World of Winx is an Italian animation television series and a spin-off to Winx Club. The series was created by Iginio Straffi. Twenty-six episodes have been produced in two seasons, the first of which was premiered as a Netflix original series on 4 November 2016.
In this series, the Winx club girls return to Gardenia, Bloom's home town, where they work as a group of talent scouts on a reality television program to find kids of various talents. Behind the scenes, they try to save them from being kidnapped by a Talent Thief while hiding their own identities as fairies as well as their own magic abilities. The Winx acquire a new fairy transformation called Dreamix.
The series brings back the six main girls of the Winx Club as well as Roxy, who continues to have a recurring role.
Bloom (voiced by Haven Paschall): Fairy of the Dragon Fire and leader of the Winx Club. She has orange waist-length hair, light blue eyes and tan skin. Her magic is based on fire.
Stella (voiced by Jessica Paquet): Fairy of the Shining Sun. She has waist-length blonde hair, hazel brown eyes. She loves fashion and shopping. Her magic is derived from sunlight.
Musa (voiced by Kate Bristol): Fairy of Music. She has waist-length blue hair with bangs and tan skin. She has the power to create powerful ultrasonic waves of incredibly high frequencies and create solid barriers of sound.
Tecna (voiced by Saskia Maarleveld): Fairy of Technology. Her magic is techno-magic. She can speak to and interact with all types of machinery and electronics. Her hair is colored purple instead of hot pink in this series.
Flora (voiced by Eileen Stevens): Fairy of Nature. The most kind-hearted of the Winx Club. She has waist-length honey-colored hair. Her magic enables her to create, control and communicate with plants, vegetation and the earth.
Aisha (voiced by Alysha Deslorieux): Fairy of Waves. She has light brown skin, wavy tawny port hair and blue eyes. She has the power to manipulate water.
Roxy (voiced by Suzy Myers): Fairy of Animals who is also from Earth. She works at the Frutti Music Bar cafe. She has a dog named Arthur, with whom she uses her animal magic to see what he sees. She can also detect nearby danger. She helps Bloom with dealing with the detectives and following leads on the Talent Thief.
Ace (voiced by Jason Griffith) – the host of Wow! He has grey hair with white streaks. He always strives to be positive and enthusiastic when he is on camera, but off-screen, he loses patience because the Winx regularly disappear from the show and evade his show's camera drones. He is especially annoyed by Bloom. In the episode "The Fashion Week", when she accidentally knocks off his hairpiece in front of the camera, he is so enraged that he fires Bloom on the spot, and replaces her with Lorelei. He is later hypnotized by Smee to put the Winx in a dangerous situation with Smee's zombie pirates, firing Lorelei when she tries to tell him the Winx are fairies, and reinstating Bloom.Ep. 10
Margot (voiced by Samara Naeymi) – a judge on the Wow! show. She dislikes all of the presented acts and always votes against them. She has a dog named Puff who sits on her lap.
Cliff (voiced by Billy Bob Thompson) – a judge on the Wow! show. He tends to be optimistic and votes towards retaining the talent prospects for the finals.
Queen (voiced by Brittany Pressley) – a female spirit from the World of Dreams. She manipulates the shadow creatures to kidnap young people from Earth in order to steal their talents. She uses Annabelle's voice when she encounters Bloom and Jim, but later steals Bloom's powers to fight the other Winx. After she is defeated in the season 1 finale, it is revealed that she is Tinker Bell from the Peter Pan stories.
Smee (voiced by Billy Bob Thompson) – He first appears in the episode "Dangerous Waters" as an assistant to the Wow! show, but he uses his powers to hypnotize Ace, as well as control an army of zombie pirates. At the end of season 1, it is revealed he is Mr. Smee from Peter Pan and that he has sided with Captain Hook once again.
Jim (voiced by Marc Thompson) – an elusive man with purple hair who Bloom and Roxy try to chase down at the start of the series, suspected of being the talent thief. He has the ability to turn invisible. In the first season, he escapes Annabelle's apartment but drops his pocket watch.Ep. 7-8 He later works with Bloom to try to rescue Annabelle. At the end of season 1, it is revealed he is Captain Hook from Peter Pan, and that he was made young by the Queen (Tinker Bell)'s magic. He intends to take over Neverland.
Gomez (voiced by Wayne Grayson) – An undercover police detective who works with Evans on the case of Annabelle's abduction. They spy on the Winx. He likes to be casually friendly towards his partner, often thinking of their adventures like dating situations, but doesn't understand why Evans and women detectives in general are so serious.
Evans (voiced by Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld) – An undercover police detective who investigates the Winx for the abduction of Annabelle. She is fairly serious, and gets annoyed about Gomez's casual attitude and incompetence.
Annabelle – a waitress who is recruited as a talent prospect for the Wow! show. She has a beautiful singing voice. Her abduction becomes the main storyline in the first season.
Crocodile Man – a servant of the Queen who is an anthropomorophic crocodile. He first appears in the New York City episodes, but later returns when the Queen summons him to go after Jim and the Winx. He is based on the crocodile in the Peter Pan stories.
Lorelei – a blond-haired girl who joins the Winx on the Wow! show as a talent scout when Bloom is fired. She likes to be the center of attention. She and Stella do not get along.Ep. 7 In the episode "Dangerous Waters", when she discovers that the Winx are fairies, she tries to tell Ace and the Wow! show but is laughed off and fired.
The Shaman – a martial artist who works for the Queen to kidnap talent prospects. He uses a set of stones that give him special powers, including allowing him to disappear in a puff of smoke.
In September 2014, as part of its efforts to increase kids' programming, it was announced that Netflix had ordered from Rainbow Studios two seasons of World of Winx, each comprising 13 22-minute episodes. The premise of the show is that the "girls embark on an undercover journey all around the world looking for talented kids in art, sports, music and science." Netflix at the time already had a pact with Rainbow to show some of the seasons of Winx Club, its films, and other Rainbow shows such as PopPixie and Mia and Me.
Originally slated to premiere in early 2016, the series was delayed until later that year, eventually premiering in 4 November as a Netflix original series. Rainbow promoted the show briefly at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas in 2016, along with shows Regal Academy and Maggie & Bianca Fashion Friends. At the event, it was revealed that the storyline involved a Talent Thief that had been capturing children.
Ella Anders, a regular reviewer of magical girl-themed shows on BSC Kids, had low expectations on the series given that the more recent seasons of Winx Club were shells of their original, but said "So it was all that much stranger when I realized just how good World of Winx actually is". She liked that the series made the story meaningful. "Every moment counts, the story is a good one that is tightly woven together. The humour and heart shines. The girls are using their magic wisely and creatively." She especially liked that the Winx girls were "back to their old selves".
^ "Ep." is shortened form for episode and refers to an episode number in World of Winx.
