My grandson Oran likes to watch Molly & Mack on CBeebies - which means I get to watch it as well.
I like it! For a couple of reason.
First of all it is set in The Big Hub, which seems to be a big house turned into a local indoor market. There's a variety of stalls in it run by a variety of characters, all under the supervision of Moira.
As far as story potential goes, it's great. Each stall-holder can have a story, the things they sell can cause complications, their customers might be a source of conflict, new stallholders can be introduced at any time, there might be outside forces impacting on the hub itself...
But most of the stories are about Molly (whose dad and brother Mack also run stalls in the Big Hub.)
Various sections of the program are cut and paste jobs with the same scenes used over and over.
The other thing I like - that's relevant here - is that there are two musical interludes; two songs. Every character in the program seems to have recorded their versions of the songs, and they are slotted in as need be, depending on who is featured in the story.
I'm not going to quote the lyrics (although I probably could by now) but they go along the lines of, "Oops! I made a mistake, and it's all gone terribly wrong" and "I've had an idea! Do you want to hear my wonderful idea?"
Sometimes the idea comes first and then things go terrible wrong (before being fixed). Sometimes, something goes wrong and then someone has an idea how to fix it.
As well as being good excuses for singing and dancing they also describe, in the most basic of terms, a story arc.
You have a situation full of different characters. Someone tries something new. It goes wrong and has to be resolved.
Or - you have a situation full of different characters. Something goes wrong. Someone has a great idea how to fix it and it all comes right in the end.
That's the simplest definition of a story arc I have ever seen. And they turned the important points into songs for us. There's even a song at the beginning describing all the characters!
Thank you, Peter Hynes, the creator of this and many other children's programs.
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