DuckTales gets back to basics for better or for worse, but Della does provides an intriguing dynamic
TV Reviews Recap
That Huey and Louie aren’t at all in this episode is odd. As I mentioned yesterday, one potential fallout from this DuckTales “bomb” would be the lack of breathing space from the emotional impact of Della’s return. So to jump right into a new, “regular” adventure in the next episode does provide a bit of whiplash, especially without Huey and Louie involved along with their mother. It makes sense to provide an episode that focuses mainly on Della and Dewey, since Dewey was the primary triplet to search for any and all information on her, and therefore has the most emotional connection to Della at stake. Plus, Dewey is the most eager triplet to leap head first into adventure, to learn and absorb as much as he can about living (and surviving) that kind of life. The Dewey and Della dynamic is the strongest selling point of “Raiders Of The Doomsday Vault,” which otherwise returns to superficial threats from Glomgold, sighing and annoyed muttering from a world-weary Scrooge, and continued, winking commentary on adventuring.
This iteration of DuckTales has gotten comfortable with that kind of approach, and while I’ve voiced my concerns with it, at the very least the show can usually provide a solid story to keep some entertaining moment going. “Raiders Of The Doomsday Vault” has kind of a weird set-up though. It involves Scrooge, with Della and Dewey coming along, pitching to the children of Ludwig Von Drake for a contract to repair the kooky scientist’s doomsday vault way out in a frozen wasteland. Winning contracts is definitely good business, but is this the first time we’ve seen Scrooge do, like, business-business? It’s almost funny to see Scrooge do something normal (back in the pilot, he was utterly uninterested in the minutiae of his business ventures). Then we learn that inside the vault are seeds for planting crops and other items to survive any single doomsday scenario (vampires, werewolves, what have you), but there’s also… seeds for a money tree. Yes, a tree that grows money. Again, that seems to be part of the overall “joke” here–there’s absolutely no point for a money tree in a post-apocalyptic world–but the absurdity of this never gets pointed out.
Scrooge shrugs off the money tree (which… is weird, but I’ll allow it), but Della and Dewey jump at the chance to see it. This excursion provides an opportunity for Della and Dewey to bond, and it is a sweet and emotional ride, watching the two work together to get through all the obstacles thrown at them. It’s also disturbing: the episode very much depicts Della placing her son in these various predictaments as reckless, dangerous, and completely ill-advised. She lets Dewey fly the Sunchaser (er, Cloudslayer), only for him to immediately crash it. She has him crawl into random vents, only to almost get flattened while Dewey has to figure out which wire to cut to save her. DuckTales has often baked in a clear “this stuff is dangerous!” sentiment into it tales, which often takes the thrill away from the overall story, but at least here, there are personal stakes: Dewey misguided desperation to win his new mom’s love and approval; Della’s reckless and impulsive dives into adventure fusing with her need to spend time and catch up with her son. Those two concepts coming together is clearly isn’t healthy for either of them, especially over something as unnecessary as a money tree (which, thinking about it it now, is the whole point!).
It all culminates in an intense final sequence, in which Dewey crawls up a series of containers to grab those money tree seeds and Della watches and encourages–even though both of them know deep down that this is nuts. Dewey cracks first, admitting that he can’t do it before almost falling to his death. Della saves him, which doubles as a visual thematic symbol of Della always being there for him no matter what, imparting the wisdom that the prone-to-adventure sibling has no need to prove himself to earn her love. Della doesn’t quite get the same message though. Scrooge is the one who calls out Della’s impulsive nature–after a series of amusing but typical Glomgold buffoonery gags while the fake-Scotsman is handcuffed to the real Scotsman. That entire ordeal triggers Scrooge’s anger to the point that he unloads on Della (the most patient among us would break after dealing with two brash hot-heads), but it’s not a moment that takes hold in Della’s psyche. She leads Dewey and Scrooge on a tree-skiing slide down towards an exit, an exit she claims she saw on Scrooge’s map during his earlier presentation. It’s a moment meant to show Della isn’t as reckless as she seems, but it doesn’t really absolves of her carefree, careless actions, especially in how it put Dewey in so much physical and psychological danger.
“Raiders Of The Doomsday Vault” is a (relatively speaking) low-key, normal episode of DuckTales–fun, if slight, and a bit muddled on the messaging. Della continues to prove herself to be a perfect addition to the cast, and the small moments between Della and Dewey are truly heart-warming. Everything else in the episode is on par for the course, which, for what it’s worth, does has the benefit for easing its audience back into a rhythm after that earlier whiplash.
Stray observations
- Della and Dewey singing “Stand Out” from A Goofy Movie was such a great moment, especially since I’ve been rocking this shirt a few times while on my vacation (with tour dates on the back!).
- I was really confused with all the Dewey-puns that Dewey kept using. I sort of like the idea of the Dewey developing a new, random quirk–a kind of forced reaction to establish a unique and personal connection with his mom. But I don’t think it worked, especially since it’s never commented upon.
- Corey Burton voices the eccentric Ludwig Von Drake, who is fun enough and feels true to the character but is forced to communicate through pre-recorded messages. There is a fun, weird bit where video-Von Drake reacts to Della pressing, then punching, the frozen colored buttons.
38 Comments
One thing I’m digging is that Della’s sense of adventure actually brings exciting adventure to the proceedings, rather than the “Oh, look, danger. What’s for dinner?” approach they’ve been taking.Professor von Drake is probably my favorite Disney character, so I’m glad he got to pop up again. I knew from the moment they showed those colored buttons they’d make some sort of reference to “Adventures in Color.”
That was definitely my favorite nod in the episode, followed closely by the Powerline bit
Powerline made me giddy.
I legit squeed when Von Drake first showed up in “Agent 22″.
I don’t disagree with the review, but my personal enjoyment of this episode was greater. I love Professor von Drake. I love songs from A Goofy Movie. I love Della’s spirit of adventure. I love a lot about this episode.
Remember when gold nearly doomed the world before, back when it was a goose instead of a tree?
It’s a good thing there aren’t any “hyperintelligent hairless apes” around to eat any birds.
Anyone else think it was weird that we got a Della and Dewey episode that didn’t at all address the fact that Dewey actually time-traveled to meet his mother last Christmas?
The first rule of time-travel club – never talk about time-travel club!
Haven’t you seen ANY movie?!
What’s a “movie”? Am I missing something?
I was expecting Boarway to be filled with pigs like Thembria.
It’s a good thing nothing happened to the shield generators.
I wondered if anyone else saw it, and said the same thing. You beat me to it! Everyone’s so excited about a Goofy Movie reference, they completely neglected the fact that we should reasonably expect Darth DonCarnage in the near future. 😉
I honestly forget if it was mentioned before that Drake had died, but when I saw he was appearing, I was excited, then disappointed that he passed away. The pre-recorded messages were fun, but no substitute for the real thing appearing in future episodes. Considering how much they’ve avoided going into the extended family, this is really disappointing. However, the Scrooge/Glomgold stuff was hilarious. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of those two interacting. It would’ve been better with Disney’s most famous Duck, but the writers have shown that they really want to avoid using Donald whenever possible, which is a shame. The Della/Dewey stuff was fine. Once they got to the vault they had some amusing scenes, though I do wish that Della internalized the Aesop of the episode a bit more. It indeed felt odd that Huey and Louie were missing and I do wonder what Launchpad thinks of somebody else being the main pilot for Scrooge. Maybe a future episode will deal with that.
I agree that Donald is still being shamefully underutilized unless they are about to dedicate an entire story arc to him which they should since the did it for Della. But now that Donald is stuck on the moon we’ve gone three episodes without knowing what’s happened to him after he’s been captured which is unfair considering that for Della, we got little hints at the end of a few episodes Donald is my favorite and we really need to see more of his badass side!
My favorite is where Glomgold legit tries to not get involved in the family squabble. “Whoa, hey, you got a whole thing here…”
I’m not sure we can be certain Von Drake is dead and even if he is, that doesn’t preclude him from showing up.
Granted, Scrooge is canonically over a century old in this show, but Drake’s kids were pretty up there in years, it looked like.
True
Von Drake could always be cryogenically frozen, or stuck in a time warp, or undead if the showrunners ever want to bring him back. Only the imagination is the limit for this show, after all.
This episode gets an A+ just for the Powerline reference.
> Scrooge shrugs off the money tree (which… is weird, but I’ll allow it)
This was weird for me too. In the Barks comics, Scrooge has had some experience going after treasures which more or less magically reproduce money or gold – the Philosopher’s Stone, Vulcan’s hammer, the rarest quarter on Earth (which he actually engineers by gathering every single 1916 quarter and dumping all but one into the ocean, thus causing the price of the remaining quarter to go up to 10 skyrillion dollars which nobody on the planet is able to buy) and the lesson every time has been that these sorts of treasures are very bad things for a businessman. Aside from tampering with global market values, Scrooge doesn’t want to magically create money, he prides himself on earning it fairly through work. So yeah, seeming disinterested in the money tree is classic Scrooge but it would have been really nice to have the character explain this even in a single line. Plus Della & Dewey don’t seem like they’d be into a money tree either, that seems like more of a Louie thing.
Still – a fun episode.
Honestly, I am a bit suspicious of the Owl lady too. Given she showed up after the shadow wars, the money wager, and the lack of the season one villain I could see Scrooge losing, but Zoe having more controlling interest in the company and voting Glomgold out. Anyway, an interesting episode on family dynamic and trying to meet their expectations. Also loved the throw back s To powerline and the color song too.
Was the color sequence that they where supposed to put in the same as the sequence to activate the Ramrod device from the first episode of Darkwing Duck
I loved the Powerline reference, but hated that yet again Donald was absent from it and unlike when Della was trapped on the moon, we haven’t gotten a hint as to what happened to Donald after he’s been captured. I can only hope that it’s going to be the next story arc and we get to see Donald finally kick some major ass! I was also stumped by the fact that not only is Ludwig already dead in this universe, but he had his own family despite being Donald’s other uncle in the most common Disney universes (such as House of Mouse and how Walt Disney himself stated that he was Donald’s uncle). He was supposed to have married Scrooge’s other sister, Matilda. So it was weird seeing Ludwig not be related to Donald’s family. But while I liked Della and Dewey bonding, the fact that reunion didn’t include Donald was rather off-putting and I can only hope that a major plot-twist or story arc including Donald is forth coming, but in these recent episodes they’re kind of deconstructing him back into the slapstick and accident prone portrayal I really disliked rather than have him keep up his more adventurous and badass portrayal from the end of Season 1. He can still have a slightly silly side, but it should be done tastefully. Depicting him as molting due to the stress of adventure (despite the fact that we know he can handle himself) is NOT the way to show it and frankly, I find it really disrespectful to his character. I hope they don’t do that again. Donald is amazing and badass and deserves better.
He was supposed to have married Scrooge’s other sister, Matilda. So it was weird seeing Ludwig not be related to Donald’s family.To be fair, that’s just the headcanon of Don Rosa, never made official in any continuity, and arguably even disproven in Rosa’s own, where elderly Matilda is shown living alone with no mention of a husband.
Worth noting that they’ve established that Scrooge and Goldie are UNNATURALLY young in this universe. I believe there was even something about spending several decades in a hell dimension. I feel like this is an attempt to simultaneously have a lot of Scrooge’s period specific canonical adventures without getting around the idea that he should have died of extreme old age 60 years ago. (I believe Don Rosa had Scrooge dying at age 100 in 1967.)
Sure, they COULD just say that ducks have a lifespan of 200 years but I think they’re trying to keep the physical reality of this show somewhat more grounded while also portraying Scrooge as THAT MUCH MORE of an exception.
As a consequence of this, characters like Duckworth and Von Drake died of old age. Without these details, you might forget that Scrooge is three times as much the man out of time that Captain America is, owing not to a single rejuvenation or disappearance into suspended animation but to many.
What, no stray observation of VonDrake casually mentioning “Hyper-Intelligent Hairless Apes” along with zombies as potential doomsday scenarios?
Interestingly enough, Della Duck’s adventure is a reminiscent of the 80’s cartoon plots. Indeed, instead of doing the pre-adventure and the post-adventure scenes this time we had a fully fledged adventure with plot.
Although, having Della on board seems to shadow all other characters. Scrooge instead of leading the family is back on focusing on his Business, no Launchpad (and Della’s not happy about him… now?), Dewey being the only kid on board (where are the others?).
Disney pulled another bait-and-switch with their digital season pass again. This episode is labeled on Amazon Video as being part of Season 4, which is a load of crap.
“I cut his dramatic entrance budget.”
Della recklessness and adventuring spirit that she supports and pushes in her kids to me was the opposite of Donald and his parenting style. That makes sense that the two siblings balances out each other in a yin yang fashion. With one side missing can cause the adventurous reckless and safety sides balance to be uneven. Fortunately both Donald and Della share a quick thinking and other skills that would allow them to survive if separated but most likely both are stronger together even if they drive each other crazy.
Sure, everyone caught the Powerline reference.
But did you see the Shield Generator (Star Wars) in the background?
I think it’s also worth pointing out that the “Doomsday Vault” (Svalbard Global Seed Vault) is a real thing, and the entrance really does look like that. Even the moat (actually a drainage ditch) and bridge are real! And it has indeed been threatened by flooding from climate change, which is why they have the ditch.
Is it just me or did this week’s block of episodes have a huge spike in the animation quality? Not that this show was ever a slouch, but the faces seem way more expressive and the action set-pieces seem more detailed in scope.
Ducktales mentioned werewolves are colorblind. Does that mean its
humanoid dogs are colorblind too? Can you be a dog & a werewolf
simultaneously?
Seeing the way the show so nicely uses all the extended universe characters like Professor Von Drake and Darkwing Duck just makes me so curious how the showrunners would’ve used Mickey had the company allowed them to.