Netflix's We the People manages to be both completely strange and utterly predictable

Variety

The collection of short music video civics lessons "spanning just 40 minutes in total, is an overwhelming montage of information that almost immediately feels like a time capsule of political optimism past," says Caroline Framke. "Created by Doc McStuffins creator Chris Nee, and executive produced by Kenya Barris alongside the Obamas, We the People feels more like a high-budget YouTube series than a Netflix original — but that is, in essence, the point. Aiming for the Venn diagram overlap between Schoolhouse Rock and Hamilton, the show has the general vibe and shape of one that strives to provide education and entertainment through multiple replays. Since it hands over the creative reins to a new set of voices in just about every episode, though, only a few — like 'Active Citizenship' (featuring H.E.R.) and 'Taxes' (featuring Cordae) — rise to the level of revealing more layers upon a rewatch, or even the baseline of providing a truly informative earworm."

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• The topical vagueness of some of We the People's songs points to these 10 episodes as being more of a proof-of-concept than a fully realized project
• We the People and Doc McStuffins creator Chris Nee designed her shows because she didn't see herself represented on-screen: Nee, a gay woman who describes herself as "relatively butch," didn’t connect with any children's shows growing up in the late 1970s and early 1980s because  she never saw herself represented onscreen. She simply wasn’t like the little girls that TV glorified when she was growing up. “I was not growing up in a great era of TV,” she says. “It was just a really different space,” Nee says of that time. “And I carry that stuff with me. I can still touch those feelings of hurt and anxiety and fear.” Nee adds: “I always say that the answer you’re supposed to give when you’re asked ‘who are you writing for?’ isn’t kids. I am really not writing for the kids, I am writing to my own experience as a kid.”