Believe.
Shoebox Zoo is an urban fantasy TV series made in a collaboration between BBC Scotland and various Canadian television companies. It is mostly live-action, but with CGI used for the animal figurines. The show centers on the story of a young girl named Marnie McBride, who is given a shoebox containing four toy animals by a mysterious old man at a junk shop, as a gift for her 11th birthday. These magical toys have the power to come alive on Marnie’s command, and they’re on a quest to find an ancient book that once belonged to a great and powerful wizard.
WriterJessalyn Dennis
The Magic Is Awakened
Sep 21, 2004
On her 11th birthday, still grieving over her recently deceased mother and uncomfortable with being moved from Colorado to Scotland, Marnie discovers that she is able to make a group of four old toy animals come alive.
Friend or Foe?
Sep 28, 2004
It's Marnie's first day of school at her new home in Scotland. She has an encounter with a bully but makes a new friend in Laura. Back home, she receives a package from America containing a necklace that belonged to her mother. She also discovers that her shoebox animal friends were once human, and that only a lost book can return them to their original form.
Echoes of the Past
Oct 5, 2004
When a mysterious problem causes school to be cancelled for the day, Marnie and Laura visit the nearby St. Giles’ Cathedral in order to find clues about the shoebox animals, as John Roberts said he saw a depiction of them on a stained glass window there.
A Guide for the Perplexed
Oct 12, 2004
Marnie manages to get the red book she was looking for from the library, after which a familiar old man appears before her and says that she must make use of a peculiar looking map that’s within the contents of the book.
The Inner Sanctum
Oct 19, 2004
Since Marnie's suggestion to go to Tantallon Castle was agreed on by majority vote, her class goes there for a field trip. While exploring the castle, Marnie goes off the beaten path and finds herself face to face with the great wizard Michael Scot.
A Strange Birthday Party
Oct 26, 2004
Marnie is reluctant to go to John Roberts' birthday party until she has a dream revealing that he was really the evil shapeshifter Toledo all along, and so she plans to confront him. However, things take a strange turn when Michael Scot appears at the party as a stage magician.
A Little Knowledge
Nov 2, 2004
Marnie leaves school in the middle of the day to try to get in touch with Michael Scot, while Toledo tries to convince Marnie's father that she needs to be brought in for therapy, as he plans to manipulate her into giving him the Book of Forbidden Knowledge while masquerading as the school psychologist.
Mother’s Footsteps
Nov 9, 2004
Marnie is on a class trip to visit a "stately home," and uses her new powers to defeat a bully, but the shoebox animals become separated from her and find themselves trapped in the basement.
Where the River Flows
Nov 16, 2004
Marnie hopes to find the archway shown on the clue she just received, and plans to do so while on a camping trip to the Eildon Hills with the help of Dougie and Laura, but things go awry when Toledo interferes.
The Sign of the Unicorn
Nov 23, 2004
The shoebox animals plead with Marnie to continue the quest, but she insists on trying to catch up on her schoolwork after largely neglecting it. Despite her efforts, she gets falsely accused of cheating during a test, leading to further drama with the school principal.
Where Four Elevens Meet
Nov 30, 2004
Marnie and Wolfgang confront Michael regarding the events that lead to the creation of the Shoebox Zoo. Meanwhile, the other animals decide that they must find the book on their own, without Marnie's help, and so they head to the University Library in an attempt to solve the next clue.
Los Contrarios
Dec 7, 2004
Toledo hypnotizes Edwin and orders him to open the Book of Forbidden Knowledge. The dark energy released from inside the book awakens the shapeshifter’s devious creations, which are shadowy dopplegangers of the Shoebox Zoo made to destroy them.
The Day of Reckoning
Dec 14, 2004
Marnie makes one last attempt to stop Toledo from taking the book, and comes out victorious after realizing that the book was a fake created to seal the evil shapeshifter’s magic all along. She then learns that the location of the real book is somewhere back home in Denver, and that she must return there in order to continue the Quest.
Zen
@JJsTendies
I discovered Shoebox Zoo quite recently, nearly 18 years after it originally aired (as of the time this review was originally written). Truthfully, I went into it with very low expectations, and was very hesitant to check it out at first, but my curiosity was piqued and so I ended up deciding to watch it. Much to my shock, I ended up enjoying it quite a lot, so much so that I’d even rank it among my favorite shows of all time. As such, I wanted to make this review in order to share my thoughts on some of the main aspects of the show, among other things. To start things off, I’d like to talk about the central focus of the show, the titular “shoebox animals”, since I firmly believe the show did a tremendous job with them. They’re incredibly fun characters and add so much life to just about every scene they’re in, and while they primarily adhere to one defining personality trait, on top of initially being quite secretive and mistrustful, each of them goes through their own little character arcs (with some being more subtle then others), making them feel quite fleshed out by the end. The animals are further bolstered by the clever editing, superb voice talents and surprisingly great CGI animation that go into making them possible in the first place. Everything is so well done to the point that, for a majority of the scenes, I genuinely had a hard time believing that the CGI creatures weren’t actually there, despite being fully aware that they most certainly weren’t. In contrast to this, however, are the CGI used for for the magic spells cast by several characters throughout the story, which look quite dated and rough barring some minor exceptions. While some might find that a tad bit immersion-breaking, it didn’t really bother me all too much, and didn’t hamper my viewing experience in any way. Moving on to the actors, I greatly enjoyed their usually over-the-top and hammy performances, with some of my personal favorites being David McKay’s role as the lovable henchman McTaggart and Natascha Girgis’ role as the eccentric spirit medium Aurora Dexter, among others. In regards to Vivien Endicott Douglass’ performance as the protagonist, Marnie McBride, I must say that while I’ve seen no shortage of ire being directed towards it and can understand and even agree with some of the criticisms towards her acting, I personally didn’t find myself having any major problems with it. As a matter of fact, I thought Vivien did a great overall job in playing the role of a young girl who has to grieve with the loss of her recently deceased mother, but gets caught up in this strange and otherwordly scenario that just about entirely clashes with her everyday life and serves to complicate her already complex situation even further. As for the show itself, I found myself pleasantly surprised when I saw some serious topics being tackled within the plot, including those that I could relate to and/or appreciate in some way, and felt that they gave the show a somewhat mature feel overall while still having no shortage of silly moments and banter. The flexibility of the show’s tone lends it this sort of balance, a balance that ends up making it suitable to watch for both younger and older audiences, with both being able to connect with certain aspects of the show, some of which even overlap depending on taste and preference. I’d also like to note that I enjoyed both of the show’s 2 seasons thoroughly, and even with the occasional weird story beat and the reliance on some done to death tropes, as well as Season 2’s near total absence of my favorite character, I still found myself having an absolute blast from start to finish. While I could go on, I recommend that you try watching Shoebox Zoo for yourself and see if you enjoy it, as it can be rather hit or miss from what I could gather, and you might not have the same level of enjoyment which I had while watching it. With that being said, I personally enjoyed just about every second of Shoebox Zoo, despite it being far from perfect and aging rather poorly in some aspects. The show fully embraces its silliness but still manages to have genuinely raw and emotional moments, along with a fantastical world that is both fascinating to learn about and rich in lore and potential for theory-crafting. Those, in combination with me being able to feel the passion that went into making such a seemingly nonsensical concept for a show into a reality oozing at just about every moment, made Shoebox Zoo an amazing and truly unforgettable watch for me.
