Wednesday, August 8, 2018

'Toon Reviews 20: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 2 Episode 7: Goblin Dogs/By the Book


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Goblin Dogs

Interdimensional travel episodes often thrive on imaginative worlds and the characters.  While there is imagination in some areas here, what the major characters are in the dimension for isn’t all that engaging. 
It is nice that we see what became of Star’s old friend, Pony Head, since her last appearance.  She’s free to do as she pleases now that the reform school she was sent to is overthrown and has really gotten around many dimensions, including getting a special snack called a goblin dog.  She convinces Star and Marco to come with her to get goblin dogs too.  For the most part, this is basically it.  They wait in line for goblin dogs, and very little of it is interesting or pleasing. 
Regarding Pony Head, her know-it-all attitude and unappealing valley girl voice always worked against her, but she was enjoyable enough in her two other appearances which were sparse.  Here, she’s prominently seen and shows little to no growth, making her flaws stand out more which lowers her likability.  She’s not fully unlikable yet, but her unappealing traits work against her. 
As for waiting on line, since the major characters are only doing this to get a snack, moments don’t feel like they’re worth your time.  They basically stand around while the vendor advertises how great goblin dogs are, buy stuff they don’t want after getting snuck onto the VIP line, and to top it all, they have to wait in many more lines after making it to the truck.  The latter point is just as ridiculous to the audience as it is to the characters.  I know that every big place often has a lot of waiting in line, but waiting in another line when you make it?  That’s a suspension of disbelief I can’t go along with. 
Fortunately, the wait in line isn’t all bad since we do get an exciting retaliation when our main players chase the vendor and fend off blasts from his T-shirt cannon.  Granted there are some uncalled for mind games played when the vendor says goblin dogs don’t exist but then saying they are later, begging the question: why did he say they weren’t real in the first place?  The payoff to the waiting is also exciting and creative. The vendor takes everyone to a dimension where he prepares the goblin dogs like regular hotdogs, and the actual taste sensation is a thrilling visual sequence with creative distortions of the characters visualizing how good the goblin dog tastes. 
One last good thing about the waiting is the debut of Pony Head’s friend, Kelly, the person on line who gets the most focus apart from the main characters.  She has a creative design of being engulfed in hair, some of which is actually her boyfriend, and amusingly stays quiet for the whole episode before finally breaking her silence and saying that goblin dogs are worth it.  Given the cool visual sequence we already discussed, Kelly was certainly right to do so. 
Even if it does have its good moments, you still have to sit through a lot of mundane, ridiculous, and unentertaining moments to get to them.  It’s true that the journey matters as much as the destination, but very little makes the journey stand out, and most likely isn’t one you’ll want to take continuously.
D+






By the Book

One confusing element to this season is that a big deal is made of Star’s wand having half its power, yet while there have been times where it’s much weaker than it was, other times it works as well as it always did.  A good move made from this is that either way, Star still needs a lot of training with her wand, and that’s where Glossaryck comes in as her mentor. 
However, this episode features a particularly unpleasant training session with Star being particularly undisciplined when learning how to work certain spells, not even trying to listen to Glossaryck.  She’s even inconsiderate when she decides to ditch training to hang with her friends which offends Glossaryck, and she only makes things worse through a feeble attempt at saying she didn’t mean it. 
As for Glossaryck, while it is understandable that he’s upset, the lengths he takes with these feelings are borderline overblown.  He hides in a donut box refusing to come out no matter how many times Star tries to apologize, so now it’s him who’s being stubborn and in turn makes life difficult.  From ruining the simple fun Star and Marco are trying to have with his inconsiderate remarks to failing to see how desperate they are to bring him back with staged fights, it’s concerning that Glossaryck is taking this long to accept Star’s apology.  He’s a kind of character holding a grudge no one should aspire to be like, yet it’s a problem because he’s one of the protagonists. 
Fortunately, all this animosity reaches a good concluding point when Ludo gets involved.  The opening to the episode features a strange occurrence when his piece of the wand appears to talk to him, begging a lot of questions as to how this can be.  Ludo and his bird and spider are prompted to cross dimensions to go after Star, resulting in a confrontation where they’re both surprised that they each have wands, giving a good opportunity to see how well they are with working them.  As it turns out, for all their training, neither of them cast spells that are strong enough to make a big attack.  Suspense builds when Star has to save Glossaryck’s donut box from getting crushed by a garbage truck while fighting.  During which, there’s a big emotional scene where the box ends up crushed, though it would have been more impactful if Glossaryck was more likable. 
Then, in his trickster ways, he turns out fine and even helps Star by manipulating the box to temporarily knock out Ludo and bring over Star’s spell book resulting in a grand conclusion to the battle where she finally masters the spell that initiated the conflict and beats Ludo.  If that’s not enough, Glossaryck’s claim that acting hurt was all part of the plan to get Star to successfully pull off the spell.  Personally, this is one of the better use of Glossaryck using trickery as a teaching tool.  It plays with expectations and actually leads to a greater good, so even if he is somewhat of an enigma, he can still enjoyable as he is. 
As a result, the episode is a good example of how good conclusions can make up for any prior flaws even if certain negative points still leave a sting, and with Ludo now aware of Star’s wand and spell book, it also brings promise for the bigger conflict to come.
A-

The Ranking
  1. Ludo in the Wild
  2. On the Job
  3. Mr. Candle Cares
  4. Wand to Wand
  5. Starstruck
  6. By the Book
  7. Starsitting
  8. Star on Wheels
  9. Camping Trip
  10. My New Wand
  11. Red Belt
  12. Star vs Echo Creek
  13. Fetch
  14. Goblin Dogs
The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review brings us to Star's home, Mewni for a Game of Flags, and during detention, Star finds a friend in former background character, Janna.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is an OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode that claims "You Are Rad."
If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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