In a new adaptation of Jules Verne’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth, a group of kids in a Mexican adventure camp take the journey that Verne did, with the goal of finding the group leader’s grandmother and trying to restore the Earth’s magnetic balance. Not a small feat, right?
Opening Shot: An older man in the past, supposedly Jules Verne (Gabriel Goity), writes about his adventures in parallel dimensions, and leaves instructions to his future generations about using the portal to those dimensions.
The Gist: Diego (Sebastián García) is an adventurous kid and an inventor just like his brother Martin (Yankel Stevan), his parents, and his grandmother Pola (Margarita Rosa de Francisco). In fact, the boys and their little sister Violeta (Camila Núñez) are being cared for by Pola as their parents are on a polar expedition.
Diego, along with his buddies Pedro (Manuel Márquez) and Ana (Paola Miguel), is going to an adventure camp for a month. Violeta is also going, as is Martin, who will be there as a counselor to fulfill his university community service requirement. The camp is owned by Pompilio Calderón (Óscar Jaenada), a famous and eccentric adventurer who walks around with a robot bird named Claudio (Santiago Alonso) on his shoulder.
Pola, who’s noticing that the microwave oven is going haywire and magnets are falling off the refrigerator door and crows are gathering outside, calls up her daughter and son-in-law to see what they’re seeing at their research station. She thinks she has to go into the dimensional portal to figure things out. She goes into a cave and opens the portal, and she’s followed there by Pompilio and Claudio; Pompilio has wanted to get into that portal for years. A dog runs out of the portal as it closes and takes the medallion Pola used to open it.
As camp opens, the group meets the shy but equally adventurous Laura (Valery Sais). Martin finds out that Andrea (Carla Adell), an old crush of his, is also a counselor. Pompiloo’s nephew Antonio (Luigi Cerrada) tries to bigfoot Diego and his group by bullying them and playing pranks.
The first night, though, Diego and his group find the dog, who Violeta names “Soup”. As they follow the dog through the woods, into an area Pompilio says is a “no go” for the campers, they find Pola’s medallion. When Pompilio finds them, he sees it as his chance to finally go through the portal. But he doesn’t realize that there are going to be people diving in behind him.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Journey To The Center Of The Earth, besides being an adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel that has been made into two feature films (not to mention a string of hokey straight-to-video imaginings) reminds us a bit of the modern-set adventure series Theodosia.
Our Take: José Luis Gutiérrez Arias and Lavia Atencio adapted Verne’s 1864 novel, and they took it in an interesting direction, making the journey center around a group of 21st-century kids. These kids aren’t your typical Roblox or Minecraft obsessives; even the VR games Diego and his buddies play are based on Verne’s adventures. That’s obviously a good thing; instead of showing preteens staring at phones and/or doing the usual coming-of-age stuff, they’re exploring multiple dimensions.
The series has its fantastical, Verne-like elements, even in the present-day setting. It’s most evident in the person of Pompilio and his steampunk bird companion Claudio. He wants to find a rock named Tungsten, and we’re not sure if he’s pure evil or just a sneaky guy. He’s certainly quirky, mixing French in with his Spanish, and Jaenada plays him well, making him just over-the-top enough to not make adults roll their eyes when watching him.
But there’s also the usual “kids at camp” story, with the kid who’s the leader of his/her group, the adventurous girl or girls, the bully who is eventually going to get his or her comeuppance, and likely lots of competitions to get everyone’s juices flowing. That aspect of the story will likely be the weakest, but for the most part, it serves as a way to ground the fantasy aspects of the series.
What Age Group Is This For?: Kids of all ages who like adventure should like Journey To The Center Of The Earth.
Parting Shot: After Pompilio dives into the portal, Soup the dog goes in, too. Violeta has no problem jumping in as the portal starts to close. Will the rest of the group go after her?
Sleeper Star: How could we not cite Santiago Alonso as the wise acre Claudio? The robot bird might be our favorite character in the whole show.
Most Pilot-y Line: We had an issue with how the show transitioned from Episode 1 to Episode 2, but we’ll leave those questions to the viewer as they see each episode. There’s an assumption that’s made at that point, but it’s a big one, and one we hope is addressed properly at some point.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Journey To The Center Of The Earth is a little goofy, but it looks great and the performances of the kids and adults make the show worth watching.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.