New Ducktales, Season One, Episode Sixteen: "Day of the Only Child"

I think if you're going to appreciate this series at all, you really need to accept the fact that most of the characters have basically nothing to do with their comics-equivalents. This is true of HDL more than anyone, I'd say. The show makes this harder to do by including the odd bit of inept comics-fan fan-service, but you gotta. I mean, the "completely different personalities" thing is...a thing. That is nothing whatsoever like older things. In a way I can't say I care for.

But! This episode, for what it was, actually was not bad. We have them trying to be autonomous people while also being part of a triad, which, okay, fine, the character-building could be worse. Huey helping Beagle Boys be better outdoorsmen was fun, for sure. As for Louie visiting Doofus...well, I do think it's funny that the writers apparently realized that nobody ever liked Doofus and so didn't even make a token effort to maintain the original character; all that's left is his name and, sort of, his looks. Now he's a deranged, spoiled billionaire. There seems to be the potential for horror here--hard not to think of the kid wishing people into the cornfield--but eh, it's amusing enough.

Inevitably, of course, we then come to Dewey's segment, and uh. This is the part of the episode that decidedly does not work; seeing him try to enact this fake talk show all by himself with cardboard cutouts as an audience makes him look as crazy as Doofus if not more so, and not in a fun way. More in a bemusing, why-the-hell-am-I-watching-this-and-what-does-this-have-to-do-with-Dewey's-established-personality-such-as-it-is way. Oh well. As a wise man once said: though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night, I can see paradise by the dashboard light. Wait, am I thinking of something else? Whatever!