Is it the horrible acting, the awful fake British accents and excruciating unknown accent of Marco (some idiotic mash-up of Latin American and Indian), or the stories that are flimsy, ridiculous and badly written? Probably all of the above. This is one of the WORST shows for kids out there. I didn't even really love the original Angelina Ballerina but it is a million times better than this piece of garbage. The only decent part of this show is the live-action dancing. The original Angelina had real British people with authentic British accents and relatively decent story lines with characters that weren't one- dimensional, and focused more on Ballet dancing, which was the whole point of the original book. I don't know WHAT this show is doing half the time. Blech.

Less of a follow-up to the original series and more of something new and largely awful. Rather than being set in a 1930's "England" the series is set in modern day. Barring a couple of primary characters retaining a British accent (often very poor ones at that) the voice talent speaks in an American accent.The plots for episodes are nowhere near as tight and take far more liberties with the source material than the prior series. This is understandable given the books both series are lifted from are limited in number. However there is very little of the spirit for those books brought into Next Steps.The animation has shifted from hand drawn to CGI and the look suffers slightly. It is mostly well animated but lacks character and very much like any other cheaply produced show on PBS and other kid outlets.Kids will love this none the less, adults who remember the old show might feel it is cloying and dumbed down.