"Animorphs" (1998) TV series 1998-1999

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Directors:

Timothy Bond
Stacey Stewart Curtis

Writer:

K.A. Applegate (novel)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | unknown

Release Date:

4 September 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi

Plot:

Five human kids and an alien with the ability to turn into any animal they touch vs. an army of parasitic aliens which is slowly infiltrating the earth.

Plot Keywords:

Transformation | Alien Invasion | Alien Possession | Human Transforms Into Animal | Morphing

Cast

Shawn Ashmore	...	Jake Berenson (13 episodes, 1998-2000)
Brooke Nevin	...	Rachel Berenson (13 episodes, 1998-2000)
Boris Cabrera	...	Marco (13 episodes, 1998-2000)
Eugene Lipinski	...	Victor Trent / ... (13 episodes, 1998-2000)
Nadia-Leigh Nascimento	...	Cassie (12 episodes, 1998-2000)
Christopher Ralph	...	Tobias (12 episodes, 1998-2000)
Richard Sali	...	Principal Chapman (10 episodes, 1998-2000)
Paulo Costanzo	...	Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill (8 episodes, 1998-1999)
Joshua Peace	...	Tom Berenson (8 episodes, 1998-1999)

Also Known As:

"AniTV" (USA) (promotional title)
"The Changelings" (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

Canada:24 min (1998-2000) | USA:30 min (26 episodes)

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Angel/Brown Productions

Trivia:

Unlike in the book series, where any normal clothing the Animorphs wore during morph was either destroyed or left behind, the TV series showed the Animorphs capable of morphing their clothing whenever they transformed; no explanation was given for this, beyond simple dramatic license.

Quotes:

[Marco complains that he gets all the lame morphs]
Marco: Why can't you be the duck for once?
Jake Berenson: Because I can't afford the bill
Marco: You'd better let me handle the jokes.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Being John Malkovich (1999)

Oh, what this could have been...

There was so much that could have been done to make this a quality show. For one thing, get rid of that Boris kid! Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the obvious choice, as his personality and appearance were both perfect! And Gregory Smith would have been amazing as Jake- he's always the actor I imagined in that part. That said, the other actors were all pretty good choices (and I loved the Tobias pick), so no more problems there.

Next issue: If memory serves me correctly (and it probably doesn't- I only watched the first episode before giving up on it), they did a weekly or nightly half-hour show on Nickelodeon. Wrong length, wrong station. If they had done what Farscape did and made it an hour-long special on Fox or some other channel, they'd have had a lot more flexibility to do it right. Nickelodeon is for brainless cartoons- they no longer know how to handle real quality programming.

They shouldn't have done it without better funding than they had- no sci-fi/fantasy story, even one for kids/teenagers, will work on a shoestring budget. Why not gear some of that book/merchandise revenue to the show, in turn getting good ratings and making more money as you increase interest in both sets of the series? Was their marketer on sedatives?

But even with everything as it was, I believe (and if anyone reads this who has seen the show will probably agree) what lost the fanbase was its nearly complete disregard for the books. It retained the characters, the aliens and the idea of morphing- and that was about it. And it failed utterly, being cancelled not long after it began.

Animorphs was an amazingly well-written series that hooked most of us by the mix of crazy humor and emotion-wrenching drama. Whether it was plausible or even entirely original didn't matter because the author (props to Mrs. Applegate) did such a good job. If anything, the TV show hurt that. From reading the posts, a lot of kids who got a glimpse of the show decided that the books must have been just as awful (or *gasp* unaware that there even were books). The show could have been so much more- it could have contended among the best preteen/teenager programming, and been a guilty pleasure for the adults out there. But it wasn't, so I bid it a wistful but otherwise indifferent farewell. I'll stick to my original sorrow over the book series ending.