Jessica’s Big Little World
“Sick”, Season 1 Episode 20
What do I know about this series going into it?
Never heard of it. While clicking through to the episode, I involuntarily read the following:
Jessica is the younger sister of somebody named “Craig”, and this is a spinoff of whatever show stars that character.
In this episode, Jessica gets sick and “Small Uncle” tries to cheer her up.
Recap
Opening credits: Jessica is a young girl with a living Hershey’s Kiss for a pet and an imaginary superhero identity. I think.
It’s morning, and Jessica’s mother comes into her room. Jessica is excited: today is Felix’s birthday party! But she has a stuffed nose. “You don’t sound so good,” her mother says, though there’s very little evidence to support this as of yet. That is, until Jessica tries to get up and looks noticeably worse, unsteady on her feet. But she’s in denial, because she wants to go to the party. “We’ll see,” says her mother. “Yay, I’m going!” “I said we’ll see.”
Jessica comes down for breakfast and her father offers her her favorite cereal, which is somehow important. But she’s not hungry, and collapses forward onto the table. This isn’t enough to convince her: she’s still in denial, until she sneezes.
Jessica’s father takes her temperature with the silliest thermometer I’ve ever seen on screen.
So Jessica will have to stay in bed today. At least I learn who Small Uncle is: he’s the living Hershey Kiss. Once her parents leave, Jessica calls upon Small Uncle to come to life. She shows him how the thermometer works, and he freaks out that he doesn’t have a temperature until he’s reminded that he’s a toy.
Jessica’ naturally upset that she’s missing the party. But that’s okay, Small Uncle will cheer her up by throwing a party for her! But he doesn’t know how, having never been to a party himself. So instead she decides to throw a birthday party for him.
All of the stuffed animals attend, and Small Uncle does an actually funny bit riffing off of typical small talk: “How are the kids? You came all the way from the kitchen? Oh look, it’s, um, you, I forgot your name.” After the introductions, the dolls play Duck Duck Goose… sort of.
Then comes the birthday meal, in which Small Uncle puts a toy food in front of each stuffed animal. While he’s doing that, Jessica is on the verge of falling asleep – but Small Uncle refuses to let her do so. (In case you were wondering, a child’s imaginary friend being actively cruel and evil toward the child is an actual phenomenon.)
Despite looking progressively worse, Jessica is forced by Small Uncle to prepare the next step of the birthday party, where each stuffed animal gives the demonic turnip a present. Then Small Uncle unceremoniously shoves all the party guests into the closet.
The next morning, Jessica is feeling better. (If only my kids improved that quickly.) And Felix arrives in his dad’s car, delivering a goody bag from yesterday’s party. He promises to play with her when she’s better.
Unresolved questions
Is Small Uncle a fever-induced hallucination?
Does Jessica have schizophrenia?
Ratings
Story: 2/10. Very little to speak of. Jessica is sick and will miss a birthday party. To pass the time she throws a birthday party for her favorite stuffed… whatever Small Uncle is.
Writing: 3/10. I’ll give the episode this: Small Uncle’s small talk was actually pretty clever, though most of it will probably go over kids’ heads.
Beyond that, I struggle to imagine what the writers intended to do here beyond filling the quota of scripts for the season.
Perhaps they started with “Jessica gets sick” – a staple trope for shows about and for little kids; every series does it – but didn’t want to go to same well as everybody else. So they avoided the standard plot of “learning what being sick is like and what you should and shouldn’t do,” and avoided the standard plot of “the sick family member demands to be waited on hand and foot by everyone else, then gets their comeuppance when they have to wait on somebody else who gets sick”. But with no other ideas, they decided to use being sick as a framing device for a completely different plot.
Or perhaps – more likely – they started with “Jessica teaches Small Uncle what birthday parties are like”, and came up with the idea of her being sick to create the circumstances under which that would happen. But if that’s the case, they executed it badly: they made her too sick, barely able to move or talk, forcing Small Uncle to manage the birthday party himself. But if he knows how to manage a birthday party, what did she need to teach him? His understanding of how parties worked ebbed and flowed over the course of the episode. (And why name the episode “Sick” rather than “Small Uncle’s Birthday Party”?)
The result was just aimlessness. The episode didn’t merely do nothing interesting with its premise; it didn’t do anything at all. It even went out of its way to avoid telling its young audience what “having a temperature” means, let alone the numbers involved. We have the right to expect more, even from a children’s show.
Production: 4/10. Very little worth noting here. Standard animation. Some strange choices made in the sound effects department. Jessica’s voiceover work was hit-or-miss but Small Uncle’s was fine.
Characterization: 2/10. This episode came dangerously close to getting a 1 because it couldn’t even keep straight how much or whether Small Uncle knew about parties. When your characters are internally self-contradictory, you get a 1. But I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt: if Small Uncle is being imagined by a six-year-old with a fever, she might not be keeping it straight either. A score of 2 is fine for an episode that contained no character beats whatsoever.
This is still a little bit unfair; the episode is only ten minutes long, far shorter even than most children’s shows, and that’s just not enough time to include many character beats. But it could’ve included one or two to hang my hat on.
Clarity: 10/10. With only three named characters, one of whom appeared for less than thirty seconds, I had absolutely no trouble following the plot.
Closure: 1/10. It’s clear that they didn’t know that they were being canceled, but this wasn’t even series-finale level. The opening credits depicted eight characters aside from Jessica and Small Uncle, and five of those didn’t even appear.
Do I want to watch the series now?
No, and it isn’t of a quality worth bringing to my own kids either. It’s just bland filler to complete the TV schedule.