Small screen: Barking up the wrong tree
PUP ACADEMY (Netflix)
They can do a lot of things with special effects these days but they still can’t make a dog’s mouth look normal when it talks. The dogs’ mouths in Pup Academy, the new Netflix series about dogs who go to school, are some of the worst I think I’ve ever seen. Truly sickening stuff.
Pup Academy is (or was, at some point last week) New Zealand’s fourth-mostwatched thing on Netflix, according to the new feature that tells you what everybody else in the country is watching. This feature is full of fascinating insights into viewer behaviour. It seems, for example, that we would rather just rewatch Happy Gilmore than Adam Sandler’s criticallyacclaimed new film Uncut Gems, or that putting horrible smooth CGI mouths on otherwise real dogs somehow isn’t a total dealbreaker.
Made by Air Bud Entertainment, leaders in the dogs doing human things genre, and initially airing on the Disney Channel (shouldn’t it be on Disney Plus? I don’t know how anything works any more), Pup Academy does have some, shall we say, pedigree. With several very large nods to the Harry Potter franchise, the series follows a trio of unlikely pups invited to join a prestigious school for dogs by a Dumbledorian husky known as the D.O.G. (an academic acronym, it stands for Dean of Graduates).
The Harry, Ron and Hermione in this case are Whiz, a timid sheepdog who’s afraid of sheep, Corazon, a “cool” labrador who sometimes wears a hoodie and Spark, a purebred boxer puppy who is the most well-groomed stray you’ll ever see. All are controversial selections for the prestigious dog school, but the invitation of a stray in particular raises plenty of eyebrows. “She’ll disappoint you,” predicts one Snape-like senior dog, “just like the last one.”
Who was this last stray and what did they do to disappoint the D.O.G? There are mysteries of the past to unravel here, the secrets of a magical school with a rich history (something to do with astrology) but its future in peril. “Humans are more distracted than ever,” the D.O.G. gravely observes. “The bond between humankind and dog is weakening.”
There is a human saviour in the form of a lonely young boy called Morgan, whose grandfather has for many years been moonlighting as the caretaker of Pup Academy. While any dog wearing their magical name tag can access the school via portals on enchanted fire hydrants, the only way these humans can get there is by flushing themselves down the toilet. Absolutely horrifying scenes.
Could it be that the concept of a magical Pup Academy is not as cute as it initially seems? This is a school where class prejudice appears to be rife at the highest levels, and where a culture of bullying seems to have been allowed to thrive for years.
What kind of school are they running here? Why hasn’t the chihuahua bully been expelled already? The corgi headmistress has a lot to answer for.