The Office (2024)

The Office is a reimagining of the original British (and by extension American) version of the TV show. It is set in Australia, taking on the form of a mockumentary (although it doesn’t point this out in the show itself). Reimagining such an iconic show is tough to pull off, and this version was cancelled after its first season of eight episodes, although it’s not surprising when you watch it, given that it has a heavy weight on its shoulders given the original shows were so beloved.

First things first, and that is the show has some characters that are gender flipped. Most notably, the manager is now female, Hannah. She is the managing director of the Sydney branch of a packaging company. While the company is not so far as to be failing, there are certain issues. The first episode spells it out and shows off how out of touch Hannah is. Everyone was happily working from home, and corporate is happy to give up the physical office to allow its employees to work from home full time, but Hannah refuses, and asks for more time to prove that they are more efficient by having everyone work in the office full time. Obviously, staff are not happy, but they quickly adjust to it, and this issue is not really touched up much for the rest of the season.

Hannah’s out of touchness and oddities come more to the forefront as the season goes on. Her character is deliberately cringeworthy but doesn’t go as far as what the American version did at times. We have other characters that play familiar roles such as Lizze, who is also odd in her own way, being a stickler for rules and trying to pull everyone into the office to do things her way. We have the warehouse manager Stevie who keeps the warehouse running well and must put off with the stupidity of the people upstairs, and we have Nick and Greta who get along very well, but Greta has a boyfriend.

Unfortunately, the success of the original TV series casts a huge shadow on this version, because you can’t help but feel that the characters are too familiar, yet too different at the same time. The ultimate feeling is that it feels off. The characters lack the genuineness, charm and chemistry that made the American version work so well (but even that show took around two seasons before they could figure it out). Every time Hannah does something, or Nick flirts with Greta, you can’t help but compare it to the originals and it comes off as a pale imitation.

Given the setting, there is a distinct Australian theme and flavor to its content, which helps make it stand apart. There are references as well as unique events such as Melbourne Cup Day, which while novel, can also be confusing if you are not familiar with what they are. The show plays it too safe, never really going far enough with its antics to really surprise you. Yet at the same time, the amount of swearing and other reliance on cheap humor makes it lazy in its writing.

The overarching plot of the office transitioning to fully remote hangs over Hannah’s head, although she is the only one that really wants to keep it. The rest of the employees are surprisingly placid, and despite their “protestations”, they’re not really that worked up. This is especially given what they have to go through with Hannah, since she is not the most appropriate boss. She’s not as bad as Michael Scott or David Brent (and it would have been super awesome if either of them gave a cameo), her actions and personalities are toned down a lot more. She’s still somewhat unlikable in certain scenes, but doesn’t quite have the same loveable charm, her character can fall flat.

Luckily, each episode’s subplot isn’t too repetitive. They’re familiar in the sense that it is slightly similar to what you would expect an episode of The Office to contain. Yet they are not the same and don’t fully reuse the same plot points, which helps. It doesn’t stray far enough unfortunately. The season finale kind of comes without much fanfare, and the resolution isn’t a huge surprise. It’s not really a spoiler, since you’d know that they cannot go fully remote as there would be no show, and the way it was resolved felt in the spirit of the show.

Overall, the Australian version of The Office is fine. It’s not great, but it’s not horrible either, it just… is. The show falls flat, and doubly so as it is the first season, so the actors are still trying to find their characters, so they lack chemistry. It’s a shame that the show was cancelled after the first season since it does have its own uniqueness and has potential. Perhaps making several of the characters so like such beloved shows is not a great idea, as viewers can’t help but compare, and when you compare, the new ones will always be inferior.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Studio Series Bumblebee (Devastation) (Deluxe)

Review:  #948

Name:  Bumblebee

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Studio Series

Year of Release:  2026

Size Class:  Deluxe

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Perhaps a surprise, but perhaps not given the popularity of the figure, but Devastation Bumblebee is a brand new mold, based on the game.

Bumblebee transforms into a tiny yellow hatchback, with a painted window reminiscent of the cel-shading from the game, but that's about the only thing that invokes that look.

And when the word "tiny" is mentioned, it really is tiny.  He's around half the length of a typical Deluxe, and not much taller, so it's quite disappointing.

The robot weapons can peg onto the sides and the roof.

The wheels roll on a flat surface.  While the vehicle mode looks fine from mode angles, there are some big hinge joints towards the back, and the proportions definitely lean towards being more cartoony / deformed than realistic.

It's still a decent vehicle mode overall.

TRANSFORMATION:

A fairly typical transformation for the character.  The front splits to form the legs, the back for the arms, and the roof folds down as the torso.

ROBOT MODE:

Bumblebee's robot mode is pretty good, and that's clearly where the focus was when designing the figure.

He has the rear quarter of the car on as a backpack but it doesn't get in the way and helps "bulk" up the figure.

Again, he is small in robot mode, which is quite disappointing (even if scale is being used as an excuse).  He's around the same height as Animated Bumblebee, so you know that he is small.

At least he's still very poseable.  He has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

He comes with three guns, two smaller blasters of the same design, and a bigger one.

He can hold the weapons in either hand, but of course, can't really hold all three at once given he only has three hands...

The weapons can store on his back, the bigger gun on his backpack, while the smaller ones behind his foot, which is somewhat awkward but still, it works okay.

Despite his smaller size, at least he doesn't feel too compromised or restricted when posing him, as can often be the case due to the naturally smaller pieces.

He has a surprisingly good amount of balance, being able to keep upright in a kicking pose.

This is a good robot mode, but whether it's worth the trade-offs in size and in vehicle mode is another story.

OVERALL:

The design of the figure is fine, it's just the smaller size that gets you.  While yes, size classes aren't based on physical sizes these days, Bumblebee still feels too small for what you get, as his engineering isn't that complicated.  The limited paint applications doesn't help that feeling either.

  

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Care Bears: Unlock the Magic (Switch)

Care Bears: Unlock the Magic is a licensed game based on Care Bears, with the same title as the TV series. It’s a kids show, and it’s a cheap licensed game, so the quality is going to be hit or miss (and most likely a miss). Reinforcing this is that the game is basically full of minigames, and only minigames.

The game has a proper single player mode though and is only single player. It’s called Adventure Mode where you play as Cheer Bear and go along a track. Each section of the track is a minigame level, and each time you clear a minigame, you will gain one star. The aim is to reach the end of the track, and there will be progress blockers on every eight levels which requires a certain number of stars to pass. However, the requirements are very low and given that the minigames are so easy to clear, you shouldn’t have a problem getting through them.

The minigame levels will get harder as you go along the track. There are 104 levels to clear the Adventure Mode, which basically means getting at least 70 stars to help free the land. After this, it unlocks Master Levels, which are harder levels compared to the story, and some of them are legit difficult (even if it is mostly due to random chance rather than a skill issue). There are another 104 of them… but they’re the same minigames you’ve been playing all this time, so it’s very repetitive.

There are eight types of minigames, and most of them are based on well-known games. The first is Conga, which is a copy of Snake from the Nokia phone days. You play a conga line, going around the dance floor to collect more bears to add to the line. Next is Pass the Ball, which is a copy of Pong. You aim to clear the screen of rectangular pieces by having the ball hit it, and you keep the ball in play but not allowing it to fall to the floor. There are power ups such as a wider paddle, adding another ball, or allowing the ball to destroy the pieces in one go rather than in multiple hits.

This third minigame is Care Bubbles, which is basically Puzzle Bobble. This is quite fun, as you need to shoot the bubbles to match three of the same type to make them disappear. At the same time, the ceiling is dropping lower. The harder levels have you start off with more complicated patterns, closer to the ground, which can be annoying. The minigame Cloud Racer has you moving a vehicle up and down trying to collect the hearts along the level.

Cross the Rainbow is another obstacle course, where the Care Bear is on a pogo stick (not that it matters too much) as you cross rivers on platforms, railway tracks, and pass by rocks. Ball to the Hole is like a form of mini golf, where you try to shoot the ball into the hole, but making it difficult is that the angle of the ball constantly changes so you need to wait until it faces the way you’d want it to go.

Lost Whiffle is yet another obstacle course where you control a Care Bear as they reach the end of the course. The Care Bear is walking this time, and will constantly be moving, so you’ll need to avoid the traps on the ground, spinning fans and water barriers. The eighth and last minigame is Bouncy Heart, which is a copy of Flappy Bird. You reach the end of the course while being able to only control the height by pressing a button. If you don’t press anything, the Care Bear will immediately start descending.

A minigame collection as a concept doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad game. If you have variety, then it’s fine. Unfortunately, this game does not have that variety. With only eight types of minigames and requiring you to repeat 13 times in Adventure Mode, it quickly gets repetitive. Another problem is it is very predictable. Every set has one of each of the eight minigames, there are no surprises, and none of these minigames are particularly fun either.

Adventure Mode takes around two to three hours to complete. Free Mode allows you to replay any of those levels, plus the additional 104 Master Levels as mentioned earlier. The game is clearly built for younger players, and you’re rewarded with stickers are you progress. There are no high scores, nor are there any modes that allow you to play with unlimited time until you lose (which seems like an easy way to provide a fun mode).

Overall, Care Bears: Unlock the Magic is every bit the poor licensed game you’d expect it to me. It’s disappointing but not surprising that for a game that has such limited graphical assets (while bright and colorful, looking good, it reuses a lot of things), and only eight types of gameplays, that it sells for such a high price. It’s fun for around half an hour, but after that, you can’t wait until you can put it down and move on to the next game.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Studio Series MTMTE Optimus Prime (Leader)

Review:  #947

Name:  Optimus Prime

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Studio Series

Year of Release:  2026

Size Class:  Leader

Mold Status:  retool of Studio Series Commander Optimus Prime

PACKAGING:

A quick shot for the packaging since it looks quite nice with the artwork on the front.

VEHICLE MODE:

This version of Optimus is based upon his battle damaged self from the 1986 movie.  It's a retool from the earlier Commander figure, but without all the accessories, allowing this to slot into the Leader size class.

This is a really good truck mode, one of the best that we've had.  It's very clean overall.

He is not too big though, size-wise, he is a little bit bigger than a typical Voyager.  However, he is hefty, and he feels very worth the Leader class money used to buy him.  He feels like quality in your hand.

In vehicle mode, most of the new battle damaged panels are the cracks in the bright blue windshield, and the grill.

In terms of weapon storage, the gun pegs on the back, and the new metal shard pegs onto the front grill.

The interesting thing is that the designer didn't bother going the lazy route with the robot legs.  It has quite an involved transformation to make it look clean and flat, whilst hiding the robot shin details.

Looking from underneath, you can see how packed the figure it.  Nearly all of the empty space is used.

The only other play value in this mode is that he can roll on a flat surface.

This is a brilliant vehicle mode, on par with what you would expect from a Masterpiece figure.

TRANSFORMATION:

This is where the figure betrays its Commander routes.  It is a complicated and very well designed transformation, much more than any other contemporary Leader classed figure.  It is surprising that it managed to fit into the Leader size class as it feels a lot more involved than what the budget would allow.  Nevertheless, at its core, Optimus transforms like every other Optimus, the back is the legs, the arms from the side, and the rest of the cab become the torso.  What makes this a fantastic transformation are the many extra steps that hides away all the kibble.  It doesn't get to the point of fiddling with small pieces, but are chunky pieces that move in a clever way.

ROBOT MODE:

As good as the vehicle mode is, the robot mode is even better and wow, even with the battle damage, this is a great Optimus Prime figure.

He does have quite a bit of kibble on his back as a backpack, but that's the price you pay for a really slimmed down Optimus from the front that takes on the cartoon proportions.

One of the main retooled pieces is the head, which is fully battle damaged.

He is slightly taller than a Voyager, but again, he feels a lot heftier and a lot more solid that even Leader class figures.

Articulation is amazing as you'd expect, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

Despite the smaller size, his fingers are jointed (index separately to the rest).

In terms of accessories, he keeps the gun from the original release, but there is a new metal shard piece.

He can hold the gun in either hand.

New battle damaged areas that come out are the shoulders and part of his abdomen.

The grill has a hold for the metal shard to peg in.

This simulates the piece that stabbed Optimus in the movie.  It's really cool... in a dark humor kind of way.

You can pull off some really good poses for Optimus using both accessories, making him seem even more heroic, continuing to battle even though he's fatally wounded.

The gun can store in his back, while the shard cannot be stored at all, which is a shame.  You can kind of make do by pegging it onto the guns barrel but it's not perfect.

The other gimmick here is that his chest opens up to reveal the Matrix of Leadership, which he can hold with both hands (this is where the finger articulation becomes handy).

The brighter shade of red and blue makes the figure pop a lot more than previous versions of the character.

Thanks to the lack of kibble, the range of articulation is wide, and he can pull off some very dynamic poses.

While only having his gun is enough, it can feel like it'll be even cooler if he managed to keep some other accessories like his Energon axe.

Optimus feels higher quality and more premium than your typical mainline release.  His joints are mostly swivels which feels nice to use.  The figure itself is nice and sturdy.

The battle damage is an acquired taste but if you missed the original Commander release, this is still a good alternative.

A fantastic robot mode, and pretty much near perfect.

OVERALL:

The mold itself is amazing, and it is one of the best figures we've had in the Studio Series line.  It is a marvel of engineering without being overly complicated.  The figure feels higher quality, and for the first time in a long time, feels like it is worth more than what you would normally pay for a Leader class figure.  If you don't already have this mold, then this is an easy recommendation.  Although if you already have the original Commander release, it's a much harder sell since the battle damage isn't too much of a drawcard.

  

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