Review: The Adventures of Paddington “The Bad Swap”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Paddington writes to Aunt Lucy that he learned “If something is fun, everyone wants to join in”.

Cut to the kids in the tree house playing a dramatic food-themed battle card game. Judy starts off strong, but ultimately loses to Jonathan when she runs out of time to make up a power for the card in her hand. Jonathan claims her cards as the spoils of his victory, and Paddington remarks that “Imaginarium looks great fun!”

Judy offers Paddington a turn, but he’s unsure of how to proceed. Unfortunately, before she can explain the rules, she and Jonathan are called to go to the dentist. Mateo and Paddington stay behind to play on their own.

Paddington’s attempt at shuffling sends Jonathan’s cards flying everywhere. The resulting mess reveals a rare card in his deck: Tiny Robot. Mateo is amazed, saying he’d trade every card he has just for that one.

Paddington thinks that sounds like a great idea, and makes the swap. Jonathan is devastated, and tells him it was a very bad swap. Determined to set things right, Paddington goes to find Mateo to ask for the card back.

Unfortunately, Mateo’s lost the card to the best Imaginarium player in the park: Ms. Potts. He challenges her to a high stakes staring contest, and wins! Only to discover Ms. Potts had lost the Tiny Robot card to Mr. Gruber.

Will Paddington ever be able to get the card back?

Our take:

I’m a huge fan of series spoofing Pokemon (or Yu-Gi-Oh, as this game seems to be a little closer to.)

While the Bob’s Burgers “Mission Impos-slug-ble” is still my current favorite of this variety (and Craig of the Creek‘s “Bring Out Your Beast” is a close second), this episode definitely has its moments.

I don’t know if the Stinky Cheese Man card is directly inspired by Jon Scieszka’s brilliant The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, but for the sake of library cred, I’m going to assume that is indeed the case. The game itself seems to rely more on the improv skill of the players than actual card values, which makes it a little confusing as to why Tiny Robot is such a big deal.

But in any trading card style game, there’s bound to be some cards that are rarer than others, so I suppose I’ll let that slide. A bigger plot hole comes from the fact that Ms. Potts (voiced by Liz Sutherland, who also voices Sue Yen in Juiced) is apparently hustling children for rare Imaginarium cards in the park.

Granted, her role in the plot is mostly just to extend Paddington’s search for the swapped card (and treat the audience to a dramatically scored stare-off showdown), but it still requires just a bit more suspension of disbelief than the rest of the show demands. Ultimately it works, thanks to the character’s sporting attitude after losing the staring contest. But it would help to have a bit more screentime for her to lend a little context here. Possibly a showdown of some sort with Mrs. Bird? The possibilities are endless really, and hopefully they’ll be explored in future episodes.

Despite having to challenge multiple Imaginarium enthusiasts to a variety of challenges, everything ends up alright in the end. But I’m looking forward to what struggles our favorite raincoat clad bear will encounter next time.