Point One Sibuna! Analyzing "House of Anubis" Season 2

       I’m going through a serious “House of Anubis” withdrawal right now. For those of you who do not know what “House of Anubis” is, and I don’t expect that many of you do, I suggest you Google it. Since January, I’ve had to explain “House of Anubis” to many people and my reason for watching it, and I’ve grown tired of doing this so I will keep the explanations brief. It’s a Nickelodeon soap opera centering on a group of high school aged students in an English boarding school who solve ancient Egyptian mysteries inside of the house they live in. So that’s what it is and the reason I watched it is because Stephanie Chan made me and everyone always does what she tells them to do.

      My sense of withdrawal has nothing to do with the quality of the show. Let me make this perfectly clear: it is awful. It is low budget, the characters are two-dimensional, the acting is embarrassingly bad, it has glaring plot holes, and none of it is as charming or as clever as it wants to be. The “Egyptian” mythology the show bases itself around never goes any deeper than what one can learn from a Wikipedia article and the mystery cliches are topped off with a revolving bookshelf. Yet there is something about it, other than Stephanie Chan, which kept me watching every weekday for 8 weeks.

Choose Your Own Adventure Story!

    
     It is 8AM and your alarm wakes you up. Class starts in a half hour. Pick 1 to get out of bed or 2 to go back to sleep.

1. Time to shower! After that you brush your teeth, and get dressed. Now it’s time to go to class. To go to class choose 3. To go to JFK airport and hop on a flight to Somalia, choose 4.

2. You sleep for an additional 4 hours and wake up because the sun is incredibly bright. You decide to get out of bed and get dressed. Go to 5 to put on a blue shirt, go to 6 to put on a green shirt.

3. Wow, you’re really bad at this. You’re not allowed to read anymore.

4. Somalia is really sunny. Better put on some sunscreen! Next, you decide to do some sightseeing. To ask a local for directions pick 7. To buy a sword, pick 8.

“The Office” Finds Some Much Needed Direction

       

        Last month, news came that Rainn Wilson is teaming up with show-runner Paul Lieberstein to create a spinoff about Schrute Farms and the quirky family members that work there. The plan is to launch the new show next spring, meaning Wilson will only appear in half of “The Office” episodes next season. Additionally, Mindy Kaling has a pilot in development at Fox and if it’s picked up as a series, she will also be leaving. Just this week, James Spader announced that his work on “The Office” will end after this season. “Office” head writer Danny Chun has signed a development deal with ABC and is also likely to leave. And, perhaps most importantly, none of the cast members have deals in place for next season. Ed Helms, John Krasinski, and Jenna Fischer are all in contract negotiations for a ninth season, which has yet to be picked up by NBC. In the past month, the shows ratings have hit series lows. “The Office” is in a state of flux. In all likelihood the show will return in the fall for what will surely be its final season. But who will be back remains to be seen.