Review: Claudia and the Secret Passage (BSC TV Series Episode 8)

For some reason, I remember this episode of the BSC a lot more clearly than some of the others, even though I'm pretty sure that I only viewed it the once, when it aired in Australia on Channel 2 (now better known as ABC1.) I think I just enjoyed Claudia and Janine's bickering. Now here's a random fact about Claudia: she's the only member of the BSC to be the youngest child. All of the others are the oldest child (Dawn, Mallory, Jessi,) the only child (Stacey and Mary Anne,) or they are the middle child (Kristy.) I think for that reason, I always felt a tiny bit of solidarity with Claudia. 

Claudia and the Secret Passage opens with the girls from the BSC, along with Mal and Jessi's little sisters Vanessa and Becca, working hard on a storyboard titled "Stoneybrook through the years" which is to be displayed at the local library. To keep the board safe before they can present it to the library, Dawn decides to keep it in the secret passage that leads off her bedroom. (Fans of the books will be familiar with Dawn's secret passage. They also may be disappointed to know that in this version, the secret passage leads to an attic, rather than a barn.) Anyway, Claudia is helping Dawn with the storyboard when, inside the attic, she discovers a note detailing a feud between two sisters. As always, the girls come up with some extremely inventive scenarios involving the feud (and, later, the ring they discover in the attic.)

Meanwhile, Claudia is at war with Janine, who is acting like a pompous so-and-so because she worried about a college application. In the heat of one such argument Janine tells Claudia what facts she and the BSC have wrong about the note. This ultimately leads to the discovery of the ring, and a pair of fifty-something sisters whose relationship is not unlike that of Claudia and Janine. In turn this leads to Claudia and Janine making up and attending a special BSC sisters event. 

As I said at the beginning of this review, I remember this one fairly well, though I am not sure why. There are a couple of goofs--how come Stacey, Jessi and Dawn all star in the Stoneybrook through the years poster when they all have only arrived in town in the last eighteen months? 

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