"Ma Boy"

Aww, this show is super cute. The gender-bender mini-drama Ma Boy initially got on my radar for its simple twist of taking the very familiar girl-dresses-like-boy-to-infiltrate-boy-world premise of so many dramas, and giving us a boy dressing as a girl. I know, right? Finally!

Some of the cross-dressing offerings in dramaland have been awesome and cracktastic, while others have been less so, so the premise alone isn't enough to make this great. Thankfully, though, the show works with a charming vibe and enough heart to sustain its plot beyond the initial gimmick. That's always a worry with these one-gimmick concepts, that the show will forget to have an emotional throughline or characters we care about. But one episode in and I'm already feeling for our hero(ine)'s predicament.

Ma Boy is definitely geared toward a younger crowd, airing on cable station Tooniverse, and there's a distinct Disney Channel sort of vibe to it. It's adolescence through a kaleidoscope, not quite real but enjoyable in a light and fizzy way. But it's a Lizzie McGuire kind of Disney (What? The Lizzie McGuire TV series was great), not... I dunno, whatever forgettable stuff they're churning out these days. And you know, I have a lot of fondness for those Disney and ABC Family movies/shows-I have seen waaay too many Hilary Duff and Amanda Bynes projects-or at least the good ones, which take little slices of life and make them engaging and relatable.

This is a very short offering, clocking in at a mere 3 episodes, so that's one limitation. If you watch knowing that this is aimed at a different audience than the prime-time broadcast dramas we're used to, and adjust expectations accordingly, you might find Ma Boy to be a pleasant watch. You know, if this stuff is your kind of thing.