Ridley Jones is a cute series with colorful animation and features a number of fun moments for children to enjoy. The first season begins the story by introducing little Ridley and how she begins her mini-adventures with the museum beings. The concept is a children's version of A Night At The Museum and Ridley is a character clearly based on Indiana Jones. His companions are adorable and innocent characters with quite a bit of charm. Without a doubt, the beginning of this series assumes something very enjoyable for children.
In the second season the series improves, presenting more exciting mini-adventures and the rise of Ridley as the new protector of the museum. The only details are that the season should have concluded with the fourth episode. The issue with Fred begins to become more noticeable at the beginning of this next season. In the previous season there were a couple of nods to respect that may have gone unnoticed. Here it could have been the same if the message he gave had remained only about being yourself, without the need to be like others.
The third season is shorter and feels more random. Here Peabody becomes something of an unwitting villain, as seen at the end of the previous season, and it's curious that he still makes the mistake of not noticing anything suspicious when exhibits are out of place. Here the series begins to lower its level a little, making the second season better and perhaps that is where the series could have concluded in the most appropriate way.
The fourth season improves the series again, still following the episodic series structure. There is a better balance in the writing with respect to the story and the morals, being perhaps the best season of the series. The fifth episode concludes the fourth season with a clever story about the value of working as a team and definitely should have been the series finale.
The fifth season was made to continue offering more of Ridley's adventures and continue transmitting values, but without knowing that this season would leave the series unfinished. Although it starts with an interesting special and the other episodes present interesting ideas, this season has ups and downs that make it feel like an unnecessary season. In some episodes the problems are resolved faster than in previous seasons. The new ideas and characters that are presented are only momentary. Peabody no longer has so much antagonism due to his few appearances, but at least they were able to show more about this character in the semi-last episode to understand his attitude. In this season, some lessons begin to be given on more advanced topics in some episodes such as rivalry, competition, humility and identity. The latter was what would be used to reveal Fred's identity.
The episode that generated impact was intended to teach a lesson about acceptance and self-confidence, but they did not know how to do it correctly. The mistake is that just being accepted with the identity you have is enough to face the challenges. It serves to have more self-confidence, but not to face conflicts. On the one hand, it helps those who have an identity crisis have more self-confidence, but that is not enough and the issue related to pronouns is opaque more than it should have been conveyed. Despite hints at Fred's identity, it was never fully clarified and remained ambiguous for the rest of the series. It would have been better if they left it that way because Fred was fine as a character just focusing on helping Ridley. Curious that Fred has generated so much noise after revealing his identity when at the beginning of the series we were introduced to Ismat's two fathers and no one said anything about it. What generated impact was nothing more than one of the lows that this fifth season had, but many thought that that was enough to devalue the series. At least they decided to conclude the season with a good adventure that could have given a definitive ending, but only left things behind. Perhaps it could have continued into a sixth season, but in the end that didn't happen due to a simple mistake.
So, Ridley Jones had to be canceled because of Fred? The only right answer is no. It was a mistake that they decided to continue the series and it simply should have ended in the fourth season. Fred's revelation was also a unnecessary mistake. Many of the negative opinions towards this series only focused on this mistake, as if the entire series had depended on that episode. What is certain is that none of those people took the trouble to watch the entire series to see that there is only one reality regarding it. Ridley Jones is actually a series for children that, despite its ups and downs, is healthy and transmits good values. All negative opinions towards this series are invalid and without good foundations because they are based solely on a failed episode and paranoia that comes from the parents. In fact, many of these fathers are not even worthy of being father figures because it is clear that there lies a hidden prejudice that the younger ones can end up inheriting. This shows the lack of intellect and low IQ that many audience members have. Ridley Jones is no different from other children's series that try to convey good values and having a failed episode does not define the series in general at all. In short, Ridley Jones is a children's series like any other that children can freely enjoy and that should not be rejected too lacking in logic. My final rating, the only and valid one for this series, is an 8/10.
This is the only valid rating the series should have because the other ratings belong to people of inferior intellect.
