This DVD essentially contains three adventures with a birthday theme - each episode features the gang of heroes (aka Little Einsteins) who set out to solve a problem or mystery with the help of famous works of art, landmarks of the world and most prominently classical music.As a parent, who's keen for her child not to watch too much "rubbish" on TV, this all sounds very edifying. However what this actually means in reality is that the elements of story and character play a definite second fiddle to the sledgehammer of so-called educational element. Therefore the Little Einsteins and their adventures rapidly become rather charmless, a bit dull and overall pretty unengaging.
In the absence of any interesting characters, humour or even an engaging big morality theme (as is the norm in most simple stories), one starts feeling rather rebellious, as you start to wonder why a small child needs to familiarise himself with the notion of "bowing a violin", Navaho Indian art and any number of Italian musical terms - whose definition of educative is this?
Little Einsteins are ultimately the class swot - you can't fault their content but you just don't like them very much. But as my son nodded along, repeated phrases, grinned from ear to ear and participated as he was encouraged to by the characters, I realised my opinion didn't matter very much.
Little Einsteins Vol.1 - Mission Celebration [2006]
