Based on the beloved books, Carmen Sandiego is an animated television series that streams exclusively on Netflix. The series follows the eponymous character and her crime-fighting companions as they travel the world to stop the operations of criminal organization, V.I.L.E.
Aside from the occasional two-parter, each episode is a new heist. Sometimes I’m in the mood just to watch an episode of something and not get tricked into watching a whole series to get closure, so I like this sort of structure. The animation style is so cool and blissfully not hyper-realistic. The colors, movements, and angles of the drawings all really contribute to the unique vibe of the show.
Additionally, Carmen Sandiego is educational! I love geography, so the fact that this show has a strong geographical focus is super fun. As Carmen travels to new places all over the globe, the viewers travel with her, learning a myriad of fun facts along the way.
Lastly, despite the fact each episode follows a relatively similar layout, the plotline is still creative. The various unique characters add a needed level of depth to the repetitiveness of the heists. And even though I generally have a rough idea of where the episode is going, I always find myself pleasantly surprised with the witty commentary and clever plotting.
Like many kids shows, Carmen Sandiego is much more than what you might expect.
My Character Ratings
| Character | Rating | Notes |
| Carmen Sandiego | 10/10 | Self-assured, speaks a million languages, can do acrobatics, literally has a hang glider built into her coat, and is an excellent planner. |
| Player | 1000000000000000/10 | my favorite character. super cool random middle or high school boy who homeschools and somehow hides the fact that he is making hacking history to help a young woman obstruct major criminal activity from his parents. |
| Gray aka Graham Crackle | 9/10 | I like that he’s Australian. |
| Zack & Ivy | 6/10 | Sometimes annoying, very cool backstory, I like the Boston accents. |
| Chase Devineaux | 10/10 | Very french. Very funny. |
| Julia Argent | 7/10 | She has obscenely good deductive reasoning. I like her history professor arc. She’s really polite too. |
| VILE Faculty | 5/10 | Each has their own interesting personality and niche. They’re kinda dumb though. |
| The Cleaners | 10/10 | Very efficient. |