After a lengthy hiatus, DuckTales returns to answer one of it’s most intriguing, lingering questions: “What Ever Happened To Della Duck?” Now, it’s doubtful that this episode will being a direct, cynical version of the film that the episode title is cribbing from. But the episode does have a tough task ahead of it: it has to explore exactly what did happen to Della after recklessly rocketing off into space, how despite all the money Scrooge spent, he failed to find her on the closest planet to Earth, and, most importantly, define Della as a character for the audience. Who is she, exactly? Will she “fit” in with the interplay of the character dynamics so far? Does she seem like the kind of character who would give birth to the rambunctious nephews that we’ve seen up till this point?
Some of television’s strongest episodes focus on one single character trapped in dire circumstances and overcoming them with skills, ingenuity, and pluck (off the top of my head I’m thinking of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s excellent “4,722 Hours”). Now you can add DuckTales’ to that list. The multi-year saga of Della’s lengthy moon-stay is thrilling, tragic, powerful, and defining. The script, written by Madison Bateman and Colleen Evanson, gets to the heart of Della as a character even before the title appears on screen. After crashing onto the moon from the lighting storm, Della’s leg is trapped under some of the wreckage. Finding some convenient Gyro-invented Oxy-Chew gum (which provides air, water, and nutrients*), she tries to escape, but as a another piece of wreckage bears down on her, she comes to the terrible conclusion of what must be done, particularly after staring at a picture of her unhatched sons, herself, Scrooge, and Donald. Her whole approach to this truth is to simply kick at the wreckage and mutter, “Aw, phooey.” Cut to: two months later, with a robot-legged Della staring up at the distant Earth, fully determined to get back home to her boys.
It’s an absolutely shocking moment, and for at least two-thirds of the episode, similar moments to that do not let up: moments of triumphs and success followed by tragedy and heartbreak. They start off low-key hilarious, with Della simply attempting to jump back home, battling an off-screen bug monster, and being annoyed that the terrible-tasting gum has yet to lose its flavor. It’s broken up with melancholic drawings of what her kids may look like, more notches drawn on her “calendar,” and the tedious passage of time. After nine months, Della’s hair is longer, but her spirit isn’t broken. She tries to spell out a (hilariously long) message with spare parts, then use a “$,” but two dust-ups with the Moon-mite ruin those plans. Every failure hurts to watch, especially coupled with those interstitials announcing how much time has actually passed. And through it all, Della never gives up.
Paget Brewster provides Della with an absolute pitch-perfect revelation of the character, who, without even meeting them, seems to embody traits of all three of her sons: she has the gabby, talkative cleverness of Louie, the blind, adventurous spirit of Dewey, and the overly-intelligent ambitions of Huey. Her next plan is to literally rebuild the rocket. She also has Donald’s quick-to-anger attitude: in reading a smarmy comment left in the owner manual by Gyro, she tears it up and stomps on the remains, Donald-style. Of course, without the manual, she utterly blows rebuilding it, in a very funny montage sequence. She then re-tapes up the manual, and we’re hit with the next sudden, distressing blow: another six whole years before she’s done building it. It’s a success, but, god, the time.
This is then followed by a series of up-and-down, ironic twists that hits you in the gut. The rocket ignition works but the engine runs on gold. Della searches for gold on the moon, but it’s another four whole years before she realizes there isn’t any. A loosen tooth from the gum chewing is actually gold, but right then the Moon-mite attacks and destroys the ship. Yet when the creature almost takes Della’s life… laser beams fire at it off-screen. Lieutenant Penumbra and General Lunaris suddenly appear, two moon alien characters that come dangerously close to derailing the momentum of this episode. It’s not that they’re bad characters per se, but they bring a whole ‘nother vibe to things; the episode has to switch on a dime from the tragicomedy of Della’s solitary, desperate survival to the mysteries and interactions of these aliens and their own battles with the Moon-mite. The episode lampshades this, with Della wanting to rush through the “we hate each other but now we’re best friends” part of the relationship between her and Penumbra, but it can’t escape how much of a turn this part of the episode takes.
But it quickly swerves back into more thematic resonant territory, as a final battle between Della and the Moon-mite reveals that the creature has a child, and all that ship-destroying was mainly to feed it. Admittedly, there is a certain… convenient, “writerly” hollowness to the reveal, but again, Brewster’s acting, along with Tanner Johnson’s tight direction (which, to be clear, has been stellar throughout this episode, especially of those various full-frame isolation shots and the brutal cuts to those interstitials) sells it. And you can’t help but get a lump in your throat as Della sings that Moon-theme melody to the upset young Moon-mite, the same one she would sing to her boys. It could be cheesy in any other context, but the episode completely sells it. Even after, there’s a brief moment where Della has to come to terms with maybe, just maybe, she has to live on the moon forever, away from her kids. But the reveal of the city, adorned with gold, provides hope once again for the undaunted mother. It’s clear then that Lunaris has ominous plans for Della, which means the introduction of these moon people are for another, future-episode purpose. That’s fine. “What Ever Happened To Della Duck?” answers its own question with brilliant, devastating, hopeful entertainment, while also placing Della perfectly within the pantheon of the show’s animated take of the Duck universe.
Stray observations
- *The episode, smartly I would say, uses the gum to bypass the need to have Della search for food, water, and air, to focus on the escape attempts.
- I like that it’s about a year before a spaceship passes by the moon (at the inconvenient time the moon mite causes a dust storm). That suggest it took time to fund/build the first couple of ships to search for Della. It’s a small detail but an important one.
- The episode doesn’t make it clear why the video transmissions weren’t reaching Earth, but we can chalk it up to them simply not working.
- What are some other “lone survivor” episodes out there? They’re always a treat, even in not-great shows!
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Plus, how cool is it that song she sings is to the tune of the original “The Moon” theme from DuckTales on NES? So very awesome!
You mean “Crazy Duck in Space”
Checked comments to see if someone posted this. Didn’t leave disappointed.
I’m really curious about the amount of effort it took to secure the rights to use the Moon theme – even given that it’s Disney, Capcom, and DuckTales, the rights are three decades old and must involve multiple parties from the US and Japan. Maybe the WayForward remastered version helped clear a path when they remixed it all a few years back.
This isn’t the first time the show has used and not only was there DuckTales Remastered a few years back. Capcom released the Disney Afternoon Collection much more recently.
This sounds somewhat similar to the first Kristen Wiig-starring episode of Last Man on Earth, about how her character survives the apocalypse and eventually meets up with the rest of the survivors. It was an excellent episode, though the rest of her character’s storyline was terrible.
I mean, since we’re talking about the Last Man on Earth, how about the pilot to The Last Man on Earth! Great survivor episode
Paget Brewster is awesome! I particularly loved her on Community and Andy Richter Controls the Universe but she is reliably great. She sounds perfect for this role, with her grit but also being hilarious.
She is one of my favorite actresses. It’s a shame she doesn’t get her own show.
Wait Evil has discovered the DuckTales reboot coverage?
Can’t leave out Dodo Bellacourt from Another Period
Nice to see the show return (only to go on another 2-month hiatus. Blerg.) with a nice episode.The ending seemed a little forced (the whole “ooo, the moon people are actually evil!” thing), but I don’t know what they could do. And the moon woman’s voice sounded so familiar and I didn’t put it together until the end credits that it was Julie Bown (I loved her “Boooo!” line).
The remix of Capcom’s NES Ducktales Moon-theme is simply the best.
Wow – a female Disney funny-animal character who has flaws, is obnoxious, scrappy, funny & above all, not a clone of her boyfriend or brother except with long eyelashes and a bow in her hair. I hope Della sticks in other versions of the Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck world. In other (scarier) corners of the internet, 2017-Webby met a lot of resistance for being too perfect (I’d argue that her social inadequacies, plus the boys being newbs when the series started and now gradually increasing in competence, made these complaints premature & reactionary in the worst possible way) but Della seems like an awesome character out of the box. I wonder if 4chan will approve.
I hope very much that her very likely return to the family doesn’t outstage Donald’s role-model parenthood, but the writers of this series haven’t given any indication that they would allow this to happen. Only other thing I can think to say about this episode was how craftily the Moon Theme was used to both provide fanservice and yet by the end, make an unexpectedly emotional point. bravo, Ducktales writers! Great ep! I just wish we didn’t have to wait til May for more.
Not quite lone survivor, but the Space: Above and Beyond episode Sugar Dust is a truly nail-biting survival story among a few people left behind in a war zone.
cartoon for children
…he failed to find her on the closest planet to Earth…“Whaaat, the moon’s not a planet!” – Della. I wonder if the moon folks were blocking the transmissions. It would make sense.
I felt this episode was really stupid, and the first episode of this show I found so grossly stupid that it got in the way of my enjoyment of it. I could pretty much make a list of stupid things. And I will!1. That gum is too goddamn convenient. I was hoping that the answer to how she survived on the moon all this time would be interesting, this was a cop out.2. Everything she does takes too damn long, and she doesn’t seem to feel the passage of time anywhere near as hard as she should. At the end of it she’s been alone in the Moon for 10 years, yet doesn’t seem to have lost any of her sanity. I had until this episode assumed she had just somehow been sent forwards in time during the storm.3. That bug monster destroying all her attempts to escape, always attacking when its least convenient, was… well, stupid. Why does it attack so infrequently? How did she fend it off for 10 years if she can’t protect her stuff from it for even a few seconds sometimes? And how did a god-tier adventurer not figure out how to kill it within 10 years?4. Scrooge’s inability to find her when she’s right there needed a better explanation than just “that one ship that came 1 year later didn’t see her”. He built hundreds of ships.5. The whole plotline with the alies was stupid. Gold is literally their most abundant resource and they never figured out that’s what the critters wanted?6. That “It’s a mom too” twist for the monster was… stupid. Too convenient for the episode’s story.All of that said, some bits were pretty funny. I’m just really disappointed that the greatest mystery of the show turned out to be so… well, stupid.
THANK YOU!!!! i thought i was taking crazy pills!! i love this show but this episode was just blaaaah. everything was just way too convenient!
The Moonpersons remind me of the Mooninites.
You’re not the only one who thought that.
While My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic doesn’t go over Princess Luna’s time spent on the moon as punishment for attempting a coup (1,000 years!) it does feature an episode called, ‘Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep’ where she deals with her latent guilt over the suffering she caused others as Nightmare Moon. It manifests itself as a living nightmare called the Tantabus that her friends must help her fight in the dream realm. It was a surprisingly deep and emotional episode and a lot of the feels of this episode reminded me of that one. Perhaps not a ‘lone survivor’ episode per se but definitely one about someone facing something alone (at least at first).
I suspect the inspiration for the title of this episode has very little to do with “Baby Jane.” The “Whatever Happened To…” construction is pretty common usage, and as a comics fan, my first thought is DC Comics “Whatever Happened to Character X?” stories from the 1970s and 1980s that culminated in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”
Paget Brewster is fifty today. HBD!
As for other lone survivor episodes, Stargate: SG-1 had “Grace” and Stargate: Atlantis had “Grace Under Pressure.” The latter is less of a lone survivor episode and is clearly derivative of the former and the former got critical acclaim, but I personally enjoyed the latter more.
General: “You might hit Della!”*The Lieutenant, doesn’t care- shoots anyway.*Lol, I think I’m going to like the dynamic between her and Della. This was a pretty funny episode, made even better by how quietly tragic certain parts of it were- without ever feeling like a downer. The best achievement is how well they’ve realized Della Duck as a character. With her story, it would be easy to make her an outlier, or more serious, under the circumstances. But she’s totally fun and quirky and it’s consistent with the rest of the series. She is now someone I desperately want to see intereacting with the other Ducks (when or if she ever gets back home) .
The general telling her not shot got the biggest laugh from me.
Wow, I should’ve proofread that one more time.
I think seeing the avalanche of bad luck hitting her this episode made me think “Eeeyup, she’s Donald’s sister alright.”
The gum idea came from the NES game’s remake a few years ago.
What are some other “lone survivor” episodes out there? They’re always a treat, even in not-great shows!For the life of me, I can’t think of anything. Brian Tyree Henry was lost in the woods for an entire episode of Atlanta. Does that count? LOST featured a survival (and origin) story for ageless Richard in the brilliant “Ab Aeterno.” Lastly, I guess I can point to the pilot of The Walking Dead. Rick was basically on his own in what’s arguably still the show’s best hour. But all of these are debatable, I guess. “What Ever Happened to Della Duck”, though clearly riffing on “The Martian” (complete with “Take that, science!” joke) is so unique, and not just for kids cartoons. – Also, that little chill/shiver animation that rolls through Della after she tastes black licorice? Acurate.
I didn’t even catch the take that science line.
I remember an ep of Magnum PI from the 80s where he gets stuck under a wreckage of an old WWII plane and has to fight to stay conscious, all the while trying to solve his latest case. But I’m old, so..
That’s a good episode to compare it to.Several times I said, “Wait what?”.I may have cried when she sang to the “Moon Theme” and they definitely couldn’t have used the brentalfloss lyrics.
I’ll add that my TiVo didn’t record this episode and I’ve seen others saying the same online.
The Moon is not a planet.
Have to give the DuckTales staff credit for a great nod to another, much older cartoon that wasn’t exactly for kids.
But did no one else think of a “metal-munching Moon-mite” and not immediately go to Rocky and Bullwinkle?
Maybe Della was onto something:https://www.wideopeneats.com/black-licorice-kill/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=sendible&utm_term=rmedia&utm_campaign=rmedia
If you’re wondering how Della eats and breathes and other science facts……gum!Well, this was an unexpected treat! I knew about the return in May thanks to promos during Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, but just yesterday learned that this episode existed! I love Della – major kudos to the writers and Brewster on a job well done.
Oh, and I liked Della’s impression of Scrooge.
Is this releasing Daily? I love this show, but I can’t keep up. I’ve been watching this show as it airs since launch, but if this is how they’re gonna do it, I’m gonna have to throw it on the backlog and who knows when I’ll get back to it 🙁 Who’s idea was it to release 5 episodes a week?