Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Animation
Likes: Noggin
Dislikes: "Dora the Explorer"
Hates: The free reign Swiper gets, small kids animation DVDs

The Story So Far...
Dora the Explorer is a bilingual little girl with a gaggle of animal pals, including her best buddy Boots the monkey. Every episode, she takes on an adventure or quest that requires her to follow a map to reach some locale, teaching a little Spanish. along with basic concepts like numbers and positions, to the audience via direct address. There have been nearly 40 DVDs of Dora episodes released on DVD, and DVDTalk has reviews of several available here.

The Show
For once, a Nickelodeon collection actually (kinda) maintains a theme throughout, with a fantastical element to each show. The main episode sees Dora and her pal Boots enter a fairytale world, where Swiper the fox, the resident thief, has been up to his usual tricks, stealing, among other things, some bricks from the Three Little Pigs, leaving them open to attack from the Big Bad Wolf. As usual, instead of dealing with the fact that Swiper is a criminal, the explorers head off on a multi-part trip to help the pigs, using skills like matching. Why are they so accepting of a criminal like Swiper?

There's another unique episode in "The Mayan Adventure," as Dora and Boots enter a book to go back in time and help a pair of Mayan brothers, Hoon and Balan. The episode is built around a Mayan ball game that is like a combination of basketball and soccer, as the great brothers are up against a cheater named Pech who has a magic ball that can score without effort. The episode is loading with learning opportunities, covering constellations, matching, observation and counting. "The Big Red Chicken's Magic Show" also stands out a bit, as the locations on the Map aren't the usual go here, go there places, instead taking the form of magic tricks. The Big Red Chicken has been shrunk down and needs to get back to his usual big size.

The final episode isn't the greatest around, and is pretty plain in comparison to the others on this disc, as Boots gets his repaired boots back from the Shoe Shop, only to find they aren't his, and are, in fact, a pair of bouncy boots. Thus, Boots and Dora head out to get his own boots back, backing a few stops along the way for activities involving shapes and counting. Also involved is Amelie, Dora's French friend, who teaches them a game called escargot, involving hopping and numbers. Along with Najim, another international ally from the "Big Red Chicken's Magic Show" episode, she signals an expansion of the Dora universe, which is probably long overdue, considering how formulaic and predictable the show is. Unfortunately, instead of trying something really new, they just went with the artificial injection of diversity. It says a lot about the show's adherence to the simplest elements of kids cartoons and the show's lack of appeal outside its core demographics.

The DVD
A one-disc release, this DVD is packed in a standard keepcase and features a static, full-frame menu, with options to watch all the episodes, select individual shows and check out the bonus features. There are no audio options and no subtitles, though closed captioning is included.

The Quality
The full-frame animation of these recent episodes looks very nice, with nice bright color and only a few touches of the pixilation along thin black outlines that plagues animation on DVD. There are no noticeable issues with dirt, damage or compression artifacts.

The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track is the expected output for a kids cartoon, offering an standard, center-focused track that provides clean dialogue and solid music for the show's songs. No issues with distortion are obvious, but nothing here impresses much either.

The Extras
All you get here is a small game consisting of four sets of closely similar pictures, with some slight differences. To win, select the correct arrows pointing to areas that changed. It's simple, but is likely a challenge for younger viewers. Doing sections of the screens instead of arrows would have made the changes less obvious and the game more challenging. Aside from this, there are some previews for other Nickelodeon DVDs.

The Bottom Line
When you consider how unique many kids shows are when attempting to entertain, the formula "Dora the Explorer" slavishly follows is unusual, but I guess it works, since the show is still drawing little viewers. But it certainly makes it hard for any reasonable adult to watch for any length of time. This DVD does the usual fine Nickelodeon job of presenting the show, and provides the usual lackluster extras, so it all depends on whether your kid has a particular favorite here, or you need four more episodes for the arsenal.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.