Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Mysterious Benedict Society’ On Disney+, About Four Kids And A Strange Benefactor Fighting The Forces Of Anxiety

Shows like The Mysterious Benedict Society have to balance on a line that makes them a bit dark, a bit scary, and a bit weird, but not too much of any of these things. Why? Because the audience is kids, and even though they want to be weirded out a little bit or scared a little bit, shows can’t go too far, so as not to drive off their audience. So, where does Benedict Society land?

THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A strange man (Tony Hale) with a mop of curls on his head, looks out from between piles of books and says, “Most people care about the truth.”

The Gist: As we see a number of kids doing their thing, the man talks about “The Emergency,” which has given people a whole lot of anxiety about what in the world is going to happen next. “Fortunately there are some who posses an unusually powerful love of truth. These are the people I must find before it’s too late,” the man says.

Those people are usually children; in this case, orphans. We first focus on one orphan, Reynie Muldoon (Mystic Inscho), smarter and more bookish than the other kids in his orphanage, and he often gets bullied for it. His tutor, Ms. Perumal (Gia Sandhu), tells him about an opportunity to try out for a scholarship for the prestigious Boatwright Academy. He thinks he’s not good enough for that; when she tells him he’s read every book in the orphanage’s library, he says, “It’s a small library.”

But he goes for the test, administered by a strange woman that’s named Number Two (Kristen Schaal). The test is strange, full of opinion questions, and his opinions are interesting, like when he answers whether he’s brave. “I’d like to be” is what he writes. He’s the only one who passes round one, and then goes on to round two, where he comes up with a solution to a young woman who lost her one and only pencil down a grating.

This round is so confusing most of the kids panic. But not Reynie; he figures out that the answers are in the other questions. He again is the only one who passes. He then meets George ‘Sticky’ Washington (Seth Carr), named Sticky because facts stick in his brain, and Kate Wetherall (Emmy DeOliveira), who joined the circus after her mother died and dad ran off; she has a bucket full of things to help her get out of difficult situations. They go through other tests at a massive mansion with two other finalists, who end up getting sent home.

The three of them meet their benefactor, Mr. Benedict (Hale), who then introduces them to the blunt-speaking Constance Contraire (Marta Kessler), who passed the tests in her own ways. Number Two is there, as is Rhonda Kazembe (MaameYaa Boafo), who played the girl with the lost pencil. The team is rounded out by Milligan (Ryan Hurst), a man of few words.

Mr. Benedict wants the four orphans to be part of a team to fight “The Emergency,” and stem the tide of anxiety that’s sweeping the land. He needs them to find whoever or whatever is hypnotizing or brainwashing people into being so anxious. And he thinks they all bring the right abilities to accomplish the task.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Mysterious Benedict Society, based on a book series by Trenton Lee Stewart, reminds us of a less scary version of Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events, right down to the cumbersome title, the orphans and the mysterious benefactor (though Tony Hale looks a whole light more benign than Neil Patrick Harris did in the Netflix version of Unfortunate Events). There’s also a Wonka-esque feel to the whole thing, especially how Hale portrays Mr. Benedict.

Our Take: The world of The Mysterious Benedict Society, brought to life by creators Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, is one that is complete and mostly-realized by the end of the first episode. The world that these four orphans are going to try to right isn’t exactly modern times, but isn’t exactly the past, either. It’s colorful, and full of tiny vintage European cars. It’s weird but rooted in some sort of reality. The only thing we don’t have a handle on at the end of the first episode is just how gripped in panic everyone is due to “The Emergency.”

Is the show a little twee? Sure. But it’s mainly for kids, so we can handle a teeny bit of twee in family fare like this. We’re given more than enough insight into Reynie, his inventiveness, kindness and thought process, through the tests he takes. But Sticky and Kate show what they bring to the table, as well. Constance Contraire is the wild card; all we know is that she has an accent (Kessler was born in Russia) and is quite blunt about everything. All four kid actors do just fine with their roles, though we’ll want to see more of what makes them all tick going forward.

We’re definitely enjoying Hale and the people who make up his team. Schaal can usually be counted on to be both weird and fumblingly sweet, and here she adds officious to the mix, making it all work well together. Boafo and Hurst are also fun to watch. But Hale showed why he’s got the awards on his shelf; he makes what could have been a quirky mess of tics into a person who sincerely wants these kids to succeed. His monologue to the kids when they meet him made the episode, and cut through all the tweeness, grounding things in some semblance of reality. (Plus, Hale plays a dual role, which viewers will find out about pretty quickly.)

What Age Group Is This For?: We can see this show appealing to the 8 and up audience, mainly because of the idea of orphans and “anxiety” is more understandable for older kids.

Parting Shot: Mr. Benedict shows the kids into a monitoring room, and then an alarm goes off. As Number Two closes the door, he tells the kids, “Your responsibilities start now,” and he passes out.

Sleeper Star: We hope to see Gia Sandhu as a regular as Ms. Perumal, who was one of the first people to believe in Reiny’s abilities. Their relationship will likely morph into something more along the lines of parent-son than teacher-student as we go along.

Most Pilot-y Line: You kind of knew that the two overconfident kids that had families were going to wash out of Benedict’s tests pretty quickly. It feels like they were almost there just to show the others why they were the chosen ones.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Mysterious Benedict Society is smart without being overly precious, but is just weird enough to keep kids’ attention. It helps that the writing and acting help keep things from flying off into Tweeland.

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 The Mysterious Benedict Society On Disney+