They didn't have shows like Dora the Explorer when I was a kid. OK, there were shows like Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, but when it came to animated characters, it was just Saturday-morning-cartoon fare, and certainly nothing that masqueraded as educational. That makes it an interesting challenge to review something like Dora's Ultimate Adventures DVD Collection: I suspect I wasn't even allowed to watch TV when I was three or four years old, but if I had been, would I have enjoyed this show? Do I think kids that age nowadays will enjoy it? Will parents approve?

Taking as many variables into consideration as possible (and accounting for the fact that I had no available kid to actually test this DVD set on), the episodes of Dora the Explorer presented here come across as decent stuff. It's reasonably fun and watchable, and does a creditable job of presenting ideas and language that preschoolers will benefit from.

OK, so who is Dora? She's an animated (literally and figuratively) little girl who has various adventures along with her friend Boots, a monkey who (take a guess) wears boots. Given the integration of select Spanish words and phrases into the episodes, and Dora's medium-brown skin, it looks like Dora is presented as a Hispanic girl (although she looks more Asian to me, personally). It's nice to see a matter-of-fact recognition that not all children are white and monolingual English speakers, and Dora does serve as a nice positive role model (especially for girls, as she exemplifies the virtues of being adventurous, curious, and smart). I do have to admit that it grates on me to hear Spanish words thrown into English sentences (like "Dora is an exploradora") as if language were just a case of mix-and-matching words; on the other hand, though, it has the useful function at least of letting kids know that there are such things as other languages. I did like the scene in "Call Me Mr. Riddles" in which Dora and Boots encounter Señor Burro, who only speaks Spanish.

Fitting the theme of Dora being an explorer, most of the episodes involve her and Boots trying to go someplace or find something, with assistance from their animated map as well as the viewers. There's a lot of emphasis on reasoning things out, reading maps and directions, and understanding spatial relationships, which are all good things for preschoolers to be exposed to. All in all, Dora the Explorer seems reasonably well suited for its 3-5-year-old audience; the concepts are presented simply, there's an emphasis on viewer participation, and the characters are bright, animated, and pleasing to look at.

Where Dora the Explorer falls a bit short is in the adult experience. The voice acting tends to be overly sugary-sweet or hyper-enthusiastic, with the result that the tone often seems a little patronizing, and may grate if parents are subjected to constant repeat viewings of the episodes. (In contrast, Blue's Clues never feels that way.) Additionally, sometimes the viewer participation, which is in itself a good thing, isn't handled particularly well. Parents may not appreciate it when Dora tells viewers that she can't hear them, so they should shout their responses louder.

The DVD

Dora's Ultimate Adventures DVD Collection is a three-disc set, with the three discs each in their own keepcase inside a glossy paperboard slipcase. Each of the three DVDs in this set contains four 24-minute episodes, at least some of which appear to come from earlier VHS releases of Dora the Explorer. Dora's Map Adventures includes "Lost Map," "Super Map," Three Little Piggies," and "Lost and Found." City of Lost Toys has "The Lost City," "Lost Squeaky," "Berry Hunt," and "Sticky Tape." Riddles and Rhymes contains "Dora Had a Little Lamb," "Call Me Mr. Riddles," "Backpack," and "Big River."

Video

The Dora the Explorer episodes appear in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and look reasonably good. Colors are bright and vibrant, and will likely be quite pleasing to preschool viewers. Overall, it's a little on the soft side, but I doubt anyone will complain.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack is clear and perfectly satisfactory. There's really not much else to say about it.

Extras

A few not-very-exciting special features are presented here. In the special features section of Discs 1 and 2, we get text Parents' Guides which outline the skills that young viewers will learn from these episodes. Discs 2 and 3 have flashcards (of dubious merit at best) and short segments of "Oobi: The Friend Who's Always With You." Disc 3 also has a rather lame matching game called "Dora's Riddle Game."

Final thoughts

Dora the Explorer is a reasonable choice as a fun and moderately educational program for preschoolers. The Dora's Ultimate Adventures DVD Collection compiles a total of twelve episodes; it's a decent choice for young viewers, especially girls. I'll give it a mild "recommended" rating.