Odd Squad is a vast franchise with lots of Worldbuilding and lots of concepts that have been touched upon by fans over the course of its seven-year run. So let's dive into what makes it tick and how it grew to be a standout from other PBS Kids shows.
NOTE: This analysis contains unmarked spoilers. Please proceed at your own risk.
The Pilot (2012-2014)
Odd Squad started out as little more than a concept from Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman, who attended college together and were writers in the children's TV show industry for shows like Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Wander over Yonder.
In early 2012, news broke that the pilot for Odd Squad was filming in New York. At the time, the project was in the hands of Inner Dog Productions and 400th Town Productions, the former of whom Adam Peltzman (who lived in Brooklyn) worked for. The show was described as being "a live-action comedy focusing on math for children ages 5-7", but was also described as being a "funny, fast-paced drama that's also educational" in another article.
Originally, the pilot, and eventually the overall show, would focus on Agent Olive and Agent Otto, two investigators that solve odd problems who also happen to be children, with Ms. O and Oscar, Odd Squad's leader and Ms. O's assistant respectively, taking backseat as side characters. In spite of filming taking place in New York in a place with small-town charm, the setting was "small-town, anywhere America", meaning that the city Olive and Otto worked in would go unnamed. The pilot, dubbed "Zero Effect", would eventually be put up on PBS's website, only to be taken down sometime later. It also made its way to YouTube thanks to Jaden Michael, who played Otto, before being made private.
From what fans have seen of the pilot, it is very gritty and dark in aesthetic and nature. The plot, which would later be retooled into the first episode of Season 1 with the same name, involves Olive and Otto attempting to catch a "number hog" who has stolen many zeroes around the city, including the zero from Otto's birthday card. All of the characters had almost the same personalities as their modern-day counterparts — Olive was a hardened, sour Deadpan Snarker who was prone to fits of rudeness, Otto was a fun-loving Keet who was excited about his upcoming 11th birthday and wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, Ms. O was a stern Black Boss Lady who took no guff from anyone, Oscar was her Beleaguered Assistant, and Polly Graph was a Young Entrepreneur who, like her Punny Name suggests, would not tell a lie.
Around 2013, the pilot was greenlit by PBS, and Odd Squad was put into production, although it came with a rather major overhaul, including the switching of production companies from New York-based Inner Dog Productions to Toronto-based Sinking Ship Entertainment and Pittsburgh-based The Fred Rogers Company. It was announced at the PBS Annual Meeting in 2014 as the featured new show at the upfront and premiered on November 26, 2014, with teasers airing in the weeks leading up to the premiere.
The Three Seasons (2014-Present)
The show proved to be a phenomenon for PBS Kids, pulling in massive viewership and spawning a small fanbase. Its first season is widely considered to be the best of the best in terms of the franchise overall, for its characters, Story Arc, and Big Bad villain, among other things.
It would also go on to boom into a pretty sizeable franchise, bigger than what most PBS Kids series post-network-reboot could attest to. For more information on what followed after the series, check the Franchise page; this page will only touch on key pieces of media.
It was such a massive success, in fact, that in spite of the crew's fears that it would not get renewed (something made evident by the Series Fauxnale that was "O is Not For Over), PBS renewed it for a second season. This season also came with some new changes, most notably the switching-out of Olive and Otto with Otis and Olympia due to the former pair's actors (Dalila Bela and Filip Geljo, respectively) growing too old to play their roles any longer.
To say that this led the series to become divisive is a bit of an understatement. Although Olympia and Otis proved to be a hit with older fans, parents of young kids would often fight hard for Olive and Otto to come back. And come back they did, in a movie that featured a team-up between both seasons' main casts, and, in Olive's case, an OddTube appearance that was very much hyped up in the media. But that was about it as far as physical appearances went.
Another topic of interest when discussing the show's downfall is the changes in production from the middle of the season onwards, most notably in the writing. In particular, Ohlm, a ditzy agent played by Jaiden Cannatelli, was rewritten to serve as the Big Bad of the season due to Jaiden getting bullied in school over playing a stupid character, which many fans saw as a bad move because it was a decision based on personal interest that didn't make much sense given his personality and Otis's Mysterious Past involving him being a former villain.
Nonetheless, another Series Fauxnale was set up for Season 2, and less than a year following its end, Season 3 was announced. With it came an entire Retool of the series — everything changed, from the setting to the characters to the formula to the educational morals. At this point, many older fans had either grown up and stopped watching the show, or settled on watching the first two seasons. Whether Season 3, marketed in some places as a Spin-Off note , is good or not depends on mileage, but it was generally not well-received. According to Tim McKeon, this retool was a way to "breathe new life into the show" and introduce a new concept. For a short time, rumors floated around that the hotel where the first two seasons were filmed had to be shut down and demolished due to unsafe building practices, but they were disproven in a Q&A with Filip Geljo on Instagram revealing that the show was shot in a Toronto studio that is still active and still standing. Of note as well, most every main character from the past two seasons has been granted Living Legend status in this season.
Season 3 ended in the United States on July 8th, 2022. A couple social media posts from Mark De Angelis (the showrunner for Season 3 and a writer for the show) seem to imply that the decision about Season 4 lies in the hands of PBS Kids and not the cast and crew themselves, but as PBS Kids doesn't normally announce show renewals themselves, the show's fate is largely a mystery. However, a couple
articles, as well as a tweet from J.J. Johnson (the founder of Sinking Ship Entertainment), have revealed that a Season 4 is coming and will be written by the original creators of the show.
Seasons 1-2 (Odd Squad)
Odd Squad is both the name of the franchise and the name of the organization. Its purpose is to investigate, find, and defeat oddness. There is an element of irony into how it is run — while agents defeat oddness aboveground, oddness is also abound in Headquarters underground. Many theories have been formed as to what is deemed "acceptable" oddness and what is deemed "unacceptable" oddness.The show focuses on Precinct 13579 in particular. Exactly where Precinct 13579 is supposed to be located is unknown, but it is often speculated to be in Toronto. note The precinct's Headquarters is similar to most other precincts' Headquarters — full of many rooms which change around automatically at random times, and a bullpen, Trophy Room, Medical Bay, Director's office, and Lab in the center of it all.
