Spoilers

Win or Lose

“Coach’s Kid”

“Blue”

The Sunday Morning Sidewalk starts its third series today. I have watched Band of Brothers and The Sandman so far and this week, the new show is on Disney + and is from Pixar. It is called Win or Lose.

This sets a precedent for Sunday Morning Sidewalk because this is the first time that I will be watching two episodes a week. I had looked at the run time on the episodes and they were all right in that 22 minute sweet spot, so I decided that I would do two a week.

I am very happy about that because the first episode was so good that I really wanted to watch a second one no matter the time.

The show’s concept is that every episode will center around a softball championship game and the lead up to it. Then, with each episode, we will see the perspective from a different character leading to the same point. First episode focuses on Laurie, the daughter of the coach of the Pickles, who is terrible at softball, but she desperately wants to do well. Second episode looks at the umpire of the game, a low self-imaged teacher named Mr. Brown.

I love this concept. What a wonderful idea for an 8-episode series and this show has some awesome Pixar magic throughout. In the first episode, Laurie has a little creature on her shoulder that was born from her self-doubt and who just kept growing as the week leading up to the championship game happened. Kind of an Inside Out-style creature that fed into Laurie’s doubts and anxiety.

Poor Mr. Brown. I related to this guy because it showed him as a teacher. The scene of the overbearing mother trying to prevent a punishment for her cheating daughter, well to say that I understand is an understatement. The magical armor that appears around Mr. Brown to deflect the slings and arrows of criticism and negative comments also keeps him isolated and lonely.

The animation is great. I mean, it is Pixar. That is kind of expected. I had no idea that this short little series on Disney + would be as poignant as it seems to be. I am excited to see who the next characters we focus on next week.