Go Jetters!

Channel: CBeebies

Running Time: 11 minutes

Date: 2015- present

Noses: Difficult to animate.

Just a quick pointer - you can read all my previous blogs, including In the Night Garden, Postman Pat SDS, The Furchester Hotel, Teletubbies, Bing, Raa Raa and Hey Duggee! at this link. 

Premise: "Training with the Go Jet Academy, four explorers on a global adventure: Xuli, Kyan, Lars, Foz. They are... the Go Jetters!" If you're a fan of asyndetic listing you're already hooked, but... cue disco music, and what could possibly be - and I'm going out on a limb here - the most catchy children's theme tune at least this century. Not the best. But maybe the catchiest. We'll come to that 'Academy' bit soon, but for now I'll run you through a typical episode.

The Go Jetters begin on the 'Jet Pad' - a big rocket ship with no visible polluting emissions, that zooms around the world, visiting spots of geographic significance. A disco-dancing unicorn - Ubercorn - talks them through said landmark with some 'funky facts' which are less 'funky' than 'rudimentary', but hey, alliteration. At the moment it sounds like Elon Musk's SpaceX programme has branched out into selling tame but expensive gap year experiences, so they've added some jeopardy - some very consistent jeopardy - in the form of Grandmaster Glitch and his Minions Grimbots. Consistent meaning every single episode. Grandmaster Glitch is the foil to our Go Jetters - a bit like The Hood in Thunderbirds, but completely useless and far less malevolent. Kind of like of Michael Gove (smug, narcissistic, all-round appalling human being) crossed with Barry Chuckle (clumsy; big moustache).

Grimbots/Not Minions: someone probably should have been sued by now.

Ultimately, our heroes are tasked with saving the geographic landmark, and usually some tourists as well. They race off, Thunderbirds style, to their sister ship, the 'Vroomster', which you need to see written down, because it sounds just like the 'Broomster', Harry Potter's latest Firebolt model at time of going to press. At the moment where we think all is lost, deus ex machina is invoked by the storytellers, as somehow, Ubercorn is able to transpose some helpful kit literally into the arms and onto the backs of our academy trainees. And, whether it be the Easter Island statues, the White Cliffs of Dover, the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China, the day is saved. Grandmaster Glitch is foiled and humiliated, but rarely injured, and never killed. The Go Jetters gather for a congratulatory selfie, because 21st century. 

Click-ons: These literally appear out of nowhere.

Background: Although you might have missed the opening episode from October 26th 2015 because you were hungover from celebrating Jimmy Morales' presidential victory in Guatemala, you have certainly not had the excuse to miss it since, with over 60 episodes made in the last two years. It is regularly broadcast in the 'Oh crap is that the time!' slot on CBeebies.

Although President Morales might have thought his election victory the more significant event, history seems to have favoured Go Jetters' fortunes rather more. Earlier this autumn, the producers of the BAFTA-nominated show were rolling out series two with triumphant trailers all across CBeebies, whilst Morales was receiving criticism from the UN, and was in danger of having his immunity from prosecution withdrawn in light of damning accusations of illegal donations to his political party, the National Convergence Front. 

President Jimmy Morales incorrectly answers the question: How many Funky Facts does Ubercorn offer each episode?

Apparently the animation programme the producers use, Corona Renderer, is all very clever and everything, and you can read a glowing tribute and interview on Corona Renderer's website, if that's your bag, but having waded through it myself, it's a bit heavy on tech-speak and not very helpful if you're trying to investigate the Go Jet Academy's financial accounts, and how much funding is being diverted from other academies in the local education authority area.

As yet there has not been one single episode of Go Jetters based in Guatemala.

Entertainment: You've got to hand it to the writers: there is a lot to be said about repeating a very simple formula over and over again, changing very little other than the location - something the owners of Formula One and the tour managers of the Rolling Stones know to their bank balances' immense credit. The 'funky facts' can sometimes border on the simplistic (Loch Ness is very deep, the Pyramids of Giza are very old), but there is definitely some varied 'tainment' to be had in this very knowing  'edutainment' series, even if most of it has been borrowed from Thunderbirds.

This unicorn did a LOT of Mary Jane back in the day

One disappointment lies in the catchphrases of each character. Xuli's 'not cool' is barely even a catchphrase; Kyan's 'aced it' smacks of self-serving superiority; Foz's overuse of 'ergo' implies a young man who very much learns each new word through a subscription to Clever Club; and finally, Lars' 'Geographic!' is so wantonly tragic it forces me to reconsider the virtues of bullying. Glitch's 'Grimbles!' is by far the most quotable in real life, though I sense an ironic use for #Geographic one day in the (quite distant) future.

Although there are countless #geographic! and historically significant sites still to be mined for story ideas (keeping fingers crossed for the Doncaster Frenchgate Shopping Centre episode!), one cannot escape the feeling that Go Jetters are going to have to do something out of the ordinary pretty soon. Perhaps some spin-offs - follow the characters during their boozy 18-30 holidays, commission a prequel series charting Ubercorn's harrowing addiction to cocaine in the early 1980s, or jump on the bandwagon with a Stranger Things crossover, where the Go Jetters have to rescue the Great Barrier Reef from The Upside Down, only to discover that it fared better in a world of death and decay than in real life.

The Great Barrier Reef in the Upside Down - and the Right Way Up. #newsflash we're all screwed.

Fans of disappointing arts and crafts can learn how to make a Grandmaster Glitch moustache/eyebrows combo here, using straws, card, tape, and a world-weary resignation.

Hard to believe, but this is not actually Grandmaster Glitch.

Ratings:

Sex: These gap year students seem to be all about the geography. A quick peek inside Lars' room suggests they are all equipped with single beds; their skin tight Lycra leaves everything to the imagination. The possibilities of the disco soundtrack are lost on them. Expect to see them at a Young Conservatives event in ten years' time. 1/10

Just room for a single bed, but still bigger than any affordable flat in London. 

Music: No-one can deny the power of that theme tune. It is hard to tell what came first - the focus on geography or the focus on disco. Barry Gibb would be proud of this one. 8/10

Plausibility: As with its CBeebies cousin Octonauts, there is a nagging question of where these students' funding comes from. The Go Jetters themselves appear to be the only four students at this academy, and command a set of intricate machinery that even Jeff Tracy would have thought flashy and extravagant. This, readers, is why we 'can't afford' pay rises for nurses.

Fans of rules and regulations - and god knows I'm one - will notice Xuli's insistence every episode of always reminding the Go Jetters to fasten their Vroomster seat belts only after the countdown for lift-off has concluded. Bearing in mind she's the one who's going to be in trouble in the event of an insurance claim, I'd make sure Lars, Foz and Kyan are safely belted before I even turn the engine on. 2/10

Education: This show is up there with 'Do You Know' and 'Horrible Histories' in terms of its wider value to the education of young people. Dr Paula Owens, consultant to the series, has said "Geography is about so much more than where places are and what they are called...It helps explain how everything we do has a bearing on other people, places and environments - for good and bad." I would suggest the carbon emissions of four students flying across the world in a rocket ship definitely goes in the 'bad' column here, but maybe that Jet Pad runs on good intentions. 'Funky Facts' though, is definitely something I'd add to some of my favourite shows - Breaking Bad had a lot of things going for it, but a top three on crystal meth would have filled in some context. I'd also have liked to have seen characters in The Wire introduced in this way. 8/10

Overall: It's more Go Jetters than No Jetters, but patience is wearing thin. There's only so many times Lars can say 'It's heading straight for those tourists!' before the words lose all meaning. 6/10