'Dora' Will Keep On Adventuring In Season 2

 

Can you say “season 2”? It only took 12 days, but Paramount+ has renewed Dora, the CG reboot of beloved Nick Jr. series Dora the Explorer for a second season. All 26 quarter-hour episodes for the first season were released on the service on April 12 in the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Australia, and also on Nick Jr. internationally. They’re even listed individually rather than in pairs. 

“Kids and family programming is consistently one of the most popular genres on Paramount+ and we’re thrilled that our audience has already embraced Dora,” said Jeff Grossman, who is Executive Vice President, Programming at Paramount+. “It’s an incredible opportunity to introduce this beloved character and iconic franchise to a whole new generation.” Ramsey Naito, the President of Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation added “Our audiences have embraced the new Dora series with open arms, and it’s incredible how she continues to capture the imaginations of preschoolers around the world with her extraordinary rainforest adventures. We can’t wait for kids to discover all of the new fantastical places and colorful characters in the second season while learning and playing along with their good friend Dora.”

This was only two weeks after Paramount+ removed ten more library series from the service as part of a "strategic decision to focus on content with mass global appeal”. Two of those removed series are rather suspicious under the circumstances of the oncoming Dora premiere. Blue’s Clues & You! was the revival of Nick Jr.’s original breakout mega hit Blue’s Clues, the cash cow that preceded the original Dora the Explorer series as such king. There’s also Santiago of the Seas, which was a series co-created by Dora co-creator Valerie Walsh Valdes (her only non-Dora series). That’s gone too. It’s as if only Dora deserved to represent such categories (preschool revival and Valerie Walsh Valdes creation) in the eyes of the Paramount executives running Paramount+, so the older series got cut off and screwed over in favor of it. The favorite child of the bunch.

Like the original series, the reboot follows Dora (voiced by Diana Zermeño), and her monkey best friend, Boots (Asher Colton Spence) embarking on epic adventures, but now in a fantastical rainforest and with the point-and-click computer game framing the original had in its early days. Guided by trustworthy Map (Anairis Quiñones), Dora and her friends must work together to overcome many hurdles like Swiper the Fox (Marc Weiner). Dora’s first voice actress (of three in the original continuity) Kathleen Herles is now voicing her mother.

Dora also features Quiñones, as the Fiesta Trio's armadillo, Maria Canals-Barrera as Abuela; Danny Burstein as Grumpy Old Troll and the Fiesta Trio’s Frog and Marmoset; Katarina Sky as Backpack; Donovan Monzon-Sanders as Tico; Tandi Fomukong as Isa; Quintún Muñoz as Benny; Chris Gifford as Big Red Chicken, and Mike Smith Rivera as Papi. Kate del Castillo’s Ale the Alebrije is a guest star like Taboo (from the Black Eyed Peas) as Quickatoo. The series is produced by Nickelodeon Animation and created by Walsh Valdes and Gifford, who created the original series with Eric Weiner. They (but not Weiner) serve as executive producers as well with Rich Magallanes. Henry Lenardin-Madden serves as co-executive producer.

Source: Deadline