows where you get to see a teen girl be real petty, stubborn, and jealous, yet you still get to like her at the end of the day.
6) Oh, Stacey. Openly flirting with Kristy's teen brother and the Sea City lifeguard. Headed for trouble, that girl. I do love that Mary Anne kind of had a girl crush on her until they went to Sea City together and then she's like, "Yeah, you're just as much of a dork as the rest of us."
I think that's it! Hope there's a season two!
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