A thief on a mission finds an abandoned baby girl on the side of a road in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The child is raised at V.I.L.E Academy, a secret facility for training the world's greatest thieves and assassins. Known as "Black Sheep", she has the skills to be the academy's star pupil - but some on the staff do not want to accept her into their program, considering her too wild and undisciplined.
And perhaps they have a point, because when Black Sheep discovers the nefarious intent behind the skills she has learned, she breaks out of the Academy and devotes herself to thwarting V.I.L.E's plans, adopting the sobriquet "Carmen Sandiego" as she does so. Unfortunately, her efforts to disrupt V.I.L.E mostly just look like burglaries and other crimes to the authorities. Carmen thus soon finds herself having to evade various police agencies as she pursues her quest.
On the plus side, Carmen has a wealth of skills - and a handful of faithful friends - to assist her in staying one step ahead of her opposition. But will it be enough?
This is the fourth TV show inspired by the 1985 educational game Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and the first to position Carmen in a wholly heroic role. It reminds me strongly of Disney's Kim Possible in its overall structure. We have an insanely skilled redheaded female lead, the brilliant hacker who assists her, a slightly buffoonish male sidekick, and a host of quirky adversaries with pun-tacular names.
That said, I very much enjoyed Kim Possible, so a show that echoes that same structure is not necessarily a wholly bad thing in my eyes. I also like that this show works in little info dumps about the cities and countries that Carmen visits. It's a nice nod to the educational focus of the original game on which it is based.
I enjoyed this first series of Carmen's adventures. Probably not enough that I will watch more of it - I think I'd rather try other shows I haven't seen, first - but enough that I certainly didn't regret the time I gave it. If 'good guy crook' crime capers are your thing, you might want to give it a try.
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