of yore

The desert setting and chomping alien monsters give “The Last Dance” a whiff of “Starship Troopers,” a soupçon of “Tremors,” nodding to those self-consciously campy B-movie creature features of yore.

The over-the-top events artfully channel the killer bee hysteria of the 1990s as well as the campy made-for-TV sci-fi disaster movies of yore, making “Bee-nado” both a bit bonkers and strangely comforting.

And if “Social Studies” falls far short of being a definitive or broadly representative look at the issue — far too many of the kids are applying to Yale, for one thing — as a conversation-starter, like those after-school specials of yore, it is very effective.

Five of the six main Japanese characters are Asian, and an essay in the program booklet calls for removing the “white gaze,” making this a fanciful Hollywood of yore.

The Mouse House is still attempting to recreate its lucrative tween strategy of yore.