So I just finished the last episode of Dexter's Laboratory, a very well acclaimed cartoon. In celebration of that I decided to make a top 10 episodes list of it, based on my personal opinion. I considered 27 different eps for this list but here's what I got it down too.
10: A Tribe Called Girl (10c)
In this ep Dexter inflitrates Dee Dee's room to study girls which he treats as an unknown animal species after he sees Dee Dee and her friends acting in a way that resembles monkeys. This really suits my comedic tastes being jokes related to the genders and a character taking things vastly too seriously. It's funny seeing Dexter interpret each act of Dee Dee and her friends as the rough animal equivalent like arguing over who was sleeping where as a territorial debate.
9: Aye Aye Eyes (40a)
Another example of character takes thing too dramatically type humor. One of the things that I think is distinctive about season 2 Dexter is how heroic he acts. This ep starts with him going out of his way to return a stuffed bunny to a silent giant-eyed little girl who becomes obsessed with him after. While he tries the whole ep to get rid of her at no point is there one of those unpleasent scenes where he breaks her heart to try to go away. It's just funny overacting to this little girl staring at him, and the end of the ep is quite funny and relatable regardless. In another ep of the show there was a song virus that was supernaturally impossible to resist from how catchy it was yet the song in this ep is even more catchy imo. What I'm trying to say is I liked the aye eye eye song.
8: D & DD (16a)
I haven't played much RPGs but I've dabbled a bit in this and I thought this was actually a very good episode about the topic. It's clear the writers for this ep actually knew what it was like to the point that Dexter named his overpowered PC "Gygax." I really liked the lesson that it doesn't matter how epic and grand your storytelling is if the players aren't enjoying themselves. I think this is something that can be applied more generally too, that person experience is more important then abstract quality.
7: Star Spangled Sidekicks (7a)
I tend to like the superhero eps of shows and this is a good example of one, particularly seeing Dexter and Dee Dee's different ideas of what a superhero is. Dex-Starr was a more capable fighter then Diva Dynamite, using advanced technology and clearing out a room of bad guys by himself, but his reasoning was wrong and partly for show while Diva Dynamite was fighting for the right reasons, which is what made the difference.
6: Morning Stretch (17c)
This is a classic sci-fi high concept ep, and those are great. Dexter wakes up and thinks he is running late for school with only a minute to prepare activates a time dilation helmet. The problem is in this ep the physics of superspeed are actually applied realistically causing major problems with him trying to get ready. It's a cool concept, it's applied well, it's fun to watch but also makes you think.
5: Last But Not Beast (52)
This seems to be the most iconic and well liked ep of the series so instead of explaining why it's number 5 I probably have to justify why it's ONLY number 5. This episode is great for reasons I think most people who have seen the series know, it's got an epic battle, good jokes, Dexter's family getting involving in saving the world, the Justice Friends fully working together, Monkey and Dexter working together, random people in Japan having mecha etc. Due to the layout of the ep it sorta requires Badaxtra to fodderize the Justice Friends, and the ep is a bit comfy with being irreverent for my taste (such as having the growing superhero grow to maxium size only for Badaxtra to still be larger and just flick him away or Dexter to talk about how they can win with teamwork only for it to cut to Dee Dee asleep at her position who wakes up saying paraphrased "yeah, sure, teamwork, whatever." but these are relatively small points overall.
4: Go, Dexter Family! Go! (64b)
This episode starts with Dexter bemoaning that he has a normal family and thinking he didn't need them when they're abducted by aliens so they can use his genius brain for their own purposes. The whole episode is Dexter's family breaking Dexter out of his containment and the 4 of them breaking free of the alien ship. It's heartwarming, awesome and unironically more anime then the anime villain in the episode before it. You have the return of the Go Dexter's family Go! theme from Last But Not Beast, and there are good moments for each member of Dexter's family. The two episodes honestly feel connected with this ep basically just being a concentrated focus on my favorite part from Last But Not Beast.
3: Way of the Dee Dee (10a)
This episode involves Dee Dee trying to change Dexter from what she views as his shut-in life and enlightening him. The two exist on an archetypal spectrum of systemizing vs empathizing that is consistent through the episode with things like Dexter talking about a flower in terms of classification vs Dee Dee talking about it in terms of how it looks and how it smells. Much of it is the tragedy of what happens when you try to make something be what it's not and this is the only time I recall when Dee Dee shows remorse for the destruction she causes because Dexter is the one doing it in imitation of her so it's projected outside of herself causing her to tearfully apologize for turning him from a "quiet creator" to a "destroyer." The ep is really archetypal and really interesting I think.
2: Lab of the Lost (19c)
When I started making this list I thought this was going to be the first place. This is another very archetypal episode; Dexter representing the cold ambition that pushes towards the future and doesn't care about sentiment. Dexter gets lost in a older forgotten part of the lab and is attacked by his older inventions for not caring about them and is only saved by his first invention. The episode is meaningful and conveys much about Dexter's character and the type of person that archetype fits. There's a really great moment where the older inventions say "we were your greatest invention once too" in understandable anger that he just completely forgot the emotion and sentiment invested in them. This episode is somehow both overstated and understated in it's message, conveying explictly and implictly an important message on not just constantly moving on to your next ambition but taking time to remember the things that used to be important to you and the value they might bring.
1: Dyno-Might (51a)
This is yet another archetypal type episode. Dyno-Mutt, the bumbling but lovable sidekick robotic dog to the superhero the Blue Falcon is damaged trying to protect the Blue Falcon who asks Dexter to repair him. Without mentioning it to the Blue Falcon, Dexter turns his nose up at the bumbling goofy robot dog and instead rebuilds a stronger more serious Dyno-Mutt which becomes a menance enforcing strict and tyrannical order capturing both Dexter and the Blue Falcon, leaving the comical antics of the original Dyno-Mutt to stop his dark counterpart. This episode I think is the perfect episode of Dexter's lab for me. It has the references I like including interesting science-fiction concepts and superheroes, Dexter is clearly on the side of justice but in his archetypal-ness has a fitting weakness, and it conveys a message through it's wholesomeness. It's so in-character for Dexter to look at this silly dog who makes dumb jokes and acts like a goof and thinks he can just be replaced by a dog whose bigger and efficient and futuristic but he didn't see he was creating without the heart of Dyno-Mutt. Dexter throughout the series represents futuristic and rationalism and in his pursuit of advancement and rationality he neglected the importance of the soul, of the emotional component of a being attached to the world. This is an episode that is great on it's own and puts in sharper focus a lot of the others episodes in the series as Dexter's tragic conflict to advance the world for good or ill despite his lack of deeper understanding of it. For an ep to be not just good but to retroactively and proactively cast the rest of the series in a new and positive light is one of the great commendations that can be given to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment