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Metal Attraction
As the spotlight remains on Fenton Crackshell, this episode develops his love life. The good intentions are clear, but the execution isn’t the best.
It starts with an impression that Scrooge and his family will be the main focus when matters call for the eccentric genius of Gyro Gearloose. He invents a robot maid, Robotica, to help Mrs. Beakley when keeping house becomes too much for her. After Robotica proves too frightening, Gyro installs a chip to make her more emotional. When it comes to emotions, Robotica takes it to an overwhelmingly flirtatious degree. This shows when she becomes infatuated with another duck-based robot, Gizmoduck, the superhero alter ego of Fenton.
When expressing affection, Robotica is very unhealthy. She smothers Gizmoduck with extreme shows of love causing a lot of discomfort, but she never lets up. It is clear that this is meant to be seen as unhealthy, but it doesn’t make it any more comfortable from an audience perspective. The sad fact is that Fenton doesn’t seem to be much different from Robotica. He too goes very affectionate to his own love interest, Gandra Dee, through elaborate gestures. Granted, it isn’t anything overly physical like with Robotica, but he is still oblivious to how she feels. Still, he’s a lot easier to sympathize with as his gestures don’t bring the same discomfort.
As Fenton tries to get out of this forced relationship, the story takes a contrived route. Gandra goes to a salon that also has mechanical work for robots like Robotica. It’s very unbelievable that a place would function to serve both ducks and robots and feels like this place was only set up for these two to meet. They surprisingly form a solid friendship bonding over their boyfriends and agree they should go on a double date, unknowingly complicating things for Fenton.
Since Robotica is dating Gizmoduck and Gandra is dating Fenton, it’s a problem since Fenton is both personas. This leads to such a double date at a duck-themed amusement park where anything fun about the setting is undercut by excessive awkwardness. Fenton has to switch identities to please both girlfriends, but it simply can’t work since he’s two alter egos at once, so he pleases no one. It’s going for a humorous approach, but his attempts never really become funny.
In the process, there’s a lot exposed about the weaknesses of Gandra Dee’s character, revealing she’s basically nothing more than a pretty woman drawn as a duck. Her reactions to Fenton’s antics are very standard annoyance, and also kind of fickle. She shows remorse over not getting enough attention after getting too much of it, and when Fenton goes back to giving her a lot to make up for the park, she rejects it. What even is her deal?
As for Robotica, Fenton’s attempts at pleasing both dates makes her think she’s being dumped, and like a toxic partner, she sets out to blow up Gandra. With her friendship with Gandra proven toxic as well, Fenton protects Gandra from a missile blow as Gizmoduck, making Robotica see she’s about to blow up her love too. She ends up taking the hit and is rebuilt to a more suitable persona. She may be a robot, but it’s still concerning that she has to literally be rebuilt to come to a healthier conclusion instead of doing so herself. At least Fenton learns something from this by being more humble with his affection for Gandra.
While there is solid moral value throughout this story, the discomfort and awkwardness keep it from being as engaging and entertaining as it could be.
C+
The Ranking
1. My Mother the Psychic
2. Allowance Day
3. The Land of Trala La
4. The Good Muddahs
5.
Metal Attraction
6. Bubbeo and Juliet
The next review teaches everyone a good lesson about inflation when the boys use a device to duplicate their money.
Next time from the reboot is "The House of the Lucky Gander."
If you would like to check out other DuckTales reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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