Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay’s adaptation of Trenton Lee Stewart’s books begins with a group of kids taking a series of tests for the opportunity to win a place at a secret-shrouded boarding school.
Only after the kids are put through their paces by staff like Kristen Schaal’s Number Two, MaameYaa Boafo’s Rhonda and Ryan Hurst’s Milligan can they meet the enigmatic Mr. Benedict and learn a mission that involves infiltrating an entirely different secret-shrouded boarding school.
The end of the second episode finally gives an excuse to be interested in Hale, whose performance is composed initially of hairpieces and a single random character trait.
I don’t specifically blame DeOliveira for Kate making the same joke about wanting her name to be central to their group nickname at least three or four times or Timofeeva for Constance being less a character than a series of eye-rolling annoyances, but two episodes is way too soon for me to be getting bored with key characters.
There’s something timely about a show in which the villain is “ennui,” but part of what makes it timely is that every warning sounded about The Emergency parrots a right-wing “fake news” talking point in a way that left me more uncomfortable than intrigued.
But it’s harder to justify with something like The Mysterious Benedict Society, where the first pair of installments out of the gate are a promising pilot and a redundantly structured second episode with diminishing returns.