Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Rock smashes scissors. Scissors cuts paper. Paper covers rock.
It’s a game everyone has known since childhood. But in Nickelodeon’s latest series, these household items become anthropomorphic characters: just three roommates trying to make ends meet.
In terms of content, there’s a little bit of toilet and gross-out humor, a few bad attitudes and the occasional crime. (Scissors spends much of the first episode faking injuries and then suing folks, for instance.) But it’s all treated as silly and played for humor.
Plus, the bad things that happen usually serve as a lesson both to the roomies and to children watching their antics. Themes of friendship run through every episode. And even though Paper is judgmental, Scissors is chaotic, and Rock is an “emotional rollercoaster,” the trio realizes that together, they can do anything they set their minds to.
So even if it takes a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to decide what your family watches tonight, you won’t be losing much if this is the show that gets picked.
Rock and Paper insist Scissors should get a real job after learning that he’s broke.
Several people are shocked to learn that Scissors has been faking injuries and then suing people for petty cash. They all tell him it’s wrong and characters remind some onscreen children that it’s also illegal.
Scissors accidentally breaks several lobster tanks. While ground-guiding a plane, he stretches his arms, causing the plane to crash when they misread his stretch as a signal. A helicopter crashes offscreen (we see an explosion) in another scene. Some heroes use gadgets, makeshift weapons (such as mops) and their own natural abilities to fight off bad guys. A training montage shows Scissors getting lightly injured as he trains to join a secret society. Several heroes take a moment of silence for the comrades they’ve lost in years past.
Paper refuses to share any pizza with Scissors until he finds employment. He and Rock then spend the rest of the episode eating as much of the junk food as possible to “encourage” their friend. And even when they gain weight and feel miserable, they continue consuming pizza as a matter of principle, eventually vomiting offscreen.
A man is forced to clean up vomit several times. A villain announces his dastardly plans to fill a reservoir with chamomile tea so that people will be too sleepy to stop him from robbing banks. (He’s stopped by a group of heroes.)
A woman talks about an encounter with “vampire kangaroos,” and we see a flashback featuring the beasts. A man reminds himself to, “love yourself and honor your soul.”
We hear uses of “dang it,” “loser” and “shut up.”
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
