If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:
The Day of The Only Child
Not every adventure should be expected to be spectacular, but when a show hits a such a consistent good streak, weaker entries end up sticking out a lot more. That is the case with this episode where the whole conflict and escapades are less engaging than normal. It’s not bad as it does have a clear goal and structure, but there are notable issues with the overall subject and the logic behind it.
The premise is the nephews deciding to make today Only Child Day where they all go about acting like they’re the only child in their family. On investigation, it’s pretty clear that this is mainly at Dewey’s request as he’s the one who hypes it up a lot. They claim to Webby, who’s disturbed by the idea that the trio would just separate like this, that they need time to be away from each other to do their own thing. That is a fair point, so there’s not much to complain about here other than it’s just kind of blah as a premise for an episode considering the usual big adventures and creative concepts.
Unremarkable as this plot may be, one notable thing to it is the format. Each act of the episode follows a different nephew going about as an only child doing their own goal all coming together in the end. This is a much more effective way than focusing on each nephew at once, and the audience can better absorb what they each set out to do and how they feel about all this. In the first act, Huey takes the focus with the most interesting take on Only Child Day. While the other nephews see it as a positive with chances to fulfill goals to have in mind, Huey questions how it’s truly a good thing, particularly with his own goal. He’s going after a cookout badge at the Junior Woodchucks, but needs to be part of a trio to be eligible. If his brothers were here, he could get the badge, but now of course, this is just not possible. Launchpad gives him the option of two other teammates in his place, but Huey can easily see that they’re two of the Beagle Boys in disguise. However, his ego easily allows him to choose getting a badge and possibly getting killed over it over the safe option. In doing so, there’s an amusing setup of taking advantage of the Beagle Boys stupidity. He acts like their friend telling him how to make a proper pit trap and rope knot, and teaches them moral values like fairness. At first it seems like he successfully has them on his side as they turn against their far more intelligent leader Bigtime leading to him tied up a tree. Huey, being very moralistic, won’t have it and opts to get Bigtime down only to land in trouble when the other Beagles start cutting the tree down while Huey’s up there. There’s a suggestion here that Huey isn’t as clever as he thinks on his own, but then again, he was the least on board with Only Child Day. As Huey lands in danger, there’s a cut to the next nephew living as an only child.
What Louie has in mind is not just an attempt to gain great fortune, but is also a reference to an element of the original DuckTales. Specifically, he’s attending a birthday party of one of the richest residents of Duckburg, Doofus Drake. The big thing about this is that the character is a callback to one of the original series’ least likable characters. Doofus back there wasn’t bad, but he certainly had nothing very appealing to him. He was just short, fat, and overall generic, not to mention seeming very pointless as a kid character when Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby were already sufficient. Nothing about him really stood out as interesting or substantial to the series, and perhaps audiences shared this opinion as he disappeared after the first season. As for this reboot, considering that Doofus was an unintentionally unsympathetic character, here he’s reworked into a character meant to be disliked. And disliked is a good way to describe Doofus as the moment he appears, there’s something unsettling. This feeling grows as Louie introduces himself as his friend while Doofus proceeds to call him a “friend present.” This seems innocent enough at first as Louie spends much of the party having fun with Doofus. Eventually, the disturbance grows to extremely noticeable degrees with how he treats his servants, notably noticing they’re not smiling and acting like everything’s normal. Not only that, but Louie later learns that the servants are actually Doofus’ parents, meaning their child has no discipline, being allowed to order his parents around. As for the “friend present” claim, Louie soon finds out what it means when an arm brace Doofus gave him clamps him to the floor, making him unable to leave. This in turn is an effective way of having Louie learn that being an only child isn’t as easy as he thinks.
Then comes the last act focusing on the nephew most excited to be an only child, Dewey. At first, one might think he was just looking forward to just having a normal fun day all by himself without any specific plan. Then it turns out, he does have a plan. He starts his own talk show called Dewey Dew-Night all about him. It has all the fitting setup of a show that places well to Dewey’s sense of self promotion, and it’s easy to tell this is why he was so excited about Only Child Day. However, it’s this show that gives him the most gradual sense of realization that being alone isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. He soon becomes lonely running the show all by himself right down to the point of getting random props for him to voice to pose as his brothers. It’s clear he misses his brothers, and something enhances that very directly.
As a payoff to an earlier setup, offhand remarks about a robot attacking him appears to get the attention of an established security robot. Dewey then gets into his designated mess as the robot goes after him. As a twist though, he figures out that it was a ruse by Webby to get him to see that he needs to be with his brothers. The moral value feels kind of wasted since Dewey already figured this out and doesn’t need to be told that. The danger isn’t through though as the security robot starts to actually go on a rampage as a result of Webby’s reconfiguring. The resulting chase soon leads all three nephews back to each other where they’re surrounded by all the Beagle Boys, Doofus Drake, and the robot together. They decide to be brothers again, and as all their escapades suggested, they’re effective in solving their problems by working together. This would suggest that the final moral would be that being a family has more benefit than being alone. It’s here when the entire story gets muddies. After going through everything, the boys explain to Webby that they do like being together as a family, but need time alone. In the first place, that’s almost exactly what they explained to her earlier, so that’s just repetition. Plus, the whole idea of Only Child Day is kind of pointless. The boys claim that this is the only day they’re their own people, but there have already been plenty of episodes of them doing their own thing away from each other. Why even make a big day of something they do, and continue to do, on a regular basis? This is a matter of causing confusion out of such little matters.
While the overall episode has merit with its structure and set of moments, it’s held back by a less engaging than average subject and confusing logic behind it.
B-
Series Ranking
1. The House of the Lucky
Gander
2. The Beagle Birthday
Breakout
3. The Impossible Summit of
Mt. Neverrest
4.
Terror of the Terra-Firmians
5.
The Missing Links of Moorshire
6.
McMystery at McDuck McManor
7.
The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra
8. Daytrip of Doom
9. The Great Dime Chase
10. Escape To/From Atlantis
11. Woo-oo
12. The Spear of Selene
13. The Infernal Internship
of Mark Beaks
14. Day of the Only Child
The next episode features Launchpad dealing with the rise of technology and introduces the reboot's version of Gizmoduck.
Next time, this blog finally completes Season 4 of Ed Edd n Eddy.
If you would like to check out other DuckTales reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
