Hello, hello! It’s time for another recap of Barbie: Dreamhouse Adventures! Today I am recapping episode four, “The Great Pioneer Adventure.”
Previous Posts in This Series:
♡ Episode 1 Recap, “Welcome to the Dreamhouse”
♡ Episode 2 Recap, “Clubhouse”
♡ Episode 3 Recap, “Nobody’s Cupcake”
Before we begin, a quick note: I just got an email from Foxtel, explaining that the pricing is going to change soon. Instead of paying $15 per month to watch Dreamhouse Adventures, soon I might have to pay $25! I think that is far too much to pay for only one show. I’m not sure if I will be affected by these changes, or when they will happen, but if it changes to $25 per month I won’t be able continue paying for Foxtel Now, which means I won’t be able to recap these videos anymore. 😦 We’ll see what happens!
On the plus side, I saw a post on the official Barbie Instagram -somebody asked when Dreamhouse Adventures is coming to the United Kingdom and (gasp!), and they actually responded! This is a first! Anyway, they said it’s coming “very soon,” so hopefully DA will be available on Netflix internationally within a few months.
Anyway, back to the show!
It’s a weekend, and all the Roberts sisters are hanging out together in the living room.
Well, kind of!
George, Barbie’s father, explains to everyone that he is making a documentary about a 21st-century family going without technology. Everyone decides to join in and ditch the comforts of home for the weekend.
Everyone starts setting up camp in the backyard. The family will be sleeping in tents and cooking everything themselves.
Ken is here too! He will be filming the documentary. Unfortunately, Ken doesn’t have much of a speaking role in this episode. He mostly just stands around and films.
Everyone makes up stories and hangs out together. Things are going great!
Sidenote: You can’t see it here, but they have also set up a campfire. Yes, in their backyard. Surely it is hugely illegal to start a fire like that?
That is… Until it starts raining! The tent has holes in it, so the family is forced to sleep in wet sleeping bags for the night.
Barbie and Skipper collect milk to make oatmeal from the farm. It’s a five mile* walk back, so they decide to ride a horse, Misty to speed things up.
Sidenote: Who is Misty? Is she Barbie’s horse who she is keeping at the farm? Or does she belong to the farm’s owners? Who are the farm’s owners? Why do they let random people in to take milk?
*Five miles = 8km. That’s about an hour’s walk, maybe an hour and a half. Either way -it’s a difficult trek!
Back at Camp Roberts, Chelsea and Skipper are tired of doing chores and going without technology.
Margaret has been called in for a work emergency. She needs to get her documents flown over to Houston immediately.
This whole subplot seems rather absurd –flown over? Why can’t she just scan the documents and the team over in Houston can print them out? I mean, it’s unlikely that they absolutely must have them in hard-copy, but I suppose it’s plausible. I’m sure these things happen in real life sometimes… Right?
While Margaret is gone, Skipper yells at everyone about how much she hates living outdoors. (It looks like she’s smiling here, but trust me -she’s pretty angry!)
Barbie: C’mon, guys! Where’s your sprit of discovery?
Skipper: Where’s the hair-drier? Where’s the microwave? Oh, I know! In the house with everything else that makes life worth living! The pioneers lived terrible, achey, splintery lives and smelled like a bad lunch! I’ll tell you what they discovered -there’s literally nothing they couldn’t do in the 1840s that we can’t do better today! I’m out!
At this point, I’m seriously thinking -Skipper has a point. Sure, it’s great to give up technology every now and again, but spending a whole weekend without the lovely convinces of modern life would drive me insane! I thought it was especially true when she said ‘there’s literally nothing they couldn’t do in the 1840s that we can’t do better today.’ Because she’s right!
Margaret returns. She wasn’t able to deliver the files to her boss because the roads were all jammed up with traffic.
However, Barbie has a plan! She and Skipper ride Misty (the horse) to their mom’s office to deliver the files.
Along they way, they knock into a hive of swarming wasps who chase them through the city. The sisters ride into the office building and the glass door shuts behind them, trapping the bees outside. They deliver the documents and Houston project can continue!
Sidenote: If they were going for realism, that swarm of bees surely would have gotten to them sooner. But I’ll let this one slide.
Overall, once again, I really enjoyed this episode. So far, I think my rating goes:
1.) Clubhouse
2.) The Great Pioneer Adventure
3.) Welcome to the Dreamhouse
4.) Nobody’s Cupcake
However, this isn’t to say that “Nobody’s Cupcake” was particularly awful! It was really interesting -I just found it to be a bit repetitive. One of the reasons I really liked “The Great Pioneer Adventure” was because it was unpredictable. I mean, riding a horse through Malibu to deliver documents to fly to another city? Talk about unexpected!
Once again, I had the same issue as last time -there really wasn’t any continuity with the other episodes. If you wanted to, you could watch any of the first four episodes in whatever order you wanted, and it really wouldn’t matter.
In this episode, we learnt that George likes trying new things and making documentaries, Ken is good at filming and likes football, Barbie is always optimistic (even when faced with soggy oatmeal and a leaky tent), and Skipper really likes technology.
Although this series is interesting, it doesn’t quite have the “rewatchability” of other Barbie media. I mean, I have watched “The Amaze Chase” and “Trapped in the Dreamhouse” more times than I can count! And don’t even get me started on Barbie films -I’ve watched some of those over and over and over again! But with these episodes? I’m not really tempted to watch them a second time.
As always, this is just a first impressions and we’ll see how the series develops! Perhaps it’ll suddenly get super-amazing or something!
Barbie Girl Wonderland 
Yeah, I certainly have not been inclined to rewatch these episodes. There’s something about them that’s not as good as the movies or specials. I also have already taken issue with the fact that, as you said, these episodes have literally nothing to do with each other. In other words, there’s zero chronology. You could watch them in whatever order you desired, like you mentioned.
As for this episode in particular, I felt like they really didn’t explain some stuff that needed a quick explanation. Like who Misty belonged to and why Skipper and Barbie just casually walk over and take someone’s horse. Why the Roberts family couldn’t have gone to, like, an actual campsite and went hiking up a trail or something. That would’ve made more sense to me, and maybe they could’ve introduced more characters or something. Although, it is a show, so the realistic-ness doesn’t always have to play a role, I guess.
Also, is it just me, or did you expect to see more of Barbie’s friends? I mean, they were featured heavily in the trailers and other marketing, but so far haven’t been seen much. When they are, we never seem to learn much about them. And while Barbie gets multiple outfit changes, her sisters, friends, and parents wear the same clothes over and over.
So far, this series hasn’t been as good as I originally hoped. Maybe I just expected more chronology and other stuff that was never intended to be a part of this show anyway. I don’t really know. We’ll see how long Mattel keeps adding more seasons to Netflix, and when it will release internationally.
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Yeah, the trailer made it seem like Barbie’s friends would play a really important role! Ken and her sisters were barely featured in the trailer at all. It’s very odd.
I thought it was so strange how they randomly introduced Misty! Like, I know she belongs to the farmhouse, but why are they going to a random farmhouse to begin with?? I think it would have been much better if they were like “oh the stables are right over here, let’s take tawny out for a ride” because Tawny is like, a horse that they actually already own.
I’m curious at why they kept pushing the original release date further and further back, when the series isn’t even that good… Didn’t they first announce it in October 2016?
Another thing I just thought of -the series was originally meant to be full of adventures “around the globe” and “musical numbers,” but we haven’t had either of those so far. (of course I haven’t watched the whole thing, but I was expected at least one song by now!)
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Well, in the episodes that I’ve seen (including season 2), Tawny is not mentioned or featured at all, but Misty is. Blissa the cat makes a few quick appearances, and of course the puppies. I don’t know why they felt the need to ditch Tawny but it seems like they have. I don’t recall her being mentioned in any media lately, namely the vlogs or anything else.
Yes, I heard about the global adventures and musical numbers too! In all of the released episodes, there has not been a single song featured, and no “global adventures”. Barbie and her friends do take a road trip in the camper, but they still stay in California, so that doesn’t count at all.
I think I remember hearing that it was first announced in late 2016 and set for a 2017 release, but then it was pushed to I think March of 2018? And then finally released here in early May. It’s strange that they would be continually delaying it, because I agree with you-it isn’t all that good.
Honestly, I’d prefer a series of specials (about the length of Dolphin Magic) featuring Barbie, her friends, sisters, etc. because that would allow the producers more time to develop characters in ways they are so clearly not being developed now with this series. Or maybe they wouldn’t even need a full hour, 45 minutes might also work. Just something a little more in depth than DA, you know what I mean?
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Ah that’s a shame! I was hoping they would visit other places around the world -Italy would be really fun, and it would be neat if they went to South America to see Teresa’s family (not sure which country she is exactly from).
I think more Dolphin Magic-like specials would be really good! That would be a perfect length to have some nice ~drama~ haha.
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Yeah, there’s more they could do with a longer timespan, that’s for sure. It would also be nice to see more character development and chronology.
Teresa is from South America? I never would’ve picked that region of the world. For some reason, I’ve always imagined her to be from Central America, a chain of islands in between North and South America. I always assumed her grandparents had moved to the States shortly before or after Teresa’s mom (or dad, since it isn’t specified) was born. Mattel has never confirmed exactly where her ancestors were from, so it’s all up to imagination really. Though I’d say we can confidently assume her ancestry is either South American or Central American, since both have countries that speak Spanish and are considered to be Hispanic or Latina, which Teresa clearly is. Maybe they’ll confirm where her family’s from in a later episode.
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Oh I have never heard of Central America before! 😂😂 I thought it was just North and South. That makes sense, too.
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Yeah, poor Central America isn’t as well known as North and South America! I don’t know all the countries it’s made out of, but two of them are Costa Rica (which from what I’ve heard is supposed to have beautiful beaches), and Cuba. Teresa’s family most likely would not be from Cuba, as they are a dictator-ship country and people have to flee to get out. El Salvador (is that in Central America? Or South? I can’t remember) is very similar to Cuba from what I’ve heard, so that is most likely not her country of origin. Of the nations I can think of right now, Costa Rica or a South American country would be most likely.
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