Stream It Or Skip It: ‘She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power’ On Netflix, A Diverse Reboot Of The ‘80s Series

Remember the 1980s animated series She-Ra: Princess of Power? It was the companion piece to He-Man, and its heroine and her friends were, um, a little less than diverse. Now She-Ra is back for the 21st century, accompanied by an entire army of Princesses. Has DreamWorks improved on the cartoon we loved as kids?

SHE-RA AND THE PRINCESSES OF POWER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of the planet Etheria, then we zoom into a foreboding place that is known as The Fright Zone.

The Gist: The Fright Zone is the home of the Horde, an evil society that has enforced its iron-fisted rule on Etheria. Adora (Aimee Carrero) has lived there all her life, and is being groomed by Shadow Weaver (Lorraine Toussaint) to become a top Horde officer and defend the planet for Hordak (Keston John), the Horde’s ruthless leader who brought Adora to Etheria when she was a baby. Training along with Adora at the academy is Catra (AJ Michalka), who’s more rebellious than her BFF Adora.

In their training, they learn how to defeat the Princesses, who they’ve been trained to think are evil rebels that will use their powers to destroy the Horde. When Adora is named a Horde captain, she celebrates by going out on a joy ride with Catra, which sends them into the mysterious whispering woods. After wiping out, she sees a sword, which emits a bright light when she touches it. She vows to go back to find it.

Also looking for the sword is Glimmer (Karen Fukuhara), who thinks she’s a better commander than her mother, the queen of Bright Moon, gives her credit for. She sneaks out with her friend Bow (Marcus Scribner) to find a sword he found in the woods. When they meet up with Adora, they capture her. But when a massive spider threatens them, Adora picks up the sword again and sees a vision that leads her to say “For the honor of Grayskull!”. She turns into a warrior princess she finds out is named She-Ra.

Our Take: The reboot of the ’80s series She-Ra was developed by Noelle Stevenson (Lumberjanes, Nimona), and it improves on the original — remember, it was an extension of He-Man back in the day — in a number of ways. First of all, the animation style is closer to anime in look and much more dynamic than Filmation’s house style in the original. Also, There’s a more female-centric cast and lots of diversity, including the comedy relief from blackish’s Scribner, who makes Bow brave and vulnerable at the same time.

Also, the first season of the show is highly serialized, taking its time to introduce us to all the Princesses of Power. By the end of the two-part first episode, Adora has embraced the rebellion and made enemies of her former friend Catra, but it feels like she’ll be introduced to each Princess one or two at a time. Of course, that’s the way many animated series are these days, the creators knowing that the kids watching can follow along with a continuing story rather than a “battle of the week” format.

That format is welcome here because it really develops the story of Adora and how she became She-Ra, plus establishes how seemingly good people like her and Catra can be manipulated by an evil leader like Hordak, giving the characters much more gradation than anything the original series was able to accomplish. Plus, DreamWorks has done a good job assembling expert voice actors — some known from live action TV, like Toussaint, Michalka and Scribner — that can take the fine material from the writers and make the characters act more human than we ever saw on TV animation when we were kids.

What Age Group Is This For?: Some fighting and mild violence makes us think kids 8 and up would be the right audience. Also, there’s some pretty sophisticated concepts about lies, manipulation and betrayal that might go over the heads of kids under 12 or so.

Parting Shot: At the end of the two-part first episode, Adora has joined Bow and Glimmer to go back to Bright Moon. Bow squeals, “Best friend squad!”

Sleeper Star: We love AJ Michalka in The Goldbergs, and she does a nice job of making Catra more than just a nemesis for Adora. We can tell she’s conflicted about being part of the Horde, but she knows no other way.

Most Pilot-y Line: The two-part intro is pretty well thought-out, so nothing we can report here.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Great voice cast, fun writing, great animation and a diverse cast makes this She-Ra leagues better than the one we saw as kids.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch She-Ra And The Princesses of Power on Netflix