A mild defense of some controversial cartoon final thirds

 

I have a list of my favorite series in which 5 western cartoons appear. Of them 3 have a very odd similarity, in that they can broadly be divided into 3 sections, there is a common fan reaction that the best part of the series is the end of the first third to beginning of the second third and that the final third is the weakest part of the series. For Xiaolin Showdown and Danny Phantom this means the time period most commonly called the best is the late first season and early second season and the third season is considered the worst, while for The Powerpuff Girls the time period most commonly called the best is season 2 or season 3 and the the time period considered the worst most commonly are seasons 5 or 6.

This blog is intended as a mild defense for the final thirds of these series that I had somewhat similar reactions too. I say a mild defense because this is not me trying to claim that any of these are the best parts of their series or even that they are not the weakest third. This is not a full defense in the way that a hypothetical blog of mine defending volume 5 of RWBY would be. This is however me explaining why I don't feel these are as far removed in quality as I have heard. Obviously these are just my opinions and I emphasize you are of course free to feel differnetly. 

I'm going to be dividing this into 3 sections, one for each and then writing 6 points about each; first I'm going to say what I thought about the series in general, and then what I am thought of the final third. I'm then going to go over three of the most common complaints about the final third; 1 point I agree with, 1 I kind of agree with, and 1 I disagree with. Finally I'm going to give a point that I think is good about the final third. If you like one of these, I hope that you will find it pleasent to hear someone giving appreciation to something underappreciated and if you did not like one of them, I hope you will find it interesting to hear why somebody viewed it differnetly. 

PPG Seasons 5 and 6:

What I thought of the series as a whole: The PPG was a series that fit my tastes on almost all regards; it was fast-paced in both it's comedy and action, it was wholesome and sweet, and it was about superheroes. The idea of giving roughly Superman level power to 3 little girls is both the comedic and emotional center of a lot of the series and I think it works out pretty well.

What I thought of seasons 5 and 6: After Craig McCracken left and Chris Savino took control of the series it took a notable shift. The episode quality became much more inconsistent. I didn't like it nearly as much and while this isn't a comparison blog, it's probably the one I thought had the biggest drop in quality, although some episodes I still thought were good. 

Complaint 1-The series became more slow paced: I would definitely agree here and this is the biggest annoyance for me about the latter seasons. I'm a person that likes things fast paced to the point that when I watch youtube videos I default to putting them to 2x speed just because it feels more natural. The original PPG was known for being quite fast-paced, but the latter seasons, both the action and comedy have notable pauses in it and some episodes like Say Uncle or Toast of the Town are painfully slow paced.

Complaint 2-The series had bad/gross premises: I kinda agree with this one. A bad premise is obviously going to limit the potential of an episode, and the latter seasons do have some gross premises that limit their potential but on rewatch that's actually not a lot of episodes. I really hate gross-out, disgust is the emotional state I value most negatively, but I can pretty easily get through all but one episodes of the latter seasons (Sun Scream if you're wondering). 

Complaint 3-The series lost it's creativity and became boring: This one I don't agree with. Say what you want about execution or premises being gross but things like Mojo Jojo fusing the girls together so they have to learn to cooperate or the girls showing off power after power to try and find Buttercup's special power or even something like Fuzzy mistaking the professor for a female of his species and trying to wed him are if nothing else fairly new ideas, let alone the good eps of the seasons which have I think really interesting premises. And that's not even getting into See Me Feel Me Gnomey which love it or hate it is anything but boring and unoriginal. 

A good point about Seasons 5 and Season 6: My last complaint led into this point but I think the latter seasons of the PPG tried to be really inventive and brought a creative energy that hadn't been seen in the series since season 1. The earlier seasons were all pretty consistently good to great but at least by season 4 it was more of a mostly safe kind of good. Seasons 5 and Season 6 tried to shake up the formula by having new villain groups interacting with eps like Boy Toys, Custody Battle, and Aspirations or with really out there episodes like Silent Treatment where the girls go into a soundless black and white movie, or the wild west themed West in Peaces or again pretty much all of See Me Feel Me Gnomey. The latter seasons tried to take risks. When you take risks sometimes it won't pay off, and these seasons do have more bad episodes then the earlier ones, but it's admirable in it's own way for them to try and do these odd experiements with episodes, even if they don't always pay off.

Xiaolin Showdown Season 3:

What I thought of the series as a whole: Xiaolin Showdown was really cool, being always either funny or engaging or both. It never made me cry or anything, but the series was very fun to just sit down and watch due to it's fun lovable cast, creative reality-warping showdowns, and strong background wuxia-inspired mysticism that gave it a distinctive sense of self. 

What I thought of season 3: Read the above. While season 2 was my favorite of three seasons, the dip in quality in season 3 was so mild I barely noticed. Admittingly this may not be too controversial to say. This definitely seems to the most positively regarded final third of the three, but it was difficult to find as much information as to this season's popularity relative to the other two. 

Complaint 1-The series suffered villain decay: Yeah, I am inclinded to agree with this one. Chase and Wuya don't do all that much in season 3 and the new villain Hannibal is not really as memorable as them. The primary antagonist of season 1 was Jack was funny and the primary antagonist of season 2 was Chase who was threatening and it seemed like they tried to thread the needle on Hannibal and he came off as lacking a distinctive personality outside of his tendency for shapeshifting and deception. 

Complaint 2-Plot Holes and Inconsistency: So when people bring up plot holes in the series, some I agree with, some I don't, so I'm not sure how to classify this except as I kind of agree. Things like "Why was Master Monk Guan so upset about losing his weapon if he has hundreds of spears" I can pretty easily answer away by saying "he thought his power was in the spear and after learning otherwise he was able to make new ones because he realized the power was in him" or things like "why did Omi freeze himself to go into the future and expect him to find himself there" is pretty easy to answer with "he's a child monk, not an adult scientist who would understand about parallel timelines and it's meant to show his character progression from thinking the others are useless without him to thinking they don't need him to set up his show of humility accepting Raimundo as his leader." On the other hand, things like characters or sides randomly having Wu when earlier seasons kept close continuity on who had what Wu to the point of Jack making a spreadsheet about it is harder to ignore.

Complaint 3-The season has a serious tone: There's a view I've heard repeated at least 3 times now that baffles me which is the series is inherently silly and therefore should not be trying to have such a serious tone. The series begins with a completely serious and not all comedic display of Omi training in the rain to become Xiaolin Dragon of Water. The Season 1 Finale had comedic parts but large parts of it were wholly serious and I see nothing but praise for that. The series is a dramatic-comedic mixture and I find when they try and be dramatic it tends to go pretty well overall, the series is not a gag series, it's got this overtone of mysticism and a battle between good and evil martial artists extending over a millenia. Episodes or even arcs that want to be a bit more serious is not a bad idea in my mind.

A good point about Season 3: While Season 2 is longer and might have more overall, I think season 3 has the highest proportional amount of lore and spiritual otherworldly elements in it which are things I find really interesting. Things like Bird of Paradise being styled like a traditional fable with characters acting archetypal or the increased amount of backstory given to Chase's fall from grace, or things like the absolutely amazing fight between Cosmic Omi and Hannibal in Wu's Got the Power as pure energy, this season has more ethereal elements and more of a sense of legacy in everything then any other similar length of time in the show.

Danny Phantom Season 3:

What I thought of the series as a whole: Danny Phantom is a series that I think combined two genres that were seemingly very different; superhero fiction and occult fiction to create an engaging hybrid that capitalizes of the similarities of both that happens to be why I love both; both being genres about humanity confronting the inhuman workings of society and abstractions. The series was dramatic, heartfelt, engaging and is probably my favorite western cartoon. 

What I thought of season 3: This is going to be easily the most controversial part of the blog. While I did notice season 3 feeling notably different, and not being as good as season 2, I still found it completely enjoyable and not massively worse then season 2. You hear people talk about this season being absolutely terrible sometimes, and it feels surreal to me as though we watched different series. More people seem to think that by itself it was just ok which I understand much more. There's so many points to talk about, this is definitely just going over some of the biggest. 

Complaint 1-The series lost it's grounding: I can definitely agree with this and it sort of encompasses a lot of things in this season. Steve Marmel who was a big writer for Danny Phantom and apparently the source of much of the darker and more serious storylines left leaving it mostly Butch Hartman's creation. Given the amount of superhero references in Butch's other works and the fact that he's a fan of superheroes combined with what we know about Steve Marmel and the direction season 3 took it seems to me that Butch was more responsible for the comic book superhero part of Danny Phantom and Steve Marmel was more responsible for the Occult Mystery part of Danny Phantom. Only having the former explains some of the things that people very much dislike about S3 such as ghosts being portrayed as monsters from another dimension as opposed to actual dead people, Vlad spontatenously gaining a desire to rule the world, constant large scale fights for the fate of the world, Danny being portrayed as a lot stronger, it's all very superhero-y. That said the superhero genre has gotten a lot more grounded and so I imagine for a lot of people it felt lacking in substance, being all spectacle and flash.

Complaint 2-Character Decay: One of the claims people make is that the characters in S3 were flanderized or lost their charm. I kind of agree. The one this is said about most is Vlad. Now I think people exaggerate the difference. In terms of character Vlad always had elements of the dark triad traits (narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism) and "Masters of all Time" in season 2 showed that even if Vlad had gotten what he wanted he would still have acted manipulative and immoral. Combined with the exaggerating nature of being a superhero cartoon and I can very easily believe someone like him would want to enact petty revenge or make people bow before him. Also literally his first episode he suggests to Danny that together they could rule. While he didn't seem like as much of a threat in season 3, I could attribute this to Danny's growth in power. This is a similar trend to me with other characters being exaggerated in their season 3 depiction.

Complaint 3-Danny/Sam's romance: One of the things I heard as a complaint is that the Danny/Sam romance got out of control and took up a lot of the focus of S3. I was rather surprised to hear that. I'm neutral to the ship, and didn't recall that much buildup at all. When I rewatched S3 for this blog, I went in looking for the Danny/Sam romance elements because I figured it would be an important point to talk about. What I found was that it honestly didn't take up much time at all. Especially in the earlier episodes of S3 it would be consistently brought up for like a 20 second thing basically just to remind everyone "yep, this is the canon pairing" and then there would be nothing else about it the entire ep. I have to disagree with this point. People also don't like the romance because they hate or greatly dislike Sam as a character. I was again surprised to hear this but when I looked into why, it was very little of what she actually did in S3 outside of one part of the finale. Everything else was either things she did in other parts of the series, mostly early Season 1 stuff or it's because the episode itself frames her as undeniably right which may be a writing fault but it's not like she did something bad those times. I don't love Sam's character but I like her just fine. At the very least, and this is tying into the last point, Sam acted no worse in most of Season 3 then she did in any other season, this is not a fault of Season 3. 

A good point about Season 3: It's common speculation and was something I thought of before I knew it was common speculation but after learning the show was prematurely ended that the reason for a lot of the big scale episodes of Season 3 was the writers taking ideas for future specials wanting to use them before the show ended. I know for some this felt rushed, but I actually liked it. When I first watched it I remember distinctly it felt like each episode was some kind of small movie with massive scope and intensity. While the series wasn't neccesarily as grounded anymore in Danny's struggles as an adolescent, it was a series of constant high stakes and dramatic battles. They say one way for writers to improve their writing is to write what they want and then force them to remove 20% so they have to re-evaluate what's actually important and what's artistic indulgences. The final season of Danny Phantom is definitely quite fast paced by neccesity to fit these massive ideas into limited single episodes, and I am a person that really appreciates a series being fast paced and not wasting any time. 

As a final note I want to give my favorite episode of each final third, my least favorite episode of each final third, and underappreciated episode because everything in this blog needs to be 3-related ;) 

PPG:

Favorite Episode: Silent Treatment. This episode is just a really interesting idea and having watched it alongside some old Oswald cartoons makes me really appreciate more it's early film stylizations. It's really a testament to the best part about seasons 5 and seasons 6 which were trying to do off the wall ideas as much as possible.

Least Favorite Episode: Sun Scream. The only episode of the original PPG that hurts to watch, it's an entire ep about the PPG being sunburned and it looks ridiculously painful. I don't get what the appeal was even supposed to be.

Underappreciated Episode: Lying around the House. The ep is a good lesson. It's basically the same as the children's story "There's no such thing as a dragon". If you lie about something it will get bigger and bigger until you can't ignore it. Also the ending joke makes me burst out laughing every time.

Xiaolin Showdown:

Favorite Episode: Omi Town. This isn't just my favorite episode of season 3 but of the whole series. It's funny and engaging the way most of the series is but also tries for wholesomeness and sentimentality more then most of the series. I wish more of the series was like it.

Least Favorite Episode: The Return of Master Monk Guan. It's honestly just frustrating for a large portion of the ep seeing Guan act so harsh to the Monks who helped him so much last season, even if it was a ruse. Also while I can explain why Guan having more spears doesn't invalidate the prior ep, it's not explained well enough that I feel most people watching wouldn't question why he acted how he did earier.

Underappreciated Episode: Wu Got the Power. Most of this episode is just fine but that final battle between Omi and Hannibal as pure energy was just really cool to watch, especially how ethereal everything seemed.

Danny Phantom:

Favorite Episode: Eye for an Eye. Honestly this was a hard pick as a lot of the eps I thought were good but not stand out-good. That said I thought this episode was quite cool, in particular with it's ending where Danny pretends that Vlad shot him with the laser to turn public attention against Vlad. It gave me shades of Vlad's first ep with Danny threatening to expose them both.

Least Favorite Episode: Livin' Large. It's a pretty standard story that feels like character regression for Danny. None of the Fentons feel in character this ep but Danny especially feels off, quickly stopping to care about the potential threat of him not being Danny Phantom anymore and unlike Phantom Planet it's not like he thinks he's not needed anymore. If anything season 3 shows he's constantly needed or the world would end. This would have fit a lot better as a season 1 ep.

Underappreciated Episode: Girls' Night Out. I really like this ep, although in fairness I do have a particular liking for this kind of ep, where a show with a substantial cast limits it to a smaller portion for an ep. You get to see combinations of personalities you don't normally get to see. This is partly why my favorite arc in the 90s SM Anime was the Second Nehelenia arc, you got to Senshi paired with senshi that don't usually work together like Ami and Haruka or Minako and Setsuna. So yeah an episode with just the girls? That sounds cool to me. I thought Danny bonding with his father was cute, generally alright. Some people think this episode is sexist, which I don't really get. The women in Amity Park were brainwashed the whole time. And only one of the three ghost villainesses controls them to anything particularly feminine. Kitty set up some kind of boot camp and Ember did her usual rockstar shtick. I personally didn't think it was sexist.