Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! The mini-series conversation on the Netflix series continues with Kate and Lauryn's discussion of episode eight of the first season - Boy-Crazy Stacey! Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Generation BSC: A Baby-Sitters Club Podcast

Re-Watch 07: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode Seven: Boy-Crazy Stacey!

Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! Kate and Lauryn keep up the mini-series discussion about the Netflix series with a conversation about episode six of season one, Claudia and Mean Janine, and also delve a little deeper into The Claudia Kishi Club. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Re-Watch 06: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode Six: Claudia and Mean Janine!

Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! Kate and Lauryn’s Netflix discussion continues this week with a conversation about Dawn and the Impossible Three, the fifth episode of the first season. It’s another episode that stays pretty true to the plot of the book on which it’s based with an in-depth look at who Dawn is, why she (and her mom) came to Stoneybrook, and just how much she’s willing to do to get into the Baby-Sitters Club. We focus on the various father-child (mostly daughter) relationships that are covered, compared, and contrasted throughout this episode – focusing in particular on the differences between Dawn’s and Kristy’s relationships with their respective dads. Those differing relationships bring things to a head in Dawn and Kristy’s relationship, with Dawn doing what she does best and helping Kristy get to the heart of why she’s upset and lashing out. In examining how Kristy and Dawn interact throughout this episode, we confirm just how much we love the relationship between these characters and again gush about how much we love Dawn. We touch on the ridiculousness of the girls calling all parents in their lives (clients and otherwise) by their first names, narrative fake-outs, crystals, and how disgusting it is in TV and movies when people put their shoes on beds, couches, and coffee tables without a care in the world. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Re-Watch 05: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode Five: Dawn and the Impossible Three!

Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! Kate and Lauryn jump back into the episode-specific discussions for the summer mini-series to discuss episode four of the Netflix series, Mary Anne Saves the Day. The show does a good job again of hewing close to the plotline of the book of the same name, with some great updates. For example, while a 1980s babysitter might successfully evidence her maturity solely be staying calm and calling 911, a 2020s babysitter needs to do more to take agency and find her voice. Here, Mary Anne shows her maturity in standing up for and speaking on behalf of Bailey, the trans girl she’s babysitting. We go back and forth on the pros and cons of Bailey’s storyline here, ultimately coming down on the positive side – appreciating in particular that Bailey being trans isn’t presented as a “thing” for Mary Anne to learn about and get comfortable with, rather that Mary Anne is presented the opportunity to speak up for Bailey when she can’t after the medical professionals misgender her. We talk about the fight the girls have (which is focused solely on Mary Anne, rather than being a collective fight as in the book), Dawn’s introduction, ongoing awesomeness, and status as an over-sharer, the reimagining of Dawn and her mom and the greater implications of the change in their race and the dropping of Jeff as a character. We also touch on Claudia’s plaid Clueless homage, chairs with hidden candy-stashing compartments, the “Mary Anne is a Boss” playlist and its greater implications, and the fantastic sequin content of Bailey’s wardrobe and agree to disagree on just what the definition of a “meet cute” is. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Re-Watch 04: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode Four: Mary Anne Saves the Day!

Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! Kate and Lauryn continue their summer mini-series and discuss The Truth About Stacey, episode three of the Netflix series. Conceptually, this episode sticks pretty close to the book, with the (thankfully) dropped miracle cure/quack doctor aspect, due in large part to our greater understanding of Type 1 Diabetes in children. The issues with Stacey’s parents now arise from their misunderstood concern about protecting Stacey, which Stacey reads as embarrassment and internalizes. The Baby-Sitters Agency is reimagined as a high school-aged group with significantly more business and marketing savvy, but with the same disdain for actually being good babysitters, run by Lacy Lewis, a Disney Channel series level mean girl who turns the villainy up to 11 when she releases a video of Stacey going into diabetic shock. We use this episode to praise the creators of the series for taking the opportunity to make the parents (in particular in this episode, the McGills) into more fully-formed and real-feeling characters (and Kate takes the opportunity for a cilantro-based analogy that maybe works?). We praise Sam for putting in words the problem with using “Club” in their name, but come to realize through discussion that the BSC really is a club, despite also being a business. We discuss some of the highs and lows of updates and representation in the show versus the books and recognize that there is a lot more to discuss on those aspects as we continue through our mini-series. And as always, we wrap up our discussion with a conversation about fashion, with a primary focus on Stacey and Claudia here and where Lauryn succinctly states that Claudia is fashion and Stacey is more ready-to-wear (and we say that with love). Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Re-Watch 03: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode Three: The Truth About Stacey!

Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! The Emergency Meetings continue with Kate and Lauryn’s discussion of Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls, episode two of The Baby-Sitters Club on Netflix. Despite the title and general concepts being the same as the second book in the main series, we note that the Phantom Caller concept has been significantly modified and the related Phantom Phone Calls from Trevor Sandbourne and Alan Gray are non-existent. We discuss how this makes sense, but the shoehorning in of the Phantom Caller metaphor to retain that reference to the original leaves us a little disappointed with that aspect, while loving the episode as a whole. We get our introduction to Richard Spier in one of several nods to horror movies (and a clear indication of just how big a drama king he is). Parent/child relationships, expectations, and lack of communication are the big theme in this book, which we explore through our discussion of the Kishi parents with both Claudia and Janine and Kristy with Liz (also known forever to us as Edie) and Watson. Karen Brewer makes her first significant appearance and we are here for it. Her spooky energy is everything we didn’t know we needed. We touch on how great this show is at fleshing out these characters and showing their motivations when they do things that might otherwise seem out of character, how well it justifies original plot points despite updates to technology, Nancy Meyers kitchen porn, Mary Anne’s opportunity to be clever despite the lack of early warning system necessities, just what soigné actually means, and how the costumes chosen by Claudia and Stacey are so indicative of who they are. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Re-Watch 02: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode Two: Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls!

Welcome to our end of summer re-watch of season one of the Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix. For the next few weeks, watch along with us and revisit our thoughts on the series before season two drops in October. We’ll be back in the fall with our own season two as well, and can’t wait to catch up with you then. In the meantime, keep your eye on our social media and don’t forget to e-mail. We love to hear from you all! Kate and Lauryn are back with the first Emergency Meeting episode in their summer mini-series to discuss the (hopefully first) season of The Baby-Sitters Club on Netflix! It’s a revisiting of Kristy’s Great Idea, updated to modern day. We discuss how the themes of the episode compare with those of the book it’s based on and find that this one sticks pretty close in spirit, if not in actual plot. There’s a fun montage of Edie trying to find a babysitter that we feel does a great job of justifying why the BSC would be useful and needed even with all the technology we have available today. We touch on how great it is that the kids on the show actually look like kids and discuss how perfectly cast everyone seems to be (with the caveat that there will be further discussions of potentially problematic casting when it comes to Jessi). We laugh at the fact that there is an actual “Danny Tanner Moment,” while appreciating that the show does a great job of turning it into a conversation rather than a parental soliloquy. We absolutely love of Watson and his inclusion in this episode in very integral ways that give us the foundation for his relationship with Kristy we were lamenting not being able to see when we discussed Kristy and the Walking Disaster. Edie’s parenting style when in comes to Kristy vs. Sam and Charlie gives us an opportunity to discuss how we wish the show had done better in some ways. We also obsess over the fashion, question how much kids actually babysit today, praise the level of detail in production design, and round out the episode quoting Kristy’s Breakfast Club-y essay voiceover. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Re-Watch 01: Emergency Meeting - Netflix Season One, Episode One: Kristy’s Great Idea!

Kate and Lauryn drop in for an Emergency Meeting to apologize for our limitations in our conversations on autism and Kristy and the Secret of Susan and discuss how we're going to broaden the voices we hear from, to wrap up Season One of Generation BSC, and to announce what comes next (spoiler alert - it's a back-to-school binge of our episodes discussing the first season of the Netflix series as a lead up to new episodes discussing season two)! Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

EM016: Emergency Meeting - An Apology, Season One Wrap-Up, and Season Two Announcement!

Kate and Lauryn promised another neurodivergent and autistic voice to discuss Kristy and the Secret of Susan and are back with another super special episode to do just that, this time speaking with Brianne Leeson, a writer, artist, voice actor, podcast host, and sensitivity reader who joined us to share her experiences and perspectives. She introduced us to the word "allistic," which means not autistic, giving some additional nuance to the discussion surrounding autisic, neurodivergent, and neurotypical. In addition to discussing Kristy and the Secret of Susan, we dive into Brianne's experiences working with writers as a sensitivity reader, offering examples of what that entails and the type of feedback she's able to provide, discuss characters coded as autistic (rather than outright described as such), including Elle Woods from Legally Blonde and Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and hear more about the podcast she created - Today's Lucky Winner - which she described as "a raunchy, chaotic, supernatural comedy - Buffy for stoners." Connect with Brianne! Instagram: @brianne_leeson Twitter and Tik Tok: @hotsauceghost Podcast: Today's Lucky Winner (Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook: @luckywinnershow) Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Kristy and the Secret of Susan! (Part Two)

Kate and Lauryn are back from their summer vacation with a main series episode that's also a super special episode! As promised, we're returning to Kristy and the Secret of Susan, which we skipped in our regularly-scheduled rotation due to the franky pretty terrible plot focused on Susan, a girl with autism spectrum disorder in the neighborhood, and Kristy's problematic reactions to Susan and her family and life. And also as promised, we've invited someone with significantly more experience with neurodivergence and autism the spectrum to join us to share their perspective and help to unpack all of the issues with this book. Our guest is Lyric Holmans, the Neurdivergent Rebel themselves! We discuss the ins and outs of Kristy and the Secret of Susan, the autism spectrum and neurodivergence in pop culture (spoiler alert - it's basically never good or right), and Lyric's recommendations for supporting other neurodivergents and being a good ally. Connect with Lyric! Website: https://neurodivergentrebel.com Instagram and Tik Tok: @neurodivergentrebel Twitter: @NeuroRebel Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Kristy and the Secret of Susan!

Stacey and Charlotte (who's spending the week at her house) have a few spooky encounters at an old mansion on her street set for demolition, which intrigues the Baby-Sitters Club and sets them on course to investigate and figure out who might've owned the house and whether it's haunted. Because it's a book about hauntings in 1990, problematic concepts are, of course, thrown around as possible reasoning, but ultimately there are real-world explanations for all of the spooky happenings. (Because to-date no mysteries in Stoneybrook have had anything other than real-world explanations, sadly.) And as a note, we're taking a short Summer Vacation (inspired by Mary Anne and Stacey's trip to Sea City in the last episode) and will be back on August 3! Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Episode 035: Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook!

Mary Anne and Stacey are headed back to Sea City with the Pikes for two weeks to start summer break, "just like last time." (Not like last time - they went during Spring Break in Boy-Crazy Stacey. Talk about some timeline wonkiness!) We discuss the revisiting of a lot of the same plot points and seeing them from Mary Anne's perspective this time and quickly realize she's stretching a bit when she says there are "too many boys." Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Episode 034: Mary Anne and Too Many Boys!

Due to the subject matter of Kristy and the Secret of Susan focusing on an autistic child Kristy spends a significant amount of time with, Kate and Lauryn are taking a minute to bring on some great guests that they feel will help make that conversation as sensitive and thoughtful as possible. As a result, this week we're diving into Claudia and the Great Search, where Claudia becomes convinced she was adopted and goes on a thorough search to find the truth about her birth family and ultimately realizes, with Stacey's help, that she needs to just talk to her parents. This conversation results in the ultimate Danny Tanner moment. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Episode 033: Claudia and the Great Search!

Kate and Lauryn come back into that mid-bouquet toss cliffhanger and dive right into how great this book is at modeling behavior and teaching lessons related to blending families... until it takes a complete left turn with Dawn’s gaslighting of Mary Anne to scare her out of their shared bedroom (for which there is no comeuppance or lesson learned on Dawn’s part). We realize how much seeing Dawn’s perspective and hearing her internal monologue makes us see her in a worse light (similar to Mary Anne in the last book), despite the fact that typically one sympathizes most with the narrator of a story. Frustrating is the word of the book – both when it comes to Mary Anne and Dawn’s actions and character beats and how close this book comes to getting it right. There’s also a Pike Plague that lends itself well to an unrelated B Plot that gives us a nice reprieve from the Schafer-Spier drama. As usual, we have some fun on- and off-topic tangents, including: the Hays Code, that quintessential Sex and the City bouquet toss moment in real life, the BSC wearing surgeons’ masks to protect themselves and others and just how relevant that is to today, Kristy’s great joke in response to Claudia trying to make herself smarter, how much we love our girls just being friends and having fun, WTF a sorehead might be, seatbelt safety protocols, and candy necklaces (whether homemade or purchased). Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Episode 031: Dawn's Wicked Stepsister!

Kate and Lauryn are back into the main series following their Super Special detour to a ski lodge with the big, but not so big, wedding event where Richard and Sharon tie the knot in a much more business-like fashion than we (to varying degrees) or Mary Anne would’ve liked. It’s the first of a two-parter dealing with the lead-up to and fallout from the blending of the Spier and Schafer families. We compare and contrast this wedding situation with that of Edie (aka Elizabeth if you’re not us and haven’t latched onto that nickname from Kristy’s Great Adventure) and Watson along with the various sibling and family relationships we see throughout the series (and in our own lives). This book and our discussion end up being more ridiculous than we might have anticipated, leading Lauryn to put together a WTF list while reading that we run through in one go to really emphasize the ridiculousness overall. On- and off-topic tangents include: Edie vs. Elizabeth, being indoor kids, balloon bouquets, straw hats, Laura Ashley, sundried tomatoes, Jell-o Jigglers, and Mary Anne’s boring AF board game. Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generationbsc@gmail.com Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

Episode 030: Mary Anne and the Great Romance!

Kate Vlasek and Lauryn Hunter are two women in their mid-thirties who generally geek out about all things pop culture, particularly nostalgic pop culture. A spur-of-the-moment purchase of a random assortment of Baby-Sitters Club books on eBay sparked the excitement that would become Generation BSC. And what is Generation BSC? First, it’s a micro-generation Kate and Lauryn have identified with between Generation X and Millennials. This micro-generation has also been called the Oregon Trail Generation, Generation Catalano, the Star Wars Generation, Xennials, and Elder Millennials - essentially, for our purposes, those born between 1980 and 1985 who would have read Baby-Sitters Club books as they were being released in the late 80s and early 90s. Second, it’s a biweekly episodic podcast where Kate and Lauryn revisit each book in the Baby-Sitters Club series both looking back at how they approached the topics and themes when they read the books as children and comparing that with how they approach the same topics and themes in 2019 (and beyond). Eventually, the podcast will include guests and “Very Special Episodes” where Kate and Lauryn visit other pop culture from the same era and later, using the Baby-Sitters Club and Generation BSC as a jumping off point for discussion. Whether you’ve loved the Baby-Sitters Club since childhood or are jumping in for the first time, you’ll have a great time reading along with Kate and Lauryn. Generation BSC logo created by Jordyn Hunter.

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Generation BSC: A Baby-Sitters Club Podcast

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