Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Detention Adventure’ On HBO Max, Where Four Teens Try To Find Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret Labs Under Their Detention Room

Detention Adventure is one of two Canadian kids imports (the other being Make It Big, Make It Small) to premiere on HBO Max this weekend. Both shows are flying under the radar, without a lot of promotion by the streamer, but both are worth a look. Detention Adventure is even a show that adults can get into, especially ones that remember kids-going-on-adventures movies of their past like The Goonies or Adventures In Babysitting. Read on for more.

DETENTION ADVENTURE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see an overview of a middle school from above. Then a kid glues a smartphone and headphones to a statue of Alexander Graham Bell, to give him “an update.”

The Gist: That kid, Brett Austin (Tomaso Sanelli), is always getting in trouble, either through bullying or pranks like the one he pulled with the Graham statue. Principal Lounsberry (Andrew Moodie) pretty much sighs and sends Brett to detention as a matter of reflex.

But three other students, among the school’s best and brightest, are courting trouble too. Ragin Westbrook (Simone Miller), takes a confetti cannon out of her locker and shoots it off in front of the student patrol officer. Joy Jayadi (Alina Prijono) gives a teacher a scented candle that gives off colorful smoke when lit. And Norman “Hulk” Bean (Jack Fulton) sets off a classic “elephant toothpaste” reaction in his chemistry class, making a mess of colorful foam.

All three are sent to detention for their pranks, but that was the goal. They’ve all heard that, under the detention room are a series of tunnels that leads to a secret lab maintained by Bell back during the days he was inventing the telephone. They have a book of his writings that has his handwritten clues inside. So, as they take the limited time they have there to start looking, they’re surprised to see Brett there. They’re reluctant to have him help, but, as he says, he has a “season pass” to the room, and he isn’t quite as stupid as everyone thinks he is.

With his help — he knows Bell’s history and the fact that he invented things out of laziness working boring jobs — they find the first clue; a stained-glass window that has a wheat stalk pattern. That leads them to a trap door; they figure out that the code on the door is the Dewey Decimal System-marked drawers that will open the door when they’re opened in the right order. But just as they find the tunnel, Principal Lounsberry, who is talking to a slimy dude named Bruno Black (Benjamin Ayres) about the school’s “transition,” investigates noises coming from the room. Brett is crafty enough to keep Lounsberry at bay until everyone gets out of the tunnel and closes the trap door.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think Ghostwriter mixed with The Breakfast Club, albeit nerdier and more Canadian.

Our Take: Detention Adventure, created by Carmen Albano and Joe Kicak, is a bit silly, but in a good way. You’ve got an age old story where four mismatched teens are sent on an adventure which will bond them and change everyone’s lives. Only it’s parceled out into ten 12-minute episodes (the show is into its second season on the CBC Gem streaming service). And those 12-minute episodes work because the quartet can only explore enough during their 45-minute detention period. If they’re there any longer, people will get suspicious.

So in each episode, they push a little farther, but always trying to figure out a way to keep from being detected by the principal or one of the other faculty members. Those two factors make each episode intriguing, because they’re going to be using different methods to try to keep the staff at bay.

The kid stars are definitely kids; they’re all smarter than the average bear, as you’d expect from TV teens, but because three of them are nerdy outcasts, they also revel in the fact that the discovery will put them on the map and actually make them be seen. We’re wondering if we’re going to get some backstory about all of these kids, as we get hints of that in the second episode, but we’re not sure how much of their backstories we’ll get to explore, given the short runtime of each episode. Also, there’s something going on with the school, but that story may also get left underdeveloped.

But that doesn’t matter, because the adventure portion of the show will be fun to watch, as they get closer and closer to what could be a pretty significant discovery.

What Age Group Is This For?: The show is rated TV-PG, and we’re thinking kids 10 and up will like it.

Parting Shot: At the end of the first episode, the four teens are staring into the hole under the trap door. Brett manages to stave off the principal at the beginning of the second episode. They go back in the tunnel the next day (yes, that means more detention for all four of them), and this time it’s Ragin’s turn to fend off Lounsberry, with a story about how she fed her sister cat food instead of tuna because the sister can do no wrong in her family.

Sleeper Star: Simone Miller was our favorite of the four teens, not only because of her huge glasses, but she plays Ragin’s anger very well (she’s not called Ragin for nothing). She especially hates Brett, and their arguments carry the most character dynamics of anything on the show.

Most Pilot-y Line: Bruno Black says to Lounsberry when he finds the detention room locked, “You know, it’s not good to lock kids in a room,” Well, duh.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Detention Adventure isn’t high art, but it’s a fun show that you can watch with your tweens, with some good chemistry among its four lead actors.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Detention Adventure On HBO Max