YMMV / Odd Squad

• Adorkable: Oscar and Oona. Olive and Oswald too, at some points.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Hydraclops was built up for most of the first season as being a huge threat by being shown in both the intro and some of the show's segments. In the episode it was set to premiere in, however, it gets roughly a minute of screen-time, and is defeated with one of Oscar's socks.
• Anvilicious: While the math lessons in the show are intentionally written to be subtle for kids, some fans believe that the math lessons hinder the pacing of episodes and dislike them, with some believing that the show would be great, if not better, without the math. Of course, since the show is on PBS Kids, subtlety of educational lessons in shows isn't really an option.
• Archive Panic: Over 100 episodes of the main show, 32 episodes of a Spin-Off series, two movies, a podcast, a guidebook, a 90-minute live show (although it's next to impossible to find it in full on the Internet), and four episodes of another Spin-Off series, to date. Yeah, needless to say, that's a lot of content to sift through.
• Award Snub: The show has gotten nominated for, and has won, a ton of awards, but the most frequent is the Daytime Emmys.
  • The show was nominated for Outstanding Children's Series in 2015 and 2016. It lost to The Haunting Hour and Sea Rescue, respectively.
  • Later on, the show got nominated for Outstanding Children's or Family Viewing Series every year from 2017-2019. It lost to Give in 2017 and Free Rein in 2018, but won in 2019.
• Bizarro Episode: The show may qualify as a Bizarro Show, but there are plenty of episodes that are completely zany even by the show's standards.
  • "Switch Your Partner Round and Round" is a Sequel Episode to "Blob on the Job" that manages to be even zanier than its predecessor. It involves Olive and Otto becoming mind-controlled by Ms. O using the "What-It-Would-Have-Been-Like-inator" helmets in order to see whom she would have picked for their partners instead of pairing them up together. No villains to stop, nothing insanely odd happening, just two agents finding Happiness in Mind Control because their boss witnessed them being bullied by their Sitcom Arch-Nemeses.
  • "Olive and Otto in Shmumberland" involves Olive and Otto becoming sucked into a Shmumberman comic book, while the eponymous character is sent to the real world in exchange. It's the only episode with primarily non-CGI animation, and when it first aired, it became infamous among the fandom for how bad the character designs of Olive and Otto were. Similarly, it's one of the very few episodes to show a character explicitly dying without trying to dumb it down for the kids watching it, and getting dangerous close to actually doing so.
  • In Season 2, there's "Olympia's Day", which runs on the same timeline as "Otis's Day", its sister episode, and showcases one of Olympia's Fatal Flaws: her inability to say "no". It involves Olympia asking Ms. O for a room so she can hang out with the Noisemaker, who is going into the Villain Protection Program. However, being that one of her modus operandis is to make her co-workers happy, she begins to let other agents into the room when they find out about it and ask her about it, which causes her to undergo some frighteningly realistic Sanity Slippage. Perhaps the craziest part of the episode is Dr. O confirming that Sanity Slippage, referred to as "descending into mathness", is an actual common occurrence in the world of the show and a known odd condition.
• Creepy Awesome: Odd Todd may be one of the worst villains in the show whose actions are incredibly egregious, but fans absolutely love him.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Olive shows quite a few symptoms of PTSD and trauma, which stems from her experiences in dealing with her old partner and fighting off the pienado that he released in her own workplace. When she is forced to interact with pie in any capacity, she screams in terror and often cowers behind Otto, and it's implied in a few episodes that she also has sensitive hearing. The OddTube episode "Interview with Olive" also has her explaining how she's getting over her fear of pie by focusing on tarts, a smaller pastry. Whether she was intentionally written to have PTSD or trauma symptoms is unknown.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Polly Graph from the early seasons is this for being one of the smartest non-Odd Squad characters on the show.
  • O'Donnell of the tube operators.
• Fanon:
  • Immortality is a frequent topic of discussion in the fandom. One common theory is that the agents' badge phones keep them immortal, but other canon tidbits (like Oprah being able to control her aging as the Big O) contradict it. Despite this, however, the badge phones keeping agents the same ages is an accepted fanon theory.
  • Before Otis was revealed to be a former villain, the Running Gag throughout Season 2 of toast appearing at various points in various episodes was correlated to him, since ducks are known to eat bread crumbs.
  • And speaking of toast, it was a common theory that toast was more than just a mere Running Gag and was going to play a big part in the Season 2 finale.
  • Big Red, one of the citizens of Ms. O's old town in "Fistful of Fruit Juice", is thought by fans to have grown up to become Santa Claus, hence why Ms. O calls him by Big Red in "Reindeer Games".
  • There's quite a bit of fanon surrounding Odd Squad agents having Invisible Parents and living in their own houses, since the show deliberately doesn't elaborate on any character's home lives too much.
  • For a time, some fans believed that Otis was a dog due to the Season 1 episode "Training Day", where another Otis, an Australian shepherd dog, was briefly introduced. Similarly, Ohlm being a dog was fanon due to having similar behaviors (being easily distracted, doesn't answer questions when he's asked them, etc.) and turning himself into a puppy at the end of "And Then They Were Puppies".
  • There was lots of fanon surrounding the true identity of The Shadow, the Big Bad of the first half of Season 3, with theories ranging from her being a dropout of the Odd Squad Academy to her being related to Opal in some way.
  • Orla is often seen as being a lesbian. This is somewhat supported by this image from the OddTube episode "The Button Song" depicting Orla with "rainbow-itis" (which looks like the gay pride flag) as well as a shot from one of the intros for the show which shows Orla and Oswald in the bullpen lit with bisexual lighting.
  • There are a lot of comments stating that Odd Squad, as an organization, is a kid-friendly version of the SCP Foundation.
  • Due to his Mellow Fellow personality, Ocean is usually seen as being constantly high on marijuana.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • There are quite a few fanfics surrounding Olive and her experience with Todd and the pienado. Since it's never revealed what happened to Olive, Oscar and Ms. O directly after she stopped the pienado (the story ends on a freeze-frame of Olive dropping the Triangu-lator and seemingly walking away from the scene while Oscar and Ms. O are left injured and unconscious), her experience with the aftermath of the attack is ripe for exploration.
  • Similarly, Otto's origins and how he became employed with Odd Squad in the first place.
  • Ms. O's life between 1870 and 1983, which is only briefly touched upon in "Fistful of Fruit Juice". Presumably, she was a newspaper delivery girl in Norway and became the queen of Portugal prior to joining Odd Squad, but it's never explained in-depth.
  • Otis's past sparked a few fanfics prior to being revealed.
• Fan Wank:
  • The timeline of the Odd Squad franchise as a whole is so muddled and so rife with inconsistencies and snarls that fans have attempted to piece it together based on canon facts from numerous media (Ms. O becoming an Odd Squad Director in 1983, the Mobile Unit being formed in 2019, etcetera). It got to such an extent where a timeline was created just to keep track of everything. It's doubly ironic considering that Tim McKeon is a big fan of time travel and the show has had at least one episode where time was the main mathematical lesson being taught.
  • To say nothing of all the continuity errors that fans point out and try to correct — and there are a lot of them. Whether continuity is followed or not seems to be Depending on the Writer, but most of the time writers play fast and loose with it.
• Friendly Fandoms: With a lot of other PBS Kids shows, such as WordGirl, Wild Kratts, Nature Cat, and Ready Jet Go!.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show has been noted as doing extremely well internationally in terms of ratings, although it's unknown how those ratings stack up against those from PBS Kids (it garners at least 17.8 million streams a month on the block's video app, but in terms of TV ratings, not much is known since those ratings are not made public).
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The sole fact the Ms. O was willing to train Otis to join Odd Squad after he revealed himself to be a former villain.
  • When Olympia, Otis, and Oona tell Ms. O how much they learned from her, and her doing the same. The Group Hug at the end also helps.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Orson is a baby driver. In 2017, a different kind of baby driver appeared onscreen.
• I Knew It!: Many fans had been speculating that Otis used to be a villain until it was proven true in the Season 2 finale.
• Jerkass Woobie: Agent Oksana is this. The real agents get to go on exciting and dangerous adventures, while she's stuck in the kitchen making food for the agents, all day and all night. Poor Oksana. Agents are quick to accuse her job of being easy, but anytime they have to be her for the day, they are proven wrong.
• Magnificent Bastard: Baby Genius is a mysterious, yet exceptionally bright baby with adult-level intelligence. Typically accompanied by Russian nanny Rivka who translates his mannerisms, Baby Genius has constantly aided Odd Squad agents in need throughout the years, by providing them with items they need, or giving them clues for where to find villains. Yet at the same time, he often needs to be bribed for him to talk, and tends to be very picky, with some of his requests tending to embarrass or humiliate agents. He also follows the villains' "No Tattletale Code", prohibiting him from giving specific answers to agents, essentially making him an accomplice to said villains.
• Moment of Awesome: The Season 1 finale is full of these.
  • Ms. O is made of awesome. She can lift a car, defeat any villain, knows all the agents' strategies, and does excellent on cases as well. To say she's a Pintsized Powerhouse is an Understatement.
  • The sequence of plot twists in the Season 2 finale. Sure some people predicted Otis used to be a villain, but how many of you knew Ohlm would be a villain? Huh? The writers of the program really know their stuff.
• More Interesting as a Villain:
  • Due to the popularity of fanfics like Viva La Vida, which portrays Olive as gradually slipping into villainy and allying with Odd Todd, many fans have hopped onboard the idea of her being a villain and have created AUs and other fanworks depicting her as an antagonist.
  • While Ohlm is the Big Bad of Season 2, many fans have wondered what would have happened if Otis had either still remained a villain or had gone back to villainy, due to his Dark and Troubled Past. Supporting this, rumors of Otis originally being the Big Bad (since Ohlm's actor had been bullied for playing a stupid character and thus the writers found it fit to give him a more serious role) floated around the fandom before Tim McKeon confirmed that the main villain had always been Ohlm from the start.
• No Yay: The idea of Olive and Todd dating is generally frowned upon by fans and is likened to an abusive relationship — which makes sense considering that Todd frequently belittles, harasses and even attempts to harm Olive on numerous occasions.
• Older Than the Demographic: Although the show is generally geared towards the 4-8 age range, a majority of the protagonists are 10-12 years old and are adorably precocious children in the workforce.
• Periphery Demographic: The show is garnering many fans who are far past the age of your average PBS Kids viewer, mainly because of the surrealism and clever humor that goes over kids' heads. Carryover of existing older fans of Wild Kratts no doubt helps, as the shows often air consecutively and have similar approaches to conveying STEM information mid-adventure.
• Pop Culture Holiday: May 25th is seen as an important date by fans, as it's when the episode "Training Day", in which the first season's Story Arc comes to a head, premiered. A lot of Odd Todd comments, jokes and memes tend to be shared on this day.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • "Otive", the name for the Otto/Olive ship.
  • "Oscoona" for Oscar/Oona.
  • "Flatbread" for Fladam/Lady Bread.
• Questionable Casting: Many fans believe that Oscar's "new voice" in the final part of the Season 3 finale, "Odd Together Now", is grating and provides heavy Vocal Dissonance with Sean Michael Kyer's voice. This is because Oscar is not played nor voiced by Kyer himself — instead, a body double, Cameron James Nicoll, was used for both his physical appearances (being filmed from the back) and his voice. This has some justification due to Sean Michael Kyer having grown too old to reprise the role of Oscar and having left the franchise back in 2016 following the premiere of Odd Squad: The Movie.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Upon debuting in Season 2, Olympia and Otis got some flak for replacing Olive and Otto. However, over time, fans began to appreciate them, especially when it came to Otis's Backstory, which served as the main mystery of the season.
  • Opal, Omar, Oswald and Orla, on the other hand, aren't as well-received. By the time Season 3 premiered, either older fans had stopped watching the show entirely, or newer fans would watch and be more attracted to the past 2 seasons and its characters. It didn't help that the show got a Retool, with the main setting being changed and characters being swapped out for new ones that aren't direct replacements of Olive, Otto, Olympia or Otis (but are still expies to some extent, bar Orla).
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Ms. O was criticized by parents for being a Mean Boss who yelled at her agents frequently, with a common complaint being that she (among other characters) was teaching their kids that being mean to others is okay. Although her harsh behavior was meant to draw parallels to real-life bosses and CEOs, Season 2 had the writers turn her into a Benevolent Boss — and if her Take That, Critics! line in "First Day" is any indication, it wasn't a move that the writers liked, but were forced to take to prevent further controversy.
• Retroactive Recognition: Dizzy still works for the Odd Squad, after being brought to Auradon.
• Rooting for the Empire: Be honest, how many of you guys wanted to see at least one of the villains triumph over Odd Squad?
• The Scrappy:
  • Xena and Xavier. Despite having limited appearances they're both extremely mean-spirited, their laughs are annoying, and one time, they took Olympia's black pen even though they had gold ones because "they made their pens feel better about themselves." Also, they tried to shut down Odd Squad for being over-budget on stuff they needed, while they wasted their money on stuff they bought for themselves they didn't need. All of their appearances are based on them being mean-spirited.
  • The Tube Operators for showing little to no respect for the agents.In "Trials and Tubulations", they are being self-centered and cared about their happiness more than the agents' safety. In "Trading Places", O'Fynne accuses Olive of being an adult criminal breaking into headquarters. Even when she's proven innocent, she thinks Olive's a criminal. What a jerk.
• Seasonal Rot: While Season 1 and Season 2 are generally well-received by fans, one would be very hard-pressed to find an older fan of the show who enjoys Season 3. During that season, the show went under a Retool, with a new setting, new characters, a new focus on STEM in addition to math, and a new formula of traveling the world to solve cases rather than working in a single town. While there are a few fans both young and old who still enjoy it, a majority of people dislike the season because of the massive changes, although there are fans who enjoy the season prior to Opal's departure.
• Shipping: Boy howdy, does this fandom have a lot of ships. A lot of them are Toy Ships, but there have also been a couple pairings of adult characters.
  • The two main partner pairs: Olive/Otto, and Olympia/Otis. Both serve as the OTPs of the fandom.
  • Oona/Ocean is a popular ship, given the Ship Tease in numerous episodes and their contrasting personalities.
  • Todd/Olive, which is often subject to Dry Docking and has been referred to as an abusive relationship.
  • Oscar/Oona is another popular ship, and was one of the first ships to come out of Season 2.
  • Olive/Oscar, popularized by the fanfic Ships Ahoy! and its spinoff fanfics, most notably Olive's Last Partner.
  • Otto/Dr. O, popularized by the fanfic Opalescent.
  • Ms. O/Oscar, due to Oscar's status of being somewhat of an assistant to Ms. O.
  • Octavia/Oz, since they're partners.
  • In terms of adults, Fladam/Lady Bread and Jamie Jam/Noisemaker are popular ships.
  • Ms. O/O'Donahue, for a similar reason as the Octavia/Oz ship. However, the ship has been popularized by a few fanfics.
  • Opal/Orla, one of the few Season 3 ships which has some extra padding in the form of Orla being viewed as a lesbian by some fans.
  • Oswald/Omar is another popular Season 3 pairing.
• Ship Tease: The character dynamics and emotional scenes are really well done, so a fan can't be blamed if they have a ship.
• Signature Series Arc: Most fans are in agreement that Season 1's Story Arc with Odd Todd is the series' most memorable arc, since it's what drew them (and draws many new fans) to the series.
• Special Effect Failure: Being a show that combines CGI with live-action from a studio known for such a type of style, this trope is abundant in many episodes, with some models of odd creatures looking like they belong in Unintentional Uncanny Valley territory while others look painfully fake. To its merit, however, they aren't completely horrific, and a majority of them look competent.
• Stealth Pun: Maybe. "Big O" will be familiar to any mathematician.
• Stock Footage Failure: Following the release of "Odd Together Now", many fans were quick to point out how much stock footage was used for the scene with visiting Oprah in the past. Some found it amusing, while others found it to be annoying.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "The Saddest Song In the World of All Time" from The Movie sounds a lot like "Scream" from High School Musical 3: Senior Year on some notes.
• They Really Can Act: The child stars are impeccable actors, despite their age. The actor for Otis has now snagged an Emmy for this show.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Odd Todd was a great recurring villain — he was essentially a family-friendly Expy of The Joker, with a Large Ham personality and personal connection to one of the agents. So naturally, instead of keeping him as the Big Bad, he gets scared straight by oddness, undergoes a Heel–Face Return, becomes a gardener and that's the end of that chapter. (Although, he does get one more go-around in the Made-for-TV Movie World Turned Odd, which involved an Alternate Timeline with him in charge of not Odd Squad, but Todd Squad — not to mention his cameo appearance in the Season 2 finale. So it's not all for naught.)
  • A bunch of minor villains, such as some competing for the map in "Undercover Olive" (Even Stevens, Circle Sue, Evil Queen, Underwater Ulanda, Archer Achilles, Leprechaun Lenny, Quarter Quinn, Evil Knight, the real Kooky Clown) never had solo episodes were they were the main antagonist, and some of their powers were never even shown or explained on the show proper, only given context with outside tie-in material, such as the show's website.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In "Who Is Agent Otis?", Olympia temporarily gets desk duty (which is assembling desks). That would have been the perfect time to bring Ensemble Dark Horse Olo in.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Dr. O, Ocean, Oona, and Owen in Olympia's Day. Olympia wanted her own room so she could have a conversation with the Noisemaker, but the other agents didn't care about Olympia's problem, they just wanted to invade her space. Little did they know, they would be crammed in their spaces. Plus when there was a piece left over, Dr. O and Ocean wouldn't let Olympia have that piece, they wanted it for themselves! It's her room guys, let her do what she wants, she isn't stopping you from doing your jobs!
• Villain Has a Point: Odd Todd, who thinks that the universe needs more oddness. You may or may not agree, especially since most of the odd stuff in the series looks rather harmless.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The show has a lot of dark and disturbing moments and implications of death and violence, among other things. It could likely be due to the fact that the show was initially slated to be on PBS Kids GO!, a sub-block of PBS Kids meant for older children (ages 8 and up), before its discontinuation and was originally a drama instead of a Work Com.
• The Woobie: That poor man with the foot-and-voice problem at the beginning of "No Ifs, And, or Robots" who never got his odd problem fixed, and can't even let them know where he is, or walk towards them.
• Writer Cop Out: The three-part Grand Finale is seen this way by a lot of fans, for many different reasons — the entire scene with meeting Past Oprah in "Odd Together Now" and the heavy reliance on nostalgia being two of the most prominent. In regards to the latter reason, some believe that forcing nostalgia into the finale as a way to make it more enjoyable only serves as a way for the audience to observe how insecure the writers have become and only makes the finale worse rather than better.