Animated Fantasy Television Episode Review: The Owl House - For the Future

The second and penultimate episode of the final season of The Owl House, "For the Future", is now available to watch. As the episode that sees the gang, together with Luz the human's mother Camilla, return to the demon realm, it has a lot to handle. It manages to juggle everything surprisingly well and handles the two-month time skip in a manner much better than the season three premiere.

It is fun to see Camilla, or "tall Luz" as one of the kids at Hexside called her, finally getting to see the demon realm. Her reactions mirror those of Luz when she first traveled there, and they are greatly contrasted by how skilled her daughter has become at navigating the demon realm after all the time she lived and was educated there.

We finally get to see just how powerful the show's secondary antagonist, the Collector, really can be. As he's just a child, albeit one with phenomenal cosmic powers, every horrifying act that he performs is treated like a game. As he turns witches into dolls and controls their actions like puppets, it seems like he doesn't realize how much he is hurting them.

It seemed a little odd that the season premiere didn't spend too much time dealing with the kids being separated from their families. In "Thanks to Them", that story thread became merely pictures that the kids drew and hung up in the empty house that effectively became their clubhouse. Here, it is given a larger focus, even culminating in a magical power overload that acts as a metaphor for clinical depression.

Adding to the depression, another character is reeling from the loss of a loved one in the previous episode. They end up comforting each other through a literal breaking of the vines holding them down.

"For the Future" does itself a favor by finally dealing with the absence of family in the lives of the children in the usual nuanced way that The Owl House handles tough subjects. The danger of the antagonists plays in the background, which is where it should be at this point in the story. That said, the final scene ties the two villains together and teases a power-packed finale.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Animated Fantasy Television Episode Review: The Owl House - Thanks to Them

With the recent release of the second of three episodes that make up the third and final season of The Owl House, I thought it would be the opportune time to catch up on previous episodes. As the first episode of season three, "Thanks to Them", brings the mother of Luz the human fully into her daughter's secret life, it seems like an appropriate place to start.

The episode begins with Luz's witch girlfriend Amity, Willow the plant magic witch, Gus the illusionist witch, and Hunter the magicless grim walker, stuck in the human realm with Luz. The latter brings them to her home and introduces them to her mother, Camilla Noceda. She invites them to stay, with the two boys sleeping in the cellar and the three girls sleeping in Luz's room with Vee the shapeshifting basilisk, who has been living there since Luz went into the demon realm.

Because Disney only ordered three episodes for the final season of The Owl House instead of its usual twenty-one-episode season, the crew of the show had to stuff seven episodes worth of story-telling into one episode. They do so with a musical montage. The montage is fun, beginning with Luz revealing that she is bisexual and introducing her girlfriend to her mother. It also shows the three shopping for human clothing and Vee shapeshifting into a human form that is all her own rather than a copy of Luz.

The crew did well with what they were given, but, unfortunately, it feels like a condensed episode. Even with the montage, the revelation that the witches have been in the human realm for months threw me for a loop. The kids draw pictures of their family and mentioned that they want to go home, but the team was forced to condense their time in the human realm, leaving their anguish at wanting to go home falling a bit flat. This is something that could have been handled well in the usual seven out of twenty-one episodes that they would have been given to tell this part of the story. 

The episode is fun. occasionally heartwarming, and the ending fight with Belos the centuries-old witch hunter is awesome with the best animation ever put out by the show. It's a fun episode, however, the condensation of seven episodes into one really hurt the storytelling. The crew did their best with what they had, and it is still really good. However, if Disney gave the series the episode order it deserved, this really good story could have been great.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Animated Comedy Television Series Review: DuckTales - Woo-oo!

This review was originally posted on the McMurray Internet Channel website on March 6, 2019.

Disney XD has aired an excellent DuckTales series for the past couple of years. It combines the classic 1987 DuckTales series with elements from the classic Carl Barks and Don Rosa Scrooge comics, and wraps them in the modern style of Disney shows such as Gravity Falls.

Woo-oo was the premiere episode of the show, and it definitely started strong. Donald Duck is worried about his nephews as he goes to interview for a new job, so he drops his nephews off at his Uncle Scrooge’s mansion. There is obvious bad blood between these two, as the boys didn’t even know that Scrooge was their uncle, and Donald and Scrooge haven’t spoken to each other in years.

Once we get to the mansion, we’re treated to an excellent surprise in the presentation of the characters. The classic DuckTales was excellent, but for a show aimed at children, the children on the show were surprisingly un-fleshed out. Huey, Dewey, and Louie didn’t have distinct personalities, and the personality that they were given were those of boy scouts, or junior woodchucks, as the case may be. This time the show takes a cue from the Quack Pack series, and not just because the twins have the voices of pre-teens rather than ducklings. They now have distinct personalities. Louie is mischievous, as his brothers refer to him as the “evil twin”, and he agrees. Dewey is daring and is an adventure seeker. Huey is the only one who retains the junior woodchuck personality, and, probably as a nod to that fact, he is the only twin that wears a baseball cap.

In the classic DuckTales, Webby was much younger than the boys and was scared of the adventures that Scrooge and the boys had and usually stayed home. Here, Webby is around the same age as the boys and resembles Mabel from Gravity Falls in many ways, and not just because the two enjoy grappling hooks. She is strong, resilient, and outgoing.

Mrs. Beakley is also given an overhaul. Before, she had a grandmotherly personality and served as the traditional maid of the mansion. She is still the maid, but now she is super strong and has a no-nonsense personality.

Scrooge also is a bit different, and it’s not only because he’s voiced by the always-awesome David Tennant. He is a bit less grandfatherly than the 1987 series, and is a bit more of a miser, as he was in the classic Scrooge comics. He still cares for his nephews, but he’s a bit less of a family man than he was in the classic DuckTales series.

However, Launchpad is still Launchpad. He’s still a plane-crashing airhead with a heart of gold, and that’s for the best as he was the breakout original character of the classic series.

Beyond the characters, we’re treated to a fun adventure as the characters learn about Scrooge and Donald’s adventuring past. They also reinvigorate Scrooge, who had retired from adventuring. They get to see that he can still fight magical monsters despite his age, and he sees that he cherishes their youthful enthusiasm as they make him want to go on adventures once again.

Plus, in the end, we’re treated to a tease of the return of Scrooge’s archenemy Flintheart Glomgold. In that same tease, we’re also treated to more Donald Duck. His absence is one of the biggest drawbacks of the classic series. Donald is one of Disney’s major six characters, so it always seemed a bit weird that Donald was missing from the classic series, relegated to a few cameos. When I was a kid, the Donald episodes were always among my favorites, so it’s great news that he has a greater presence in the modern DuckTales.

Woo-oo was an excellent introduction to DuckTales, both for new fans, and for fans of the classic series. The fact that the characters are all given distinct personalities even rises it a bit above the classic series. It really is a complete treat for fans, new and old.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5