"The Best VeggieTales Video Yet!"

At least, that's what Esther was hailed as. This was to be the Cleopatra of VeggieTales, the best Big Idea had ever produced. Well, I must say it fell short of my expectations. Don't get me wrong, it was of the same quality that I have come to expect from this line of videos, but it seemed sadly lacking. There was no countertop scene with Bob and Larry. There was no Bob, period. The narrating position, which I would have thought would have logically gone to Bob, was given to an unknown guy with a New York accent. We never even see him during the video, so maybe he's not even a veggie. Other missing characters include Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, Scooter, Junior and his family, Laura, the bandits, and the less prominent Madame Blueberry and Grandpa George and Annie. That's a pretty big list.

The story is taken straight out of the Hebrew Scriptures...well, almost. Our heroine is young Esther, a leek with a perfectly normal speaking voice and beautiful singing voice. Nothing cartoony about her. Not only is her voice mature sounding, her eyes have irises. She is the only Veggie whose eyes contain more than pupils. Her cousin Mordecai is Pa Grape, a stalwart old fella who helps convince her that "you never have to be afraid to do what's right." Haman, the king's right-hand man, is Mr. Lunt, and the Persian king is Mr. Nezzer. This time, Mr. Nezzer is a pretty decent guy, but Mr. Lunt is just plain nasty. His character informs the king in song that "there are those who can't be trusted," and the king is tricked into signing a decree against Mordecai, who just saved his life from the Peaoni Brothers, who tried to drop a piano on his head. ("And we could have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for that meddling queen!") Esther passed on the warning from Mordecai to the king, but she faces the daunting task of exposing the treachery of Haman.

Esther, after praying for guidance in her pleading song Tell Me Why, was selected as the queen in an amusing parody of a beauty pageant hosted by Archibald Asparagus. The contestant before her, a slightly crazed, boisterous woman with decorative horns on her head, sang what I suppose is the Silly Song replacement. Accordion in hand, in screeching that almost competes with nails on a chalkboard, she serenaded the two-man committee with her rather frightening ode listing the virtues of puppies. Esther's song, The Battle is Not Ours, is, by contrast, beautiful. It reminds me of Joseph's Close Ev'ry Door and brings home the point that "there is nothing we can't face when God is at our side."

The scenery for this video is lush and inviting, with lively cityscapes, grandiose palace scenes, and breathtaking sunsets. There is plenty of humor to be found, but it's subtler than usual. In the beginning of the video, for instance, a sign reads: "Public Transportation: Why Wait Till A.D.?" Moments later, we see this wondrous creation, a chariot with grapes for wheels. Surprisingly enough, it works. Haman has a most amusing temper tantrum just before whisking Esther away to the palace, and his temper and ego provide more laughs along the way. There's a reference to the Jacksons here (when the king and Haman are playing Trivial Pursuit), and Esther serves her husband fast food for dinner. The befuddled inquiry of the king is also priceless: "Why is there a piano on my cake?" And then there is the Isle of Perpetual Tickling, to which the kingdoms worst criminals are sent. They are led there by a darkly shrouded figure wielding a giant feather.

Yes, there is a good deal of comedy in here, though Larry's usual antics are absent. He is a scribe or something of that sort whose task is to record all the events of the day concerning the king. His only words here are when he reads his notes to the king to help him sleep. There are only four Veggies getting much air time here, and Esther is one of them. It's a very well done video, and I enjoyed it very much, but it didn't really seem longer to me than the videos which contain a Silly Song and countertop scene. I guess I'm a gal who likes things to stay the same once I've found a formula I like, and there was just too much about VeggieTales that I have come to love that was missing in this video. I look forward to Lyle the Kindly Viking, and I hope to see with it the return of all my Veggie pals. I guess I can't begrudge them a little break, but they'd better be back!