Children's Entertainment

My children have a new favourite TV show: The Night Garden.

When it was first played, I caught a brief peek and thought that I wouldn't bother with it. The pace was incredibly slow. The characters were infantile. Their names made no sense. There wasn't anything substantial in the way of educational content. Nothing much seemed to actually happen in an episode (in fact, the episode I first saw consisted entirely of one character washing the faces of all the other characters. very slowly.).

But then, a busy morning happened, and the kids watched Sesame Street while I put clothes on the line. One thing led to another, and a favourite was born. Boo has now decided that her favourite character is Upsy Daisy (pictured above), while Eldest's favourite seems to be Iggle Piggle. Having watched a few episodes, I'm starting to soften. It's a gentle entertainment: it doesn't move so fast that it creates attention deficits, it doesn't have the same psychadelic freak-out of Boobah, or the language problems of the Teletubbies (the characters really only speak their names, and the narrator is Derek Jacobi). The characters are actually very lovely and sweet (Makka Pakka is very cute). I prefer it to Dora the Explorer, who seems to train Boo to speak at a shout.

If you're interested, the official website has an episode commentary, which gives you the rationale behind the whole thing.

Do your children have a favourite?