I just watched the above mentioned episodes of Peter Pan and the Pirates, and here is my review of those episodes!
The Demise of Hook: This was a very good episode! Great idea for Hook to fake his death and make up a curse to get his revenge on Peter! I do have some nitpicks though. When Peter first finds out Hook is dead, he gets disappointed because he can’t play his game with Hook anymore. That’s a good idea, but I feel he would be Hook was dead like in the original stories, and then later become disappointed. Also when Hook almost kills Peter at the end by making him fall to his death, Peter screams in fear as he falls. But Peter is not afraid of death, as he once said, “To die would be awfully big adventure!”
But other than that, this was a great episode!
The Play’s the Thing: Another great episode! Great to see that Hook said he went to Eton! He said he did Shakespeare there, which I think sounds like something he would do. I thought it was clever that he tried to poison Wendy during the play, since when he tried to poison Peter, it famously didn’t work! Also I liked the part where Hook casts Peter as the villain in Romeo and Juliet because it was the perfect part for him, definitely something Barrie would agree with! Something I had a problem with though is that Wendy says that in R&J, they live happily ever after, ummm, shouldn’t she know that they die? Maybe they couldn’t say that in a kid’s show, even though I think a lot of kids know that in R&J the the main characters die! At least I knew that as a kid, and I’ve never even read the play!
Ages of Pan: This is a 2-parter and the final episodes of the series, where Peter Pan actually decides to grow up! And this episode was released only 9 days before the movie Hook came out! And actually I think this episode did the concept of Peter growing up much better than Hook did! Although I would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this!
My problems with this episode is that at one point Tinkerbell is dying because grownup Peter doesn’t believe in her anymore and for some reason she doesn’t know why she’s dying even though Peter said directly to her that he didn’t believe in fairies, she out of everyone should know that when someone doesn’t believe in fairies, there’s a fairy somewhere in the world who falls down dead!
Also Tinkerbell comes back to life because Hook says he believes in her and the existence of Neverland, but didn’t the play establish that only works when children believe in fairies? Or can it work with adults too? Someone more knowledgeable than me please answer this!
The Rake: This episode was kind of disappointing! I expected to learn some things about Hook’s past at Eton and his career in the Navy, but instead it was about Hook fighting this pirate ghost and trying to get his treasure, and the ghost is Hook’s brother! Huh?
??
Yeah this episode didn’t connect with Hook’s history at all and I was disappointed. I’m sure kids liked the action and the explosions in this episode, but if you’re a Pan Fan, it’s just a letdown!
Overall, this seems like a great show so far and I will definitely watch more episodes of this series! I had heard of this series in recent times, but never watched it. Now I highly recommend that people on this forum watch it! Hook is menacing and, not surprisingly, Tim Curry performs him flawlessly! And Jason Marsden, who is also one my favorite actors and was only a teenager when he did this show, does an excellent job as Peter! And the show’s writing actually does seem to do Peter right in this show! There never was a cockier boy!