1. 

   Sweet Deals February 4, 2026 at

   I definitely remember watching this show… fifteen years ago. It was about as fun as any goofy toy commercial franchise about teenage ninjas with elemental superpowers, LEGO-constructed vehicles, zombies, robots and pirates could be.

   I do recall that each season was relatively self-contained so each season felt like a natural ending. I think I stopped paying attention at some point when I got older and they kept making more revival seasons long after the heroes had pretty much already won everything (what was that, season 11 or something?) and I didn’t have the motivation to keep up with it.

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2. 

   Sweet Deals February 15, 2026 at

   I just went back and binged LEGO Ninjago, beginning with the two-part pilot all the way through Season 15.

   Being a LEGO series, this is very much a goofy toy-oriented show. Ninjago is a vaguely pan-Asian inspired fantasy realm filled with every cool thing that kids would love. As our heroes Kai, Jay, Cole, Zane, and later Lloyd and Nya train to become ninjas, they are called to fulfill their “true potential”. In order to unlock their full powers, they each must face and conquer the fears holding them back. The series also repeatedly reinforces that “ninja never quit”, even when things seem difficult or hopeless, and “never put off until tomorrow what can be done today”; to discourage laziness or complacency and address problems before they grow bigger, and “The way to vanquish an enemy is to make him your friend”, which in this case means to pursue the path of patient reconciliation and bring bad guys over to the side of good guys if possible. Master Wu is wise and tough, and while he admonishes his pupils frequently he does it because he cares about them. The moral virtues demonstrated on the show are very real. The ninjas are always believe in doing the right thing. In earlier episodes they might get in trouble for making the wrong choice, in later episodes as they have matured they instinctively know what is right and are willing to sacrifice greatly for it.

   Ninjago went on for a very long time and it grew up with its audience. Kids who were small in 2010 when the show began were approaching adulthood by 2019 when the tenth season wrapped. Each successive season from first to last is more intense and has higher stakes than the one that came before it. The show is not only intense in both action and character drama, it is narratively dense. There are a lot of things all going on at the same time and while the plot may meander significantly, all the threads eventually come together and get tied up. It is rewarding to pay attention and follow along with the twists and turns.

   The show reaches a natural conclusion at the end of Season 10, but then picks up where it left off at Season 11 in a new 11-minute episode format instead of its previous 22-minute one. Overall, I would say that the series is just as fun and suspenseful as it always had been. There were some times when I felt the humor was getting intentionally clumsy: the inclusion of the joke villain Fugi-Dove, the episode about Okino saying his failures stemmed from not having a sufficiently positive attitude (his failures stem from stupid people choosing not to listen to him), the adventuring group called The Lowly, and the plotline about Lloyd treating Garmadon as a deadbeat dad (from the beginning, Garmadon could not help being evil because he was corrupted by venom, but he loved his son more than anything and kept trying to delay the fight of ultimate destiny to avoid having to fight him. The “deadbeat dad” version of Garmadon is more in line with the non-canon Ninjago movie, which I did not enjoy). I groaned a lot at these things, but there was sufficient sincerity in the delivery that I was willing to shrug it off and continue the adventure. I can say that no matter how silly things got, I never once got angry at the show or any of the characters, and that is saying something.

   While I was watching the later episodes, there were a few instances of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it woke signs that put me on the defensive. An episode from Season 14 “Papergirl” had a character stop his bike in front of a rainbow crosswalk. And in the second-to-last episode from Season 15, a character named Sally who only appeared once is shown wielding a guitar with a pride flag design on it… while standing next to her mother and father. (This moment was paired with Master Wu talking about allies coming together, which in this case referred to the armies of the Shintaro, the Merlopians and the once-wicked Serpentine joining forces to assist the people of Ninjago City to fight the dark forces of the Overlord. Yes, I pay attention). I really enjoyed watching this show a whole lot and I don’t want to let something that was only onscreen for a few seconds ruin the ride. I didn’t see any openly homosexual characters during the series; only mothers and fathers, and all of the guys pursued girlfriends. Because Ninjago is narratively dense with lots of action and suspense, there is no time to waste on woke virtue-signaling nonsense. The animators probably just checked the box and then moved on to focusing on what was most important.

   I didn’t watch any episodes of “Dragons Rising” yet. But that’s another series for another day.

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3. 

   Sweet Deals February 18, 2026 at

   I only watched one episode of Dragons Rising and I have no desire to watch it further. I can already tell from the beginning that this series is a piece of Netflix trash.

   The animation budget is certainly higher than the original series. But the story? A mess that reads like a ten-year-old’s personal fantasy rather than an engaging hero’s journey. It’s like a string of blatantly contrived dopamine hits tossed out one after another, held together with the clunkiest exposition imaginable instead of an organically unfolding story.

   I’ll go with my gut and skip this one before I get too angry.

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