New Ducktales, Season One, Episode Thirteen: "McMystery at McDuck McManor"

Duckworth was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. And so on. I don't know how to drag this gag out without it quickly getting boring.

But check it out: four episodes in four days! What a Herculean (Storkulean?) feat!

So there's a party for Scrooge but then he disappears what happened to him?!? And then his ghost butler appears. Well...granted, having both Duckworth AND Mrs Beakley was a bit redundant, I suppose. I have no strong feelings about this development.

I just feel like this episode was weirdly insubstantial. Like, for most of its runtime, it seemed like it was still revving up, and then you realize no, this is it, and then the Duckworth reveal seemed to make less impression than I felt like it should have. MOST ODD. I really don't have any strong feelings about this whole thing. But it was DEFINITELY twenty-two minutes. I will say that for it.

Okay, I'll admit that Mark Beaks isn't THAT bad. I mean, not compared to the competition, certainly. I thought it was kind of pointless weird and confusing to have the Beagle be named "Blackheart." I mean JEEZ, you try to pander to comics fans, but then you do things that are just kind of disorienting in the context of the comics. Blah, I say!

You know what I want them to do? Bring back Lena. Her plotline is really the only thing I'm at all invested in in this series, and it's been how long?

New Ducktales, Season One, Episode Twelve: "The Missing Links of Moorshire"

I went to a driving range once. It was in Jakarta. I went with another teacher and a student, and boy, it was an extremely quick realization that regular golf is not remotely like miniature golf. I basically hated it. But that's neither here nor there! In this episode, the fellas play golf, and then they play golf in a fantasy world because reasons and that's that, plotwise!

Actually, there was a lot to like in this one. The business with Scrooge feeling threatened by Dewey's prowess was a very good character thing, and and Huey's and Launchpad's commentary was pretty darned delightful. Mind you, Glomgold was as useless a character as ever, and the Ponies Who Dream Only Of Murder were more amusing in theory than in practice (I guess they were voiced by actual My Little Pony actresses? DON'T TELL ME I DON'T WANT TO KNOW). But hey! It's all good. It was light and frivolous, and as you can tell from the length of this entry, I have almost nothing to say about it, and that is OKAY. Um. The end.

New Ducktales, Season One, Episode Eleven: "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System"

Well, I definitely didn't expect it to start by being an episode of Darkwing Duck, so points for that, I guess, with Quackerjack, Megavolt, and the water one whose name I don't remember because he was never much of a character robbing a bank. It's a bit jarring that the character designs aren't updated to match the outside show, but maybe that's supposed to be the point. Hard to say. Then, metaphysical tomfoolery as it turns out it's just a show Dewey's watching, and apparently in this world Darkwing is a character played by "Jim Starling." Very...something. Well, it's fine. I'm sure this will all be elaborated upon in the future. And if you thought "goodness, I wonder when they'll try to give Launchpad depth and also introduce Fenton and also bring back Mark Beaks cause why not I guess" then it's definitely the episode for you. Anyway, Launchpad has to race against Beaks' robot so as not to get replaced, and the robot, whose name I cannot be arsed to go back and look up but BUDDY is the acronym, turns evil and only Gizmoduck can save the day. WHOO HOO.

Yeah. The Launchpad stuff, where he wants to be appreciated and not fired and replaced with a robot, is all right, I guess. A bit too reminiscent of that bad original-ducktales space episode, but they steer clear of egregious dumbness in this one. Also, I really like Fenton and the way the two of them bond, although I must say, Lin-Manuel Miranda doesn't make much of an impact. I mean, he's not bad or anything, but nor does it feel like there was any real reason for this stunt-casting. I like Hamilton fine, but I never would've known it was him if I weren't told. Also, I'm all for diversity and I don't object to the character having a Hispanic last name, but it does feel a bit arbitrary. Welp, let's hope they're able to use the character well in the future. He had some of the best episodes in the original show, so don't let us down!

What else? Gyro is, I guess, less objectionable than he was in his first appearance, though still not in any way similar to his original character. Mark Beaks is WHATEVER. The episode as whole was fine; I definitely liked it a lot better than the last one, even if my socks remain definitively in the on position.

New Ducktales, Season One, Episode Ten: "The Spear of Selene"

Somehow, putting an exclamation point on that title feels very superfluous.  I mean, for most of the other episodes you can at least get where they're coming from, but here...

Yeah yeah, four episodes behind...WHATEVER, mortal. Let's do this, eh?

So this is the episode where they go to the Island of Greek Mythology ("Ithaquack," which is apparently a mythical place; this may be nitpicking, but it kind of annoys me that, although Ithaca is mainly known as Odysseus's home, it's a real place; it's not any kind of myth) and apparently Donald and Scrooge have a history there. While Dewey and Webby go to try to find out what the deal is with Della (who we may recall went off with the "Spear of Selene") in whatever previous episode, the others play games because of this thing where Zeus is pissed off that he can't beat Scrooge. Mmm.

WELL...what did I like? I liked the "Storkules" character, and his history with Donald. Um. I like the idea that Louie's full name is Llewellyn. I like that Donald doesn't try AT ALL in the "games" part. Hmm.

So it's not that I, like, despised the rest of it, exactly. Well, okay, I don't like the whole "let's toss random Greek mythology things in here even if it doesn't make any sense because this is Greek Mythology Island" mindset (bag of winds, golden fleece, siren). And I really didn't like the business with Zeus being jealous. Yeah yeah, Scrooge is the awesomest forever, blah blah.

Nor did I like the whole Della thing, though that may just be me not being down with the whole concept of making her into a big plot point, but whatever it is...it is. "Maybe the sphere isn't an artifact. Maybe it's something else." Yes, maybe it's the fond memories we made along the way. Blah. The whole thing felt confused and forced.

Also, the ending where accidentally dropping the unrelated ball in the game area apparently automatically makes Zeus lose makes zero sense. Oh, and I didn't like the "Scrooge obviously lets him win not even trying to hide it" thing either.

Huh. Looking at all this, it becomes pretty apparent that I really <i>didn't</i> like it, even if "despise" might be going too far. What to the evs, kidsz!