Polly Pocket was a toy line that was basically 11 year old Barbie. While it has its fans, I assumed it faded into obscurity by the time I entered adult hold. Enter this new cartoon which seems to have been made in due to the success of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The show was animated by WildBrain and features the voice talents of Emily Tennant, Shannon Chan-Kent, Kazumi Evans, Patricia Drake and Rhonda Rees. Despite its attempt to reinvent the character, Polly Pocket just goes through the motions of a typical cartoon on television and does little to standout.
Visually, it's well made for a show on television. The character design is adequate, with the characters having an anime like appearance with big bright eyes, colorful hair and believable human anatomy. The animation itself is decently handled, with fluid character movements, detailed backgrounds and well integrated special effects. I commend the animation and art department on a job well done on the visuals. That said, impressive animation does not a good animated series make.
The pacing for this show is really sloppy and each episode was more tedious to sit through than the last. Each episode feels like it could run smoothly at 11 minutes but it pads the runtime with tedious montages and drawn out chase scenes to meet that 22 minute mark. It also doesn't help that I didn't find the jokes particularly funny. Save for the villain's granddaughter, who's kinda an airhead and has some funny lines and the occasional slapstick.
The characters sound like a lot of fun in concept but are rather generic and dull in execution. Polly is an inventor like her parents and has a locket that can make her shrink and grow at her command. And yet, she shares the same problems as Sabrina from the 1999 animated series. She's reckless, irresponsible, and each episode she has to learn the hard way that life isn't always fair. Lila has a love for fashion, and yet her character just amounts to her taking selfies and trying to be trendy. Shani is a total sci-fi nerd, yet plays the role of the brains and nervous girl archetype seen and done better in other shows. Nick is Ronaldo from Steven Universe, but without the significant character growth or depth to make him either redeemable or interesting. Then there's the villain, Griselle Grande, who is interested in getting Polly's locket so she can shrink people to fill her model city. Griselle's motivation comes down to wanting control yet the show never goes into detail why that is. It also doesn't help that she comes across as a bit creepy considering she's a full grown woman chasing after a little girl. But the worst aspect about her is that she is often forced into the conflict of each episode. Episodes like Doggone Disaster and Super Tiny Fly would've benefited from not including her or her granddaughter, Gwen. Speaking of which, she's the best character in of the cast, which isn't saying much. Unlike the usual son/daughter (in her case, granddaughter) of the villain, Gwen's a bit of an airhead and delivers the best amount of humor. I was expecting a "mean girl" but was relieved that she was a ditz.
The voice acting just isn't that good. I'm sure they're trying their best, but most of the acting is just played straight and the characters don't leave a lasting impression as a result. Emily Tennant, try as she might, doesn't exert as much personality into Polly as she desperately need. She sounds too casual even in stressful situations. Shannon Chan-Kent make's Lila sound like a stereotypical social media obsessed little girl, and I wish she dialed it back a bit. Patricia Drake is giving an over-the-top performance, yet it's not over-the-top enough for me to be interested in Griselle.
The worst aspect of this show are the supporting players which consists of tired cliches with no unique spin to them. Polly Pocket's parents are awfully one note, with her Dad being a buffoon and her Mom lacking any personality other than "Mom who works alot." Pierce is just the annoying older sibling who never takes Polly seriously unless the plot says so. Paxton is a baby and as such he's only allowed to due baby things like laugh, play with toys, or cry like a banshee. Then there's the other adults in the town of Littleton, such as the teachers at Polly's school. Criminy, it's like these people would rather get paid to teach cockroachss because they show no love or gratitude for teaching kids. There's also an elder home supervisor who is such a killjoy it's not even funny; no seriously, it's not funny. The girl's troop leader is an exaggerated drill sergeant instead of an actual person, Ms. Mint was just an unfun babysitter and Mr. Q is just the crotchety old man I've seen a million times. Then there's Devon from the 20th episode, who is the absolute worst character in the show. He's a typical bully that's so nasty it makes me question why he has frienda in the first place. He deliberately insults Polly in front of Pierce's face and the only reason why he doesn't stand up to her is because the plot won't allow him to until the end. There's only legitimately good side characters are Melody and Blair Delaware, but it's not a compliment when I praise 2 one off characters are better than the entire supporting cast.
Overall, Polly Pocket is everything people feared My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic would be when it first aired in 2010. It's poorly written, atrociously paced, has bland main characters, a frustratingly bad supporting cast and less than stellar voice acting. The only thing it has going for it are bright and colorful visuals, but that's not enough to save this show's mediocrity. My advice: just stick to MLP:FiM. If a 2nd season ever comes along, it needs to be a massive improvement to blow the 1st season out of the water.
