Alice's Wonderland Bakery: Not Sure How To Feel About This One

I'm gonna be completely honest. I was excited for this one. I wanted to like it.

Alice's Wonderland Bakery is the newest in Disney's line of making shows about relatives of famous characters, and I usually have a lot of fun with this trope. While I haven't seen Descendants past some stuff I'll discuss much later down the line, I've enjoyed a lot of other shows with this trope such as The 7D and The Rocketeer (2019). I figured, oh boy, this one is about Alice in Wonderland too! I can't wait!

It's not bad??? Per se? But it's kind of confusing? And it made me kind of sad.

Honestly, I'm having issues determining where exactly to put this one on the tiermaker. I don't think I've been this confused about a show in some time. Granted I only watched 11 episodes so far and will likely get back to it, but still.

I'll start with the stuff I liked. I think probably one of the best qualities of the show is that it's usually pretty comfortable. Alice has a lot of positive regard toward her friends and tries to make sure they're comfortable and included. In "No Palace Like Home," she constantly asks Hattie if he's comfortable or needs to drop out of the royal sleepover, while in "Sour Grapes," she helps Rosa feel comfortable with a new food: green grapes. 

This isn't the first Disney baby show to do this necessarily; Vampirina and Muppet Babies also go this route, but as much as I watch Disney baby shows for some ungodly reason, it felt like a breath of fresh air. I think even non-baby shows lately have been going this route too. Harvey Beaks comes to mind as one of those feelgood shows that focuses on comfort (though it does admittedly have an edge to it as well, while this show does not).

I also really like the songs this show has to offer. I've mentioned the once an episode songs in other baby shows, and this one has two, which I didn't realize for a bit. There's "Let's Bake," the actual once an episode song that varies in length when the main trio gets to baking. And then there's "Food For Thought," which is less of a once an episode song and more of a recurring song. "Let's Bake" is very fun and I find myself singing it in my day to day life, so I have a feeling it'll be memorable in ten years. "Food For Thought" is a really lovely song, which made me think "Wow! This is really sweet." And then I heard it again and went. "Hold on. Is Alice going to sing this song anytime someone's upset?" And it sucks because it's a fantastic song, but if it's just going to be thrown in whenever someone's sad... I feel like that's going to wear it out, and it sort of gives the show a haphazard vibe.

With that same vibe is how the show does morals. A lot of the morals are different for different characters. For example, Alice stories are about cooking by the book lest there be consequences, while Hattie stories are about doing things in your own way. On one hand, I appreciate how the show sets up different sets of morals for these two vastly different characters who are still bound by baking, but on the other, every time I think about "Try Again Tart," involving Hattie throwing ingredients into a tart without regard, I also think about "Pie Pressure," the episode that was paired with it, where Fergie messes up Alice's recipes, ultimately leading to the Queen of Hearts having a grin on her face she can't get rid of it.

I think out of all the shows about descendants of some characters, this one is also the one with the most allusions to the source material. Sometimes, this is great, because you get episodes like "Potato Potahto," where Alice and Fergie make the same potato based recipes created by the original Alice and the White Rabbit, which they both gave different names.

On the other hand, you'll get songs from the original movie, such as "Painting the Roses Red" instead of something new. I do like Alice in Wonderland, but I think I was expecting this show to pull a little less from it. Like maybe they could have included more modern versions of the songs like The 7D did.

As for characters, my thoughts are kind of mixed on most of them. Sometimes I like them, other times I don't. My main exception for this is the royal family. The Queen of Hearts in particular is a very fun character. She has the energy of an over the top immature villain, though she's not malicious so much as she is greatly arrogant.

My other exceptions for this are Hattie's dad, The Dad Hatter (his actual name), and Harry the March Hare. While I do not necessarily feel positively about these two, any possible emotions I have about these two characters are clouded by my incessant wondering as to whether these guys are a couple or not. On one hand, characters having two moms or two dads is getting increasingly common in kid shows, and lesbian couples have been featured in Disney baby shows before (Doc McStuffins and T.O.T.S.). However, we haven't seen a gay couple to my knowledge, and I have not seen LGBT couples as the forefront of a show. In addition, Disney has a reputation of child characters being raised by a two men who are not romantically involved (Gosalyn had a dad and a Launchpad, Bunga was being raised by Timon and Pumbaa, who are seen as uncles, etc).

I think a lot of the sour feeling I feel about this show other than the various mixed emotions come from one episode: "Dodo Dilemma." In this episode we're introduced to Captain Dodo and his daughter Jojo, who suffers from an upside-down related ailment. The episode has Alice and the gang make a recipe that can fix it that requires certain peppers. They can't find the peppers at the bakery and then ask the Cheshire Cat where they can find them. The gang eventually finds out that the peppers, which Captain Dodo had as a child, no longer grow in Wonderland. They essentially shrug it off and find a suitable replacement which cures Jojo.

Now this isn't a bad episode or anything, but I don't like the implications. I don't like the implication that extinction exists in Wonderland. Like yes, extinction does happen in the real world, but it does happen more frequently these days, and I wonder if this episode reflects a real-world problem. In that case, we just shrug and get over it because we'll find a solution? Is the episode preparing children for an extinction event? Am I vastly overthinking a baby show? I don't know, but the episode made me feel pretty hopeless...

Also the episode was paired with one where the Queen of Hearts became a horsegirl it wasn't very good.

Rating for Alice's Wonderland Bakery: D Tier

Yay! Tier time!