Sadly, “The Baby-Sitters Club” shared the same fate as many Netflix shows: it was cancelled after two brief seasons despite its nostalgic roots and ardent fandom. It seems unfair that such a vibrant and forward-thinking adaptation of the well-known Ann M. Martin books should be forgotten by Netflix. After another short-lived television show and movie in the 1990s, “The Baby-Sitters Club” was the first adaptation in nearly 30 years. Young entrepreneurs were reimagined in the Netflix series in a creative, humorous, and profound way that resonated with Gen Z viewers and nostalgic adults like myself.
In case you’re not familiar with the adored series, “The Baby-Sitters Club” centres on a group of middle school girls who operate a babysitting business in their Connecticut neighbourhood. Each tale includes a lesson about the difficulties of managing a business. Throughout its production between the years of 1986 and 2000, it sold more than 176 million copies, proving to be incredibly popular with young girls (via New York Times).
Author Ann M. Martin expressed her excitement for the show’s potential to “inspire a new generation of readers and leaders globally” prior to its Netflix premiere (via Deadline). The news of “The Baby-Sitters Club’s” termination was so heartbreaking because it brought her childhood icons to the big screen with such love and creativity.
Why The Baby-Sitters Club was worth watching!
The 2020 version of “The Baby-Sitters Club” is fantastic since it keeps the tenacious zeal of the original series while establishing its own modern personality.
The same young women we fell in love with in Martin’s books—Kristin, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Dawn—are followed in the television series. None of these young girls are stereotypes; each has a unique personality with several facets. They are creative, tenacious, devoted, quiet, fearless, silly, and outspoken people. They resolve their disputes in a thoughtful and sympathetic manner. The cast of “The Baby-Sitters Club” are excellent role models for young girls, motivating them to give back to the community and gain business knowledge. Although there are various love subplots, their babysitting jobs always come first. It’s just part of youth.
This updated version of “The Baby-Sitters Club” is also more diverse because it includes a transgender youngster in addition to characters who are Black, Latinx, and Asian. When she is hospitalised in the wrong gender, Mary Anne speaks out for her. The show frequently addresses such pressing issues as cyberbullying, income inequality, anti-colonialism, and Claudia discovering the details of her grandmother’s time spent in a Japanese internment camp. Stacey’s battle with diabetes is a significant plot point as well. It’s encouraging to watch preteen characters engage with serious contemporary topics with intelligence and empathy.
Most importantly, “The Baby-Sitters Club” fills a void for teenage girl storylines in children’s media. Rachel Shukert, the show’s creator, laments in Vulture that it’s uncommon for teen females to be depicted in stories without being sexualized or infantilized. She observes that it appears as though females are expected to move directly from “Doc McStuffins” to “Euphoria.” Young audiences needed to see “The Baby-Sitters Club,” a feminist and progressive work that addressed the aspirations, challenges, and problems of girls.
The Real reason why The Baby-Sitters Club was cancelled
The show had a devoted following despite not being a cultural phenomenon like “Stranger Things,” which attracted a sizable audience. The abrupt cancellation was caused by average viewership and the show’s brief stay in the top 10 on Netflix. Shukert infers in Deadline that bad timing may have also been involved:
“I believe it was a mistake for us to release around the same time as “Squid Game.” Squid Game, which debuted on September 17, 2021, quickly rose to the top of Netflix’s all-time most-watched list. On October 11, “The Baby-Sitters Club” season 2 debuted, demonstrating just how irrational numbers may get. Numbers from the previous year that were very respectable and successful were suddenly viewed differently.”
Additionally, Netflix gives priority to programmes where people binge and watch entire seasons as soon as feasible. Different audiences viewed “The Baby-Sitters Club”:
“It’s probably wise for parents to prevent their children from watching six hours of television at once. Or perhaps they want to save it so that everyone can view it at once. However, Netflix is more concerned with how well your programme performs on the platform than how well your show performs on the platform. They don’t want people to watch it their own way; they want them to watch it a certain manner, and they create things that people will watch that way.”
Shukert also thinks that “The Baby-Sitters Club’s” abrupt cancellation may have sexist causes:
“Female audiences, in my opinion, are conditioned to be less serious about their own stories. Men’s obsessions from when they were 9 years old are regarded like Hamlet. How many “Spider-Man” films have been made? The number of “Star Wars” They retell it often and from various angles. Everything is fine, of course. What if someone took a girls-only event that seriously? even with a small portion of the funds.”
Unfinished business
A number of “Baby-Sitters Club” storylines were left unresolved and merited further investigation in subsequent seasons. Most crucial was the acquisition of junior babysitters who would strengthen the core team and support business expansion. The loss of Claudia’s endearing grandmother Mimi was the most depressing plot in the entire series. Additional seasons might have focused on how the family dealt with such a terrible loss and how Claudia and her sister Janine became closer. There are still unanswered uncertainties, such as whether Mary Anne and Dawn will actually become stepsisters. How might Logan and Mary Anne’s once-romantic friendship progress?
In the final episode of season 2 of “The Baby-Sitters Club,” Stacey announced that her parents might be divorcing. The development of this story may have shown younger viewers how to handle a similar circumstance. Kristy also had to deal with the fallout from her parents’ separation. By the time the series came to an end, Kristy had come to the conclusion that her biological father would always fail her and that her quirky stepfather Watson, who took her a long time to warm up to, actually wanted to be a good father figure for her. In a tender gesture, Watson offers to adopt Kristy and her siblings. It would have been interesting to observe how all of these changes in relationships and family dynamics played out. The possibilities for this “The Baby-Sitters Club” adaptation were unlimited because there were so many great books to choose from, and it’s depressing to know that they will never be realised.
Will The Baby-Sitters Club ever return?
Rachel Shukert directly addressed whether or not “The Baby-Sitters Club” might return on another streaming service or as a film in an interview with Vulture:
“It will probably be challenging. The girls are ageing swiftly, and we didn’t think this would last more than three seasons because we knew the girls would grow out of those roles. The intention of Scholastic and Ann [M. Martin] to prevent character ageing has always been very obvious. She authored the books for 16 years, but they never aged out of being imprisoned in amber.”
Even if such agreements were established, it would take too much time for the scripts to be written and contracts to be obtained, and the young performers would then be older teenagers or even adults. Shukert adds that even if the show could go on with a different streamer, it would probably not be permitted for them to host the first two seasons. Instead, Shukert leaves the audience of “The Baby-Sitters Club” with the following parting shot:
“Since I was 7 years old, I’ve longed to be a part of the universe Ann M. Martin created, and for two fantastic seasons, I actually got to. A dream came true, truly. Even though I will not be returning to Stoneybrook for another 20 seasons, I am incredibly pleased of the fantastic show our outstanding cast and crew produced and the way it offered so many people joy and comfort when they most needed it.”
The experience of watching “The Baby-Sitters Club” is similar to swaddling yourself in a warm blanket. It was so encouraging to see a young girls’ programme with such a strong feminist focus and wholesome, upbeat spirit. The television programme “The Baby-Sitters Club” is exactly the kind I would have enjoyed as a child and want my own children to watch. It’s depressing to see Netflix disregard these significant female stories with such carelessness.
