Neverland
Second Star to the Right, Straight On Till Morning

One star. I am an educated man. I attended Eton. I have read the classics. I have impeccable taste in waistcoats. And I am trapped — TRAPPED — on a magical island where nobody ages, a child in green tights regularly assaults me, and a crocodile that swallowed a CLOCK follows me everywhere I go.

The ticking. Let me tell you about the ticking. It never stops. I hear it in my sleep. I hear it during meals. I hear it during my soliloquies. The crocodile is always nearby, ticking like a biological metronome, and every tick is a reminder that it has already eaten one of my extremities and is clearly interested in finishing the job. I have PTSD from a reptile with a pocket watch in its stomach.

The local children are not supervised. They call themselves the "Lost Boys" and they live in a tree and they are armed with actual weapons. Knives. Swords. Bows and arrows. Not a single adult is responsible for these children. Their "leader" is a boy who can fly and who regularly breaks into people's bedrooms at night. In any civilized society this would be a criminal matter. Here it is considered charming.

I cannot leave. This is the crux of the review. I have tried to sail away. The island pulls you back. The stars rearrange. The currents reverse. It is a geographical prison disguised as a tropical paradise. The sunsets are admittedly beautiful but I cannot enjoy them because a CROCODILE IS TICKING BEHIND MY SHIP.

My crew is incompetent. Mr. Smee means well but his navigational skills are limited to "pointing at the horizon and hoping." The rest of the pirates are afraid of the children, which is embarrassing. You are grown men with cannons. The children have sticks. And yet we lose EVERY ENGAGEMENT because the lead child can FLY and none of us thought to bring a net.

FIVE STARS! Neverland is the BEST! You can fly! You can fight pirates! You never have to go to school or eat vegetables or take baths! I cut off a pirate's hand once and fed it to a crocodile and nobody put me in time-out! This place is INCREDIBLE!

The mermaids are kind of mean but in a fun way. The fairies are great. Tinker Bell is my best friend and she only tries to murder my other friends SOMETIMES. There's a tree house and it's underground and it has slides and secret passages and — oh, did I mention you can FLY? Because you can FLY!

Three stars. The weather is nice. The captain is having a difficult time, emotionally, and I try to be supportive, but it's hard when every day is the same. We sail around the island. We spot the children. The captain makes a plan. The plan fails. The crocodile appears. The captain screams. I comfort the captain. We go to bed. Repeat.

I've started a small herb garden on the ship. The captain doesn't know about it. I grow basil and thyme. It's the only thing that changes here. Everything else is exactly the same, forever. Three stars for the herbs. Zero stars for the existential dread.

*aggressive jingling* Four stars. Neverland is wonderful EXCEPT for the fact that Peter keeps bringing new girls here and expecting me to be fine with it. I am NOT fine with it. I tried to have the Lost Boys shoot one of them out of the sky. Was that an overreaction? Perhaps. Do I regret it? I do not. Four stars because the pixie dust supply is excellent.