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Any movie or TV series where a group of four or five kids come together and bond over adventures might just have The Famous Five to thank for their existence. First published by Enid Blyton in 1942, the kids’ book series has been made into TV series and movies a number of times over the past 80-plus years. In 2023, the BBC produced a new iteration of the book series, produced by Nicolas Winding Refn.

THE FAMOUS FIVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: On a beach, a teenage girl looks around to make sure she’s not being watched. She picks up the anchor of her small sailboat so she can go exploring.

The Gist: While on the water, the teenager, Georgina “George” Barnard (Diaana Babnicova) spots an empty boat she’s never seen before. When she climbs aboard, there’s a dog on board; his collar says his name is Timmy (in real life, the dog’s name is Kip). George sees a severed oxygen line, so she decides to bring Timmy back home with her.

George hides Timmy in a guest house, especially when her parents, Quentin (James Lance) and Fanny (Ann Akinjirin), tell her that she can’t get a dog. Besides, her cousins Julian (Elliott Rose), Dick (Kit Rakusen) and Anne (Flora Jacoby Richardson), are coming to stay while their parents are abroad.

The cousins first encounter George as she’s coming back from the beach, after having found the body of Timmy’s diving suit-clad owner, who washed onto the rocks. She shows them the body, then tells them about the The Curse of Kirrin Island; the island is owned by her father and has been in the family for decades. There is supposedly a treasure buried somewhere on the island, but anyone searching for it has met a horrible fate. Quentin has banned her from going to the island, but she goes there all the time.

While George and her cousins were looking at the diver’s body, a man named Boswell (William Abadie) was watching them. He reports back to Thomas Wentworth (Jack Gleeson), a wealthy London industrialist who has been interested in this treasure for some time; he’s the one who hired the ill-fated diver.

George brings her cousins over to the island, and as they explore, Timmy runs off and accidentally falls into a hole in the ground. What George discovers as she tries to rescue the pup is that there’s a secret underground tunnel. What that leads to is a long-buried altar that holds a goblet; after George grabs the goblet from where it’s chained down, water starts pouring into the sealed-off chamber.

The five manage to escape, but when George shows the goblet to her parents, Boswell happens to be there, imploring Quentin to sell the island. But when he sees the goblet, he leaves immediately to tell Wentworth about what they’ve found.

Via his knowledge of Latin, Dick figures out that the goblet is a key of sorts to finding where the treasure actually is; it has to do with where a 13th century explorer named William Marshal is buried, and what he’s holding in that crypt. The clue prompts the group to take the train to London and the church where Marshal is supposedly interred. But Wentworth, disguised as a priest, is waiting for them there.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Based on Enid Blyton’s book series, which was first published in 1942, The Famous Five has a bit of a Goonies-meets-Raiders Of The Lost Ark feel to it. The books have been made in to movies and series numerous times over the past 80 years; this version, created by Nicolas Winding Refn, adds a creepy Stranger Things-style synthesizer soundtrack to the mix.

Our Take: Despite some of the modern flourishes that Refn and his writers (Matthew Read wrote the first 90-minute adventure, split into two episodes on Hulu) adding some modern touches to Blyton’s popular story, but the show is more or less a straightforward adventure story, suitable for kids as well as adults. Things get slightly dark and slightly dangerous for George and her cousins, but for the most part the three stories that make up the first season of this series will see them bonding over these adventures, using their strengths to figure things out and then foil the people who are after what they’re looking for.

In a show like this, where a group bonds over often-perilous adventures, it takes a little bit of time for everyone’s strengths to come out. Despite not being the oldest of the group, George is the group’s obvious leader, and Babnicova plays her derring-do attitude well. Another standout is Kit Rakusen, who plays Dick Barnard, George’s genius young cousin. His extensive knowledge of, well, everything, is what helps the group figure things out that most adults haven’t been able to. Does his encyclopedic knowledge base feel to be a bit of a convenience sometimes? Sure. But in a show like this, where you have kids getting into dangerous situations outside of parental supervision, it helps to have a human computer to get them out.

Anne and Julian are less well-defined; Anne just seems like a bratty kid, and Julian seems like a nice, solid guy who is… well, that’s about it. But there will be moments where they will be tested and we’ll see what their strengths are. We enjoyed watching Gleeson’s over-the-top villain in the first adventure, which seems to fit the profile of a show like this.

We wish the midcentury period where the show takes place is defined a little better. We’re assuming this is pre-WWII Britain, but we’re not given a whole lot of clues to pinpoint exactly when the adventures are taking place. Perhaps that vagueness is a purposeful choice by Redfn and his writers, to help us concentrate on the adventure instead of the world around the adventurers. Still, a little period context might have been helpful here.

What Age Group Is This For?: Again, there’s some lightly scary moments, but The Famous Five is suitable for kids 8 and up.

Parting Shot: The evil Wentworth takes the sword that the group found and locks all of them — including the dog! — in Marshal’s crypt.

Sleeper Star: Kip is an awesome doggie actor; Timmy is an expressive pup, and he seems to be even more adventurous than the kids.

Most Pilot-y Line: “The last person who called me Georgina got slapped,” George says when she first encounters her cousins.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Famous Five is a fun adventure series the entire family can watch, with just enough modern touches to keep the younger viewers engaged and enough dangerous situations to keep the older viewers interested in what will happen next.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.