Parents' Guide to The Dangerous Book for Boys

Based on the best-selling 2007 book of the same name, this warmhearted series assures viewers that you don't have to stare at screens to have fun -- you just need a book of adventurous knowledge bequeathed by your dead father. It's easy to discern a slightly scolding tone in creator Bryan Cranston's adaptation -- the three boys having the "dangerous" fun promised in the series' title are frequently told to put their phones or tablets away and experience what's all around them in this bright bold beautiful real world. They're also lectured by their mom, dad, and a passel of other adults to believe in themselves, try new things, be fearless, and learn lessons about life, and all the other things adults tell kids to do (but rarely do themselves).

Nonetheless, though the sometimes clichéd and often trite "very special lessons" the boys and their family learn detract from The Dangerous Book for Boys' emotional moments, enough of them land that viewers, even cynical ones, may find themselves misting up. Anyone who's lost a loved one can see the appeal of a mystical device that brings them back to you, even if only for a while. And when three boys who have lost their father find that he's still around, living somehow in the fantastical places he sends them to in the Dangerous book's instructions, it's nothing less than beautiful. "Dad? Dad? Are you still there?" says Wyatt, bouncing alone across the surface of some imaginary moon. "Always," says his dad with a steadfast, reassuring gaze fixed on his son. No, I'm not crying. You're crying.