lab rats, if it was not produced by disney, or at least not disney xd (maybe netflix or disney+) would have been a much better show. bryan and chris did a great job with what they had but unfortunately were working for disney. if you’re following my insta, you heard me talking about this on my story yesterday, but i’m going to try to type it all out here. trigger warning, trauma, abuse, and deaths. i will also do another warning right before the topic is brought up. here we go
time: i am aware that disney shows whether channel or xd only have a certain amount of time for table reads, filming, editing, and then airing. for a show especially like liv and maddie, they REALLY didn’t have time as dove had to film everything twice. disney episodes, unless a special episode, are usually between 24-30 minutes. but it’s so annoying how everything gets solved so fast. the laugh tracks (i am very used to them but i am aware that people find them annoying). it’s not very realistic that way. now to swiftly move to the next topic, scripts and reality
scripts and reality: even a show like fuller house on netflix, which also only had 24-30 minute episodes, had a more realities script. disney said “tweeter, twits, facegab, e-phone, madame googoo, vuuugle” because they’re cheap, fuller house would say “new kids on the block, facebook, nintendo, hamilton, pippin” ACTUALLY NAMES OF things. even outside of that, they talked like normal people would. in a disney show, something would go wrong, they would cut to commercial break, then come back and say “i can’t believe you ____! how are we going to fix this?!” NO ONE talks like that except for disney characters. whyyyy
characters:
adam; he was the token dumb character and honestly, not a nice person. i know that disney always has sassy characters but adam was just rude and didn’t have a filter. there should have been more to his character. maybe he would have had some sort of special interest like dez from austin and ally. dez was dumb but had his sweet moments and was a really good filmmaker and director. all adam seems to do is make fun of others and use his super strength. he should have been more useful outside of his bionics. had some sort of personality other than being dumb.
bree, trigger warning - drinking? ; bree, desperately wanting to be a normal teenager, would have gone crazy with partying. literally in the first episode, she said she was close to getting a curfew she was going to break. she wanted to be rebellious from the first episode. bree would have been one of those teens that either did not want to grow up or wanted to grow up too fast. she may have even been a bit of a rebel in school. not too bad, but like getting detention sometimes. once she grew out of that phase possibly, she would have had an identity crisis. and yes, i mean that kind. she was not straight. there’s no way. she should have struggled with her sexuality. maybe even a potential love interest that was a girl. i mean, considering she was the only girl besides tasha, there should have been some sort of identity issues with her.
chase; chase probably could have been explored the most. disclaimer, i promise i am not being biased by saying that; i just know him the best out of all the characters. chase is the smartest man in the world and in my opinion, was way too sane. katie from alexa and katie would get overwhelmed thinking about high school and college and would have panic attacks. chase was stressed out a lot and probably should have had panic attacks. and it pains me to say that because the last thing i want is for him to have mental health problems but it’s very realistic that he would have struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. additionally, i have seen a lot of people say this, i could see him being autistic. i don’t think he is, but if someone were to confirm it somehow, i would totally see it. i could see him being overstimulated and like how he jumps up and down when he’s excited? that could be him stimming. also, i’ve always wondered this, isn’t it painful to use his bionic eye? i feel like i would get headaches. and then all the apps he has? commando app (i will talk about spike momentarily), magnetism app, override app (no pressure??), internal hard drive, laser bow, molecular kinesis, super senses, levitation (which was only used once wtf), and obviously, super intelligence. think about how overwhelming that is, and they called him WEAK? bro was holding the team together. even if he weren’t autistic, he should have gotten overstimulated more.
follow up- spike; i’m going to be incredibly contradictory here but just bare with me. what the fuck did spike even do? he just caused destruction and distress for chase. when chase was nervous, mad, or embarrassed, he came out, but only when the episode revolved around him. i understand davenport’s intentions: remove the flight part of fight or flight, but why did he make him so angry? and also, i think that’s a bit insulting to chase, as if saying he’s too weak to handle himself. ugh, the very little he did was just useless. i wish we had gotten more of him and that he had had a bigger role. he was written terribly and never came out when he really should have come out. leo’s jam, trent gets schooled, rise of the secret soldiers, bionic rebellion, space colony, and the attack episode are all examples of where spike could have come out because chase was embarrassed or upset. also chase clearly didn’t like spike being a part of him. why did davenport never realize this and remove him when not only does chase not like him but also, he was doing anything but help chase.
leo- trigger warning, mentions of divorce, abuse, possible death; did the writers forget the literal first scene of the show? his mom literally got remarried. what happened to leo’s dad? did they get a divorce. did leo’s dad die? was he abusive? was he not around? so many questions. and we know they were married because leo excitedly said “my 𝐧𝐞𝐰 dad is batman!” so it’s not like tasha and leo’s biological father had a baby but were never married. in ‘can i borrow the helicopter?’ leo confides in davenport about his crush on janelle and he told tasha, which leo was upset about, but he had the opportunity to be more upset than he was. maybe his old dad never would have done that. maybe he’s used to it so he wasn’t as upset but he never thought davenport would have done that to him. he also forgave him way too fast (again, fast-paced episodes😒). he also should’ve had a harder time adapting to gaining 3 siblings after being an only child his whole life. i mean, even chase - who already had a brother - had a hard time gaining even on sibling. other than familial life and possible trauma leo could have had, i don’t have much to say about the character. he was written pretty well and had some awesome lines
i’m going to make a part 2 so stay tuned!
