Although I enjoyed the main series, my main problem with it was that every episode followed the exact same formula, with pretty much no variance in how the story plays out. In contrast, these specials manage to do a much better job telling a unique and interesting story in every episode. I'm sure this is partly due to the longer run time of each episode, but nevertheless the original series could have been much better if it took an approach more similar to what was done in these specials. My only real complaint is that we only got 8 of these specials, compared to themain series' 103 episodes; I would've liked to have gotten more.

If you enjoyed the original series, you'll probably like these specials even more. If you didn't enjoy the original series for similar reasons to what I describe above, then perhaps you may find these specials to be more interesting of a watch.