Hardy Boys: The Next Generation

Hardy Boys: The Next Generation is an American-Canadian web-exclusive animated action-adventure series. Loosely based on the Hardy Boys books by Edward Stratemeyer, while also taking influence from Undercover Brothers, The Hardy Boys Casefiles and The Hardy Boys Mysteries, it first aired on Netflix on December 29, 2017.

Plot
In the small Long Island town of Bayport, Frankie and Joey Hardy are two cousins raised by their aunt following the passing of their parents. Both boys are descended from Frank and Joe Hardy, the famous Hardy detective brothers, and together with their friends, travel the world solving mysteries.

Protagonists

 * Frankie Hardy (Drake Bell)-The elder of the cousins. He is intelligent, almost coming across as a smart-aleck, but will admit when he is wrong. His great-grandfather is Frank Hardy.
 * Joey Hardy (Josh Peck)-The younger of the cousins. The great-grandson of Joe Hardy, he possesses a knowledge of antiques, and is also interested in old pulp magazines.
 * Kevin Alvarez (Mitchel Musso)-A close friend of the boys. Of Mexican (father) and American (mother) descent, he is skilled with technology. He is also fluent in Spanish, and a running gag is whenever something goes wrong he says "Ay basura" (Spanish for "oh garbage").
 * Sophie Prince (Kristin Kreuk)-The boys' next-door neighbour, and a cynical, wisecracking girl. She is originally from Hanoi, Vietnam and was born with the name Thanh Dong, and was adopted, along with her older sister Danielle, by a same-sex couple providing humanitarian aid.
 * Patrick Lewis (Ogie Banks)-An African-American teen and close friend of the cousins. He has a clownish streak and enjoys food.
 * Lily Greenwood (Mae Whitman)-A friend of the boys, and Joey's childhood crush, but she doesn't reciprocate his affections. Her head is shaven except for a blond faux-hawk which is streaked with red. She has a love of comic books and art, and is a skilled linguist. She is bisexual.
 * Elizabeth Hardy (Mary Steenburgen)-The boys' aunt and their legal guardian following the deaths of their parents. She is sharp witted and is also skilled at cooking.

Recurring characters

 * Joaquin and Joanna Alvarez (Maurice LaMarche and Marisa Tomei, respectively)-Kevin's parents. Joaquin originally hails from Tijuana, Mexico and Joanna is from Portland, Oregon. They are a loving if somewhat stodgy couple.
 * Danny Alvarez (Joshua Rush)-Kevin's little brother. He suffers from Down's syndrome.
 * Joe and David Prince (Trevor Devall and Jeff Bennett, respectively)-Sophie's adoptive parents. They are openly gay, and in one episode, Sophie receives abuse for having two gay fathers from a bully.
 * Danielle Prince (Vanessa Marshall)-Sophie's older sister. Like her sister, she was born in Vietnam. She is currently studying in England.
 * Frank and Diana Lewis (Courtney B. Vance and Taraji P. Henson, respectively)-Patrick's parents. Both are African-American, but Frank is also revealed to be of paternal Native American (specifically Comanche) descent. Both are loving, but somewhat overprotective of their son.
 * Cyrus Lewis  (Drake)-Patrick's older brother. He is narcissistic, spoiled and somewhat over-confident. He is an aspiring rapper, and even claims to have toured with Jay-Z, to which Patrick retorts, "The only place you'd tour with Jay-Z is i your imagination".
 * Sofia Fuentes(Tara Strong)-A girl who has a crush on Lily. She is originally from the Philippines, and runs away to be with Lily to get away from her conservative parents, who reveal they harbour homophobic attitudes because her uncle was disowned for being gay, but come to accept their daughter's relationship.
 * Darren Watson (Crawford Wilson)-A bully at the gang's high school. Although he picks on the boys and their friends, there are occasions when he has sided with them. It is revealed that Darren's behaviour is down to the fact he has an abusive father, who is also hard to please.
 * Tom Clark (Nadji Jeter)-Darren's friend and a frenemy of the boys. He is mixed-race; his mother is African-American (she was born in Nigeria) and his father was white, but Tom claims he doesn't remember much about his father, as he walked out on him when he was two; aside from that, he claims his childhood was happy.
 * Reggie Wu (Sam Vincent)-Another one of Darren's friends. He is of Chinese descent. Because of his culture and his parents, he has to maintain good grades and observe traditional Asian values. He mentions that while his parents are strict, they still love him.
 * Luke Neal (Darren Criss)-A boy who has a crush on Sophie. He is a football jock, and is a frenemy of Darren's.
 * Monica and John Greenwood (Erica Durance and Mark Acheson, respectively)-Lily's parents. Monica works in a doughnut shop, while John is a musician with a local country and western group.

Minor characters

 * Christopher Fernandez (Will Friedle)-A pen pal of the boys. He lives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and is interested in wildlife and the natural world, which owes to the fact that his father is of partial Native American descent.
 * Annie Fisher (Tia Carrere)-Sophie's biological mother. She was born in Vietnam with the name Hanh Dong (nee Quoc), and reveals that she became pregnant with Sophie and her older sister Danielle at a young age, but gave them up for adoption when they were very young to kee them safe from her abusive husband, the girls' father. After this, she left Vietnam and setttled in Sydney, Australia, where she married a British man called Michael Fisher, with whom she had a young son called Charlie (Sophie's half-brother). She is critically injured by the leader of a human trafficking ring. She succumbs to her injuries in hospital, but not before telling Sophie she is proud of her.
 * Joe Constantides (Jess Harnell)-A lecturer at the University of Santorini. His area of speciality is Greek mythology and history.
 * Philip Chang (Keone Young)-A wealthy Chinese business tycoon. He owns a chain of sports bars in Beijing.
 * Vijay Krishnamurthy (Jeff Bennett)-An Indian biologist. He runs a wildlife sanctuary deep in the jungle.
 * Mark Sanchez (Jess Harnell)-A historian from the University of Mexico City.
 * Sacha Texeira (Grey DeLisle-Griffin)-A pen pal of Lily's. She lives on the Portuguese island of Madeira with her family and is interested in history.

Season 1 (2017-18)
1. Russian Blues (December 29, 2017)

Location: Moscow, Russia

When Pavel Volkov (Mark Hamill), a Russian gangster who bailed on the mob, is murdered, the gang must find out who killed him.

2. Death Down Under (January 12, 2018)

Location: Kakadu, Australia

David Waigunga, an Aboriginal park ranger, is brutally murdered and fed to to a crocodile. The gang must team up with local park rangers to help find his killer.