The "Animorphs" series encompassed most of my reading material through grade school and even a chunk of middle school, and they were about the only books I ever read. I remember getting Book #5 when I was about nine, and I kept accumulating more and more books up through about eighth grade. My collection probably includes about ninety-percent of the main series, along with all four of those "Megamorphs" books (which were narrated by all six Animorphs), the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, the Ellimist Chronicles, Visser, and even two of those pick-a-path "Alternamorphs" books that were made for kicks. Mom even took me out of the fan club when she realized we were paying for duplicate books. (Needless to say, I was a huge Animorphs geek.) Of course, like most of us, I am living in the present, and, being a twentieth-century boy who watches TV more than he actually reads, I always wondered what it would be like if they had a TV show. I was so stoked when I found out that they'd had a TV show on Nickelodeon and watched it about every week for the short time it lasted before it was canceled.Any longtime fan can tell you that this show didn't do the books justice at all. Forget the fact that the effects were cheap and that the writing and acting might have been iffy--after all, I sure did when I was twelve. But the similarities between the books and the show are strictly superficial. There were kids who could turn into animals, and slugs crawling into people's skulls, and silhouettes of our favorite aliens, and I remember at one point the Ellimist showed up to save the good guys, and at one other point Tobias regained his morphing powers (though not with any help from the guy who "doesn't interfere in the lives of other species"). Other than that, the similarities are almost nonexistent.Not that I'm a bleeding-heart purist. As a fan of anime, I've seen what happens when purists have too much creative input; just look at Naruto, Bleach, Inuyasha, Dragon Ball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, and nearly every other show that has been based on a manga series. One aspect of taking a series from printed media to the small or big screen is knowing how to adapt and streamline it, by condensing an extended fictional mythos into something that's watchable instead of just adapting it word-for-word, page-by-page. Obviously some Animorphs story lines rightfully end up on the cutting-room floor; Crayak might have been a bit much and not really essential to the major plot, and those one-shots with the Veleek, the "Nartec," and the (*shudder*) Helmacrons aren't necessary either. Even Tobias didn't necessarily need to get his powers back--it's interesting, but again, not essential. Considering the low budget, the Ax-man's rescue was also handled well (they turn into butterflies or something, as opposed to venturing out into the ocean...).Unfortunately, there are also some essential, more fundamental aspects of the books that didn't make it either. Rachel's war-mongering, Marco's mom becoming Visser One, the political conflict between Yeerks and even their own hosts. Visser Three became a guy with an evil head-voice, as opposed to the Andalite who just happened to be a Yeerk warlord, making him less a credible Visser and more of your typical Saturday morning cartoon villain. "Seerow's Kindness," which was the driving factor behind the storyline in general and gave us an actual look into the minds of the Andalite people and their part in the scheme of things, wasn't even mentioned, and in fact I don't even remember seeing a blue box, the one weapon the Andalites are supposed to hold dear (instead, there was something involving a deus ex machina "Andalite disk").One of the books' strengths was that they generally came from a first-person POV. You were basically in Jake or Rachel's shoes as they turned into a tiger or a housefly or a cockroach. Frankly, I can't stand bugs, much less turning INTO bugs, and in fact, watching them morph to flies might have actually been trippy...Final ruling: I've never seen such an unnecessary show in my life (surpassed possibly by "My Gym Partner's a Monkey"). Who would've guessed that Nickelodeon could take something that was so right and do it so wrong...

...and in this series, I've been reduced to an annoying jock with a gay hairstyle. Remember my friend Marco, who got all the good lines in the books? Well, in this series his one-liners put Mr. Freeze to shame. Remember our uber-evil nemesis Visser Three? He's a bald guy with inane catchphrases. Remember Rachel, "Xena, the Warrior Princess", and Cassie, my sensitive and caring love interest? They've been turned into mindless bimbos by the 10 (!) writers who decided the original characters weren't cool enough for TV. Remember the awesome extra-terrestial Ax, who was cool, intelligent, and really, really liked cinnamon buns? In this series he's the Token Alien with an extremely annoying voice. Remember the witty banter our team had in the books? In this series our dialogue is so dreary and stupid it's obvious the writers were pandering to the lowest common denominator.So forget everything you thought you knew about the Animorphs! It was Cassie who became allergic to morphing, not Rachel, thought-speak is *supposed* to echo, and Visser Three and Ax, rarely, if ever, appeared as Andalites (no, it has nothing to do with the budget!). I'm not crazy. And I'm not lying. The jerks are all around us. And if you're unlucky, one of them might adapt one of your favourite books, or series, or graphic novels, into a really awful TV show. You've been warned."Finally... television worth watching." ~ (the very bald) Visser Three(r#91)

There was so much that could have been done to make this a quality show. For one thing, get rid of that Boris kid! Joseph Gordon-Levitt was the obvious choice, as his personality and appearance were both perfect! And Gregory Smith would have been amazing as Jake- he's always the actor I imagined in that part. That said, the other actors were all pretty good choices (and I loved the Tobias pick), so no more problems there. Next issue: If memory serves me correctly (and it probably doesn't- I only watched the first episode before giving up on it), they did a weekly or nightly half-hour show on Nickelodeon. Wrong length, wrong station. If they had done what Farscape did and made it an hour-long special on Fox or some other channel, they'd have had a lot more flexibility to do it right. Nickelodeon is for brainless cartoons- they no longer know how to handle real quality programming. They shouldn't have done it without better funding than they had- no sci-fi/fantasy story, even one for kids/teenagers, will work on a shoestring budget. Why not gear some of that book/merchandise revenue to the show, in turn getting good ratings and making more money as you increase interest in both sets of the series? Was their marketer on sedatives? But even with everything as it was, I believe (and if anyone reads this who has seen the show will probably agree) what lost the fanbase was its nearly complete disregard for the books. It retained the characters, the aliens and the idea of morphing- and that was about it. And it failed utterly, being cancelled not long after it began. Animorphs was an amazingly well-written series that hooked most of us by the mix of crazy humor and emotion-wrenching drama. Whether it was plausible or even entirely original didn't matter because the author (props to Mrs. Applegate) did such a good job. If anything, the TV show hurt that. From reading the posts, a lot of kids who got a glimpse of the show decided that the books must have been just as awful (or *gasp* unaware that there even were books). The show could have been so much more- it could have contended among the best preteen/teenager programming, and been a guilty pleasure for the adults out there. But it wasn't, so I bid it a wistful but otherwise indifferent farewell. I'll stick to my original sorrow over the book series ending.

This TV show is great!(but the books are better) The actors and actresses did a great job,especially Brooke Nevin and Shawn Ashmore but the others were good too.And even if the special graphics aren't the best I really enjoyed this TV show.It's funny.