The Toy Box season 2: Noah Ritter, Eric Stonestreet returning
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show has scrapped the season 1 format of having the toy inventors speak to a panel of experts about the products before going on to the kid judges. This was a valuable part of the show in that it assessed the toys as per practicality and price — basically, they thought about the toys in a way that adult buyers would, which seemed valuable as an adult watching the show. Yet, this is gone, and we have to think that this is a move to make the show even more appealing to families with young kids and to differentiate it even more from Shark Tank, which is also airing on Sunday nights starting October 1.
In terms of returning personalities, there aren’t all that many familiar faces coming back. You will see the outspoken Noah Ritter once more from the first season, but alongside him you will have Adi Ash (age 10), Paxton Booth (age 7), Sydney Mae Estrella (age 9), Kyle Lee (age 7), Joachim Powell (age 11), Gideon Reynolds (age 6), Emma Sobel (age 9), Madison Stevens (age 8) and Olivia Trujillo (age 12). The kid judges will surface earlier in the episodes, and also rotate in and out so that there are not the same ones there every week. This is understandable given that kids do get older, and with that you can’t just bring the same people back every time. We’re a little surprised to see Sophia Grace depart, if for no other reason than that she was easily the most famous of the kids on the first season. (Granted, Sophia Grace is also older than any of the other judges that the show has, so this may just be a sign of the direction in which the show is wanting to go now.)
If there was one other prospective change for The Toy Box season 2 we’d throw out there, it is that the show would greatly benefit from trying to present a different way to end the season; or, moving into more of a Shark Tank like format where the winner of every episode gets a short run at a toy store and we don’t have to sit through whatever that season 1 finale was all over again. That aside, The Toy Box season 1 proved to be a fun surprise of the spring summer season, one with cool innovations and judges that weren’t altogether cynical or aware of the presence of the cameras. We hope that feeling lasts in the second season, and there are enough changes to make up for some of the flaws. We’ll certainly have more coverage here at CarterMatt of everything that is coming up.
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Head over here, since that is where you can read more in regards to who won the first season of the show. (Photo: ABC.)