DP - Infinite Realms Review (SPOiLERS)
Mar. 21st, 2007 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neoyi*SPOiLER WARNiNG: Seriously, if you guys haven't seen this episode or have not seen Season 3 of DP, I advise you to move along, not unless you wanna be spoiled. This review will eventually be my website and is in my DA journal as well.
That said, enjoy my review for "Infinite Realms".
This episode falls in line in where it has a lot of good ideas, but didn’t do that good of a job emphasizing/taking full advantage of it. The other problem is Vlad’s behavior, which throughout the entirety of 22 minutes was…off, to say the least.
Which is ironic since as far as I know, this is Butch Hartman’s first official time writing a script for the show (his name showing in the writer’s credit at the title card). Vlad is mainly centered and focused on obtaining what he wants and usually executing plans to get said objection. If one plan fails, he will always come back with another plan. He is determined which is certainly what Hartman clearly succeeded in, as he tirelessly tries his darnest to “find his destiny” which is already an interesting notion in itself. For the longest time, we assume Vlad’s destiny was to seek Maddie as his wife, kill Jack, and claim Danny as his son. This episode doesn’t emphasize ANY of this, instead we’re treated to a side of Vlad that was less then notified throughout the series: namely his desire for power. The only real mention of this was in “Reign Storm” where he searched for the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage, possibly to gain said power. It’s ambiguously stated, but it’s really the only reason I can think of. Here, it’s blatantly shoved in my face and that would have been fine if not for the glaring mistake of excluding Maddie out.
Considering he’s spent 20+ years obsessing the shit out of her, the fact that Vlad would be willing to live in Rome, 1903, Ancient China--Japan--ambiguous Asian country, and such without giving her a second thought is just not Vlad. Why would he NOT want Maddie with her who, as far as I know, is someone he hounds for even still during this time? The only hint of his infatuation here is through his cat who shares her first name. Danny’s exclusion from his list of wants is perfectly understandable now considering the current animosity the two are experiencing, but the fact that he wants to leave the world he currently built up is questionable at best. Is he really THAT bored to execute such a drastic plan? Vlad’s done some shit when he tends to get desperate, but he’s clearly had a good deal of time to think this through before rushing when Danny got involved. Or is Danny that big of a nuisance that he’d be willing to ship himself to another time in Earth just to get away from the boy who endlessly frustrates him? It makes no pathological, reasonable sense because we’re not given any reasonable explanation, leaving a giant question mark in my head. I’m curious to see if Vlad will ever find his destiny, but not when it’s a destiny that doesn’t really work with his already established character. For god’s sake, even his current actions seemed more Dick Dastardly then the serious antagonistic foe I always took him as. I mean, come on, one brief animation has him comically super speeding to his book of Ghost Items. And “FIDDLE-FADDLE?” “Ectoplasmic gum on his shoe?” Those are NOT Vlad sayings.
The only good thing that Vlad has going for him is the incredible amounts of sex he oozes on screen. Everything from that drool worthy pilgrim wear to that giant pile-of-man-flesh-Vlad-deity statue in Rome to the uber-super-special-awesome-sexy samurai katana battle serves that between this and naked/wet hair Vlad of “Eye for an Eye” and “Torrent of Terror”, Season 3 is pure Vlad fan service. In fact, the action here is exceptionally sexed up. Everything is basically fast and never lacking. I like to say this is probably one of DP’s best action episodes yet and what makes it even better is the wonderful camera angles. This almost makes up for the pilgrims lack of movement when Tucker pulls shit by eating them flowers (when they logically SHOULD have tried to stop him)…almost. It’s an irritating factor of animation when they don’t do anything and thus lets Tucker advance the plot illogically, but despite that, the animation is generally wonderful (love those 3D doors and how they manage to flawlessly work their way in the show), with the sepia tone 1903 time period to Vlad’s flowing cape movements (I mentioned before how much I love cape flows) standing out to me the most. The musical score also feels a bit more “epic” so to speak, which I think helps the overall action scenes and camera shots. I only wished Frostbite’s people looked more ghostly because they really, really don’t.
Unfortunately the story overall doesn’t just suffer because of Vlad, but from the uneven pacing. Fair amounts of ground is covered in both Salem and Rome, but unnamed ambiguous Asian country and Kitty Hawk (I don’t know if I wanna really count 1942) and even the ending with the Far Frozen is too constricted and less exposed that it passes by so quickly that it makes the story unbalanced. It’s basically like they’re trying to squeeze both a coherent story while putting in as many action between Danny and Vlad as possible and theoretically, while it can work, this one doesn’t, creating yet another rushed episode. In it’s defense though, this one isn’t as horrible as “Urban Jungle” and maybe even “Masters of All Time”, but it shows.
The Infi-Map also begs the question of “huh” mode considering it requires time traveling, so where the bloody hell is Clockwork? He’s the feckin’ Ghost of Time, but he obviously must have missed work the day the Infi-Map was made, so the Observants or whoever passed it down to a bunch of intelligent furballs. This is just a case of blatantly skipping an old character who--in my opinion--would better fit the Infi-Map’s scheme then introducing a new character who doesn’t do much to warrant a creditable appearance on screen...
…Frostbite doesn’t do good. His first meeting for many was “Urban Jungle” which aired in American channels (and beyond) before this one did (which as of this writing has YET to air in America) despite the episode disorder Nickelodeon forced it on. From the likes of what I gathered, he was a sort of Obi-Wan vibe-ish teacher to Danny’s Luke Skywalker or…Anakin Skywalker or whatever. If I had known “UJ” would be the primary episode where Frostbite’s character is introduced, then I probably would have scored that thing higher…okay, I probably wouldn’t, but seriously, Frostbite gets barely any screen time here and what little he does he only makes up for it by playing as a plot device. Aside from mentioning his people worship him (which is pretty much the only personality we ever get with him), Frostbite’s basic contribution is to give Danny the Infi-Map and say stuff about it so the rest of the episode plays off with Danny and friends mucking shit up with Vlad. Frostbite doesn’t even go with ‘em on their little adventure and with such little exposure, especially for his first appearance, it does not do justice for his character and makes me not give a crap about him.
Danny doesn’t really help matter, either. Hartman obviously haven’t gotten the memo on his own damn show that Danny is acting like a complete idiot/jerk in the first nine minutes when he is once again stuck in, “Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen” mode that I hoped he had left by “Kindred Spirits”. It makes me wanna smack Danny upside the head with a mallet again. Thankfully, if not because of Vlad, he retains his matured personality afterwards and continues this throughout Season 3 baring “Livin’ Large” in mind (which I’ll complain on Danny’s behavior when I review that), so this little problem is minor compare to the larger complaints I posted above.
This episode truly is solid in it’s own way and enjoyable to watch, if not for the brilliant action scenes, it’s just paradoxed by all the flaws listed above and then some. Considering Hartman directs every DP episode and IS the reason why DP exist, he should have known better on how to utilize his own characters, but I’ll give him an “A” for effort.
6.5/10
That said, enjoy my review for "Infinite Realms".
This episode falls in line in where it has a lot of good ideas, but didn’t do that good of a job emphasizing/taking full advantage of it. The other problem is Vlad’s behavior, which throughout the entirety of 22 minutes was…off, to say the least.
Which is ironic since as far as I know, this is Butch Hartman’s first official time writing a script for the show (his name showing in the writer’s credit at the title card). Vlad is mainly centered and focused on obtaining what he wants and usually executing plans to get said objection. If one plan fails, he will always come back with another plan. He is determined which is certainly what Hartman clearly succeeded in, as he tirelessly tries his darnest to “find his destiny” which is already an interesting notion in itself. For the longest time, we assume Vlad’s destiny was to seek Maddie as his wife, kill Jack, and claim Danny as his son. This episode doesn’t emphasize ANY of this, instead we’re treated to a side of Vlad that was less then notified throughout the series: namely his desire for power. The only real mention of this was in “Reign Storm” where he searched for the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage, possibly to gain said power. It’s ambiguously stated, but it’s really the only reason I can think of. Here, it’s blatantly shoved in my face and that would have been fine if not for the glaring mistake of excluding Maddie out.
Considering he’s spent 20+ years obsessing the shit out of her, the fact that Vlad would be willing to live in Rome, 1903, Ancient China--Japan--ambiguous Asian country, and such without giving her a second thought is just not Vlad. Why would he NOT want Maddie with her who, as far as I know, is someone he hounds for even still during this time? The only hint of his infatuation here is through his cat who shares her first name. Danny’s exclusion from his list of wants is perfectly understandable now considering the current animosity the two are experiencing, but the fact that he wants to leave the world he currently built up is questionable at best. Is he really THAT bored to execute such a drastic plan? Vlad’s done some shit when he tends to get desperate, but he’s clearly had a good deal of time to think this through before rushing when Danny got involved. Or is Danny that big of a nuisance that he’d be willing to ship himself to another time in Earth just to get away from the boy who endlessly frustrates him? It makes no pathological, reasonable sense because we’re not given any reasonable explanation, leaving a giant question mark in my head. I’m curious to see if Vlad will ever find his destiny, but not when it’s a destiny that doesn’t really work with his already established character. For god’s sake, even his current actions seemed more Dick Dastardly then the serious antagonistic foe I always took him as. I mean, come on, one brief animation has him comically super speeding to his book of Ghost Items. And “FIDDLE-FADDLE?” “Ectoplasmic gum on his shoe?” Those are NOT Vlad sayings.
The only good thing that Vlad has going for him is the incredible amounts of sex he oozes on screen. Everything from that drool worthy pilgrim wear to that giant pile-of-man-flesh-Vlad-deity statue in Rome to the uber-super-special-awesome-sexy samurai katana battle serves that between this and naked/wet hair Vlad of “Eye for an Eye” and “Torrent of Terror”, Season 3 is pure Vlad fan service. In fact, the action here is exceptionally sexed up. Everything is basically fast and never lacking. I like to say this is probably one of DP’s best action episodes yet and what makes it even better is the wonderful camera angles. This almost makes up for the pilgrims lack of movement when Tucker pulls shit by eating them flowers (when they logically SHOULD have tried to stop him)…almost. It’s an irritating factor of animation when they don’t do anything and thus lets Tucker advance the plot illogically, but despite that, the animation is generally wonderful (love those 3D doors and how they manage to flawlessly work their way in the show), with the sepia tone 1903 time period to Vlad’s flowing cape movements (I mentioned before how much I love cape flows) standing out to me the most. The musical score also feels a bit more “epic” so to speak, which I think helps the overall action scenes and camera shots. I only wished Frostbite’s people looked more ghostly because they really, really don’t.
Unfortunately the story overall doesn’t just suffer because of Vlad, but from the uneven pacing. Fair amounts of ground is covered in both Salem and Rome, but unnamed ambiguous Asian country and Kitty Hawk (I don’t know if I wanna really count 1942) and even the ending with the Far Frozen is too constricted and less exposed that it passes by so quickly that it makes the story unbalanced. It’s basically like they’re trying to squeeze both a coherent story while putting in as many action between Danny and Vlad as possible and theoretically, while it can work, this one doesn’t, creating yet another rushed episode. In it’s defense though, this one isn’t as horrible as “Urban Jungle” and maybe even “Masters of All Time”, but it shows.
The Infi-Map also begs the question of “huh” mode considering it requires time traveling, so where the bloody hell is Clockwork? He’s the feckin’ Ghost of Time, but he obviously must have missed work the day the Infi-Map was made, so the Observants or whoever passed it down to a bunch of intelligent furballs. This is just a case of blatantly skipping an old character who--in my opinion--would better fit the Infi-Map’s scheme then introducing a new character who doesn’t do much to warrant a creditable appearance on screen...
…Frostbite doesn’t do good. His first meeting for many was “Urban Jungle” which aired in American channels (and beyond) before this one did (which as of this writing has YET to air in America) despite the episode disorder Nickelodeon forced it on. From the likes of what I gathered, he was a sort of Obi-Wan vibe-ish teacher to Danny’s Luke Skywalker or…Anakin Skywalker or whatever. If I had known “UJ” would be the primary episode where Frostbite’s character is introduced, then I probably would have scored that thing higher…okay, I probably wouldn’t, but seriously, Frostbite gets barely any screen time here and what little he does he only makes up for it by playing as a plot device. Aside from mentioning his people worship him (which is pretty much the only personality we ever get with him), Frostbite’s basic contribution is to give Danny the Infi-Map and say stuff about it so the rest of the episode plays off with Danny and friends mucking shit up with Vlad. Frostbite doesn’t even go with ‘em on their little adventure and with such little exposure, especially for his first appearance, it does not do justice for his character and makes me not give a crap about him.
Danny doesn’t really help matter, either. Hartman obviously haven’t gotten the memo on his own damn show that Danny is acting like a complete idiot/jerk in the first nine minutes when he is once again stuck in, “Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen” mode that I hoped he had left by “Kindred Spirits”. It makes me wanna smack Danny upside the head with a mallet again. Thankfully, if not because of Vlad, he retains his matured personality afterwards and continues this throughout Season 3 baring “Livin’ Large” in mind (which I’ll complain on Danny’s behavior when I review that), so this little problem is minor compare to the larger complaints I posted above.
This episode truly is solid in it’s own way and enjoyable to watch, if not for the brilliant action scenes, it’s just paradoxed by all the flaws listed above and then some. Considering Hartman directs every DP episode and IS the reason why DP exist, he should have known better on how to utilize his own characters, but I’ll give him an “A” for effort.
6.5/10
