The Shadow Prince’s Spookily Good Danny Phantom Reviews

Nate Jacobs

WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Pronouns
He/him
MarioWiki
The Shadow Prince
The title is self-explanatory; I started watching Danny Phantom in May 2021 and have liked it so far, so plan to show my opinions on its episodes here as some, of course, are better than others. I plan to use my old seven-point rating scale for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic in 2015 and 2016 as I feel it describes the episodes' quality best; in more detail than a five-point scale. I also plan to post all my reviews in the OP so users don't have to scroll to a certain page for middle reviews. There might be more-than-double posting here sometimes but that at least usually will be to give a notice that a new episode has my review up here.

Brown- I hate this episode as it is unwatchable trash.
Red- A pretty bad episode that I dislike, but don't hate.
Orange- A bit weak, but with okay parts.
Yellow- This episode is decent; it has good aspects but with flaws.
Green- Pretty good, with some flaws every now and then.
Blue- An episode that is great, better than good but not amazing.
Purple- This episode is absolutely amazing, and a must-see.

Season 1

7/10 Mystery Meat- An alright, decent starter episode as Danny and Tucker are established as likable characters, as Danny already comes across well as normal but not generic and Tucker is a likable extrovert, and Jazz is already shown well as a perfectionist but still caring sister instead of a comedically bad sister, which is a relief, and Danny's parents are refreshing to be shown as at least better than Timmy Turner's parents. The food gags and battles with the lunch lady are fairly funny. However, Sam ends up being unsympathetic and totally unlikable switching the food menu to what it is in this episode, and gets off to a very rocky start here despite me at least not minding her as much so far later on in the show. As is often the case for good cartoons, the starter episode is neither the best or the worst episode of the show.
7/10 One of a Kind- I enjoyed this episode for the most part as it has some improvements over Mystery Meat. Its alternating between the different subplots makes for better pacing, some of the humor lands more here, especially the picture Sam takes of Danny and Tucker, and Sam is not as unsympathetic as in Mystery Meat. It does have the standout flaw making it closer between the two of that it doesn't go into more detail about which characteristic Danny found about Sampson that made it unique, which I'll go into more detail with a spoiler box.
It would have been better if there was more detail on the anatomy that classifies gorilla genders, and even if there was an inappropriate body part they still could have at least implied which one that was, like maybe through a getting crap past the radar joke.
6/10 Parental Bonding- This episode had fun parts but was alright at best. There are some funny moments like Danny constantly going in and out of his dad. However, much of this episode is too generic. There's too much average love triangle cliches, and they feel done far from the first time here. For example it introduced Paulina who feels like little else but a device to make Danny out-of-character and unlikable for cheap unrequited love humor, which hasn't changed much up to the point I've watched the show as of writing this. How the amulet came to be and the ghost girl's backstory aren't shown close to as well as they should have been either. Tucker is still likable and Sam's writing is at least okay, but it's a too by-the-books for me to care for the most.
5/10 Attack of the Killer Garage Sale- This episode has plenty of the positives and negatives of Parental Bonding. Danny becomes a self-absorbed jerk again, only for reasons related to Paulina of course. There are also some awkwardly written parts here, like Danny standing around instead of trying to do something when Technus gives a monologue, and Tucker and Sam suddenly becoming idiots who do not realize it is off that everything in Sam's house is glowing. Again a lot of the episode feels like Parental Bonding, except that Danny is more motivated by selfishness. There are still good moments, like Danny's apology, some of Technus' technology, and Dash's nickname for Danny, but those are not quite enough to save this episode from the very mediocre stretches it has.
8/10 Splitting Images-* This was an episode that some people in the fandom don't like, but I thought was at least fairly good. It is the most thought-provoking episode to its point in terms of this order, as it covers the "is the hero really heroic?" plot fairly well. Sidney Poindexter is an unlikable but interesting, but sad to think about villain considering the implications of what time in his life he passed away. It's aggravating that he doesn't listen to Danny's explanation of what Dash did to him that warranted punishment, but it does make sense considering the implications of Poindexter's death that I mentioned; maybe bullies still had an element of truth about Poindexter that they stated to try to rationalize driving him to suicide, or pranking him into getting killed themselves, but that was still no excuse for destroying his life. Even though Poindexter not listening to Danny's side of the story wasn't okay either, of course. But one thing is still crucially important as to why I defend the episode: Danny shouldn't have involved other people who didn't deserve it in his pranks against Dash. Paulina didn't deserve to have Dash be possessed into throwing his lunch at her, at least not at that point, and when Danny intentionally caused frogs to go all over the school so others had to hunt the frogs down that took a lot of time and energy for other people. The episode does a mostly good job calling Danny out on when his pranks hurt others aside from Dash, and it's good that Danny admits he became the person he hated. Other good parts include good humor about Poindexter being clueless about the 2000s world and everyone else saving Danny from getting a worse punishment than he ends up actually getting. The weakest part of the episode is the ending, as it would have been better if
Danny successfully lectured Poindexter about hasty judgment and Poindexter wasn't rewarded as much by others for how he acted, and if Danny punished Dash in a more appropriate way at the end.
So it's not a great episode as it could have given Danny's side of the story a lot more justice, but it's still a good one with an interesting, thought-provoking plot and the first sad to think about, albeit very annoying villain.
*My opinion on this has changed to a six but it's a really hard to measure episode

4/10 What You Want- This episode has some problems as it's probably in the bottom three of this season. Its biggest problem is that it wants to cover Danny being a show-off and having to apologize to Tucker for it, but most of the time Danny shows off because he has to to stop Desiree right then, and even the one part of the episode he's very arrogant in he's not a show-off in it exactly. This episode would have worked better if Danny had to apologize for being a cold or badgering friend instead, or if Tucker had come up with ideas that were better than Danny's that Danny doesn't listen to with the same moral about Danny showing off as it would make more sense then. The one time Tucker does the latter is the flying car scene, but it leads to an awkward watch because you're supposed to see Tucker as in the right effectively through the moral for blowing up at him for how he stops the car from 9/11ing the tower. Tucker does come up with another idea in this scene, but Danny wanting to control the wheel actually makes a lot of sense in this scene as he is under Desiree's spell and could end up steering, and also accelerating the car towards the tower. While not awful as no one is extremely out of character it should have either changed itself with one of the two things I mentioned so it would feel less like Danny was hit with Informed Wrongness here.
9/10 Bitter Reunions- This episode was a lot of fun, and I liked it a lot. It is the first episode showing that the show will have somewhat of a storyline arc, and Danny gets some good fleshing out too. The best part of the episode is Vlad Masters, though, as he has every trait already here of a great villain: a creepy backstory with some originality added to its less original premise, an intelligent, sinister personality, and cool but frightening powers. Seeing him beat Danny the way he does as you've never seen Danny lose that harshly, and the truce they make is really suspenseful and great for the show as a whole, as everything feels in the balance. This is definitely the best episode up to its point in the show.
8/10 Prisoners of Love- This was a good episode, that deals with a more sophisticated matter, that being divorce, in a way that helps the Fenton family grow. The most interesting part of the episode, but also partly its weakness, is that that parts in the real world with Maddie and Jack Fenton are actually better than the ghost world parts. In the ghost world there are still good aspects like Walkker's obsession with rules being interesting here, more in the other Season 1 episode he's in, but it would have been better if all of the ghosts Danny teams with got a chance to shine, not just Skulker and the Lunch Lady. But the real life parts are where this really stands out, as these scenes have a slower pace and less common feel for a cartoon that really works. I like Alicia, and she makes a good contrast to Maddie with her likable but sarcastic personality, and how she uses the latter adjective for it to help Jack deal with his fears, and the super rural guys have funny moments as well as her. How the twist at the end about Maddie saying "divorce" is executed is funny even though it's a bit predictable. Jazz being that scared of being wrong is also entertaining here. Again this episode is good, but would have been better especially if the ghost parts didn't have the major flaw I mentioned.
10/10 My Brother's Keeper- This episode was awesome, and the best episode of Season 1, as it handles depression really tastefully. Tara Strong's performance as Penelope Spectra is amazing as she drips evil in the voice of the most evil villain the show has to offer. There are so many good morals here, from not trusting the school authorities to not patronizing those with depression to not caring what others say, and that an element of truth doesn't always mean something is entirely true. Jazz's and Danny's arcs are excellently done and lead to an extremely satisfying ending. This is one of the episodes that you have to see to understand why it's great.
8/10 Shades of Gray- This was a good episode that I liked more than I expected to, and is one of the least flawed episodes of Season 1. The jokes are funny, like some related to the ghost dogs, who in their puppy form remind me of the Polterpup from Luigi's Mansion. Everyone is in character and well-written too, and unlike another episode this season, I felt sympathy for Valerie's situation. The only nitpick here is the black family being the poor one seems a bit stereotypical even though to be fair Valerie's family was okay in terms of money before. But aside from that, everything works well.
7/10 Fanning the Flames- A decent episode but I didn't like it as much as most other people did. The character development about what Sam and Danny start to figure out about their friendship is good. The joke aren't bad like usual like Mr. Lancer constantly having to try to stop the students from flooding Ember. But her song's actually the weakest part of the episode for me; while there's some personal bias there as I like to hear full villain songs, even for what it is it was just decent but nothing I found special.
7/10 Teacher of the Year- This was on the slightly to fairly good end, with an occasional great aspect. I loved seeing Mr. Lancer be more stern, yet not a bully, with Danny about making him pass a test. Danny is also well-written and learns a good lesson about hard work. This episode has a good twist about how instead of having to manage schoolwork and avoid playing too many video games, Danny has to juggle both his schoolwork and his video games. There are two bad moments, though, when Tucker is uncharacteristically stupid about giving Technus critical information and when Jack smashes Danny's phone beyond repair but you're supposed to see it as funny when on a personal level it isn't. There's also a twist about Sam that's predictable, although I didn't see it coming, so there's that I guess.
8/10 13- This was easily far from an unlucky episode to watch. Johnny 13 and Shadow are two cool new characters to watch, with Johnny's cool persona and not being totally evil like some of the other ghosts, having partly unselfish intentions but going about it selfishly, and Shadow's cool powers and dark, spooky colors make them both a ton of fun. Tucker's character arc about learning from Sam to be himself and be more confident is amazingly done as well and he becomes more competently handling things unlike in What You Want. The action scenes are a lot of fun here. Danny is in character and likable but the plot about him trying to protect Jazz from Johnny is easily the weakest and only weak part of the episode, as sometimes it feels like Danny is portrayed as a brat for not wanting Jazz to fall for Johnny, and Jazz is a bit clueless here when usually she's pretty smart.
6/10 Public Enemies- This episode has some good parts including its good action sequences, Wulf being a cute character and it being satisfying to see Danny, Tucker, and Sam helping them, and them being in character although not at their most interesting. However, this episode is way too fast-paced with Walkker wanting to take over the world, Jack wanting to set up a group based on dealing with ghosts, and the aforementioned Wulf subplot being jammed into one but each of these don't get enough development. Even the good action sequences feel like the swallow up it having much great storytelling. The mayor feels like just your average mayor stereotype, although
him being possessed and dragging Danny away to make it look like Danny is kidnapping him
is hysterically funny.

1/10 Fright Night- When I finished Public Enemies I was hoping for the next episode to be more based on having a good story. While this episode looks like it is going to at first, it has serious problems to the point of being not even mediocre but outright bad. In this episode Danny is completely out of character, having no problem going into the ghost world to steal Fright Knight's sword even with the danger it could cause everyone, when beforehand while he's shown to have reckless and impatient moments he isn't completely idiotic, and beforehand does no work to come up with something creative for the project he's facing off against Dash on, like he learned nothing about the moral of at least making an attempt in Teacher of the Year. Dash actually is interesting in this episode considering how much work he puts into his ghost exhibit, the problem being that the bully is much more likable and consistently well-written than who you're supposed to side with because the latter is ridiculously badly written. Fright Knight has a cool voice, but ends up coming across as just an average evil knight, and personally I would have preferred if his sword showing the characters' greatest fears weren't played for humor either. The ending and Mr. Lancer's characterization especially in it are horrible too, as
when Danny admits he cut corners Mr. Lancer says "fortunately for you, I don't care" and then punishes Danny for something that isn't even his fault, just because Danny's parents accidentally sprayed him with water.
9/10 Maternal Instinct- This episode more than made up for the last two episodes being disappointing. Danny is in character again and one sees him make clever strategies for thwarting Vlad, and Maddie gets some great expansion as you see her intelligent, useful side. Danny and Vlad's veiled banter is very funny and also adds to the suspense of the episode as one sees the dislike they have for each other, but not Maddie, although you see her opinion on Vlad in this episode too. Danny having to sometimes go behind Maddie's back to thwart Vlad shows his smart side, as well as adds a great side moral about kids being able to accomplish more on than their own than parents would expect. Even at home, Jazz and Jack are likable and a lot of fun to watch. This is a very funny, satisfying, heartwarming, and authentic episode, and a fairly suspenseful one, and I highly recommend it as it's that good in the characters aspect.
8/10 Lucky In Love- This was a fun episode as it was good seeing Johnny 13 and Shadow back again so soon. Kitty is more interesting in this episode than in 13 in terms of her motivations, and her possessing Paulina leads to some hilarious moments as well. Almost all of the jokes are funny in this episode in general too. I loved how Danny ended up teaming up with Johnny at the end. The only weak points of the episode is that it could be deeper, but it is so much fun that it doesn't really matter, and that Tucker dating Star isn't that funny.
4/10 Life Lessons- This episode is an interesting case as while it's the final episode in my bottom three for Season 1, it actually does have really interesting moments like the flour bag plot and Valerie and Danny teaming up against Skulker. The biggest things that ruin the episode however are Valerie and the moral. Valerie is a complete jerk to Danny here as in the beginning she tries to bully him into doing almost all of the work in their group project, without ever apologizing once to him. The way Danny has to apologize for every part of getting mad at Valerie makes it feel like the episode dismisses Danny's valid concerns to Valerie that she was being lazy, so the moral effectively becomes "don't tell your teammates that they're being lazy because it could make them feel bad". So any good parts of the episode still aren't enough to save it.
5/10 The Million Dollar Ghost- There really is not much strong either way in this episode. Danny really is likable here and supportive to his dad, and Jack's big moment at the end is really satisfying. There's an occasional chuckle here and there, and it's not a line-crossingly bad episode. Other than that there really is not much to talk about. Vlad feels dumbed down here, not close to as interesting as in Bitter Reunions or Maternal Instinct, and there is one mistake he makes trying to trap Danny and Jack that feels really uncharacteristically stupid for him. The episode still could be funnier too; the team hunting Danny down isn't really funny or interesting and Scaredy Cat doesn't stand out at all. Definitely one of Season 1's weaker episodes.
5/10 Control Freaks- This episode more than with Million Dollar Ghost has some aspects that are really, really good, and some that really, really aren't. Freakshow is a good villain as his anti-comedic and cold clown personality add more suspense to the episode. Red-Eyed Danny's more meanly efficient behavior as interesting contrast to normal Danny is acted well by David Kaufman. It is easy to root for Tucker and Sam try to bring Danny back to normal as both of them are likable here. However, the three things that keep it from being good outright are that I can't stand Sam's parents and they don't have to apologize for how they act here or go through an arc, how Danny permanently gets out of his hypnosis from Freakshow is horribly done, and one running gag ends up being mean-spirited and not funny at all at the end, that being
The gag about Mr. Lancer being trapped in the janitor's room, made distasteful when the janitor opens up the door, and then knowingly traps Mr. Lancer back in for the weekend. You know, like… killing him due to lack of oxygen by any logical means? I get that it's a cartoon but it still feels in poor taste, especially when I watched this episode so close to learning about DL-6 in Turnabout Goodbyes even though suffocation had a different role there.

Season 2

6/10 Reign Storm- While a bit better than the last three episodes, that still could be saying much more. Vlad is back in character and menacing again instead of boring, and each of the other returning characters are in character except for Sam who is unreasonable about being snippy with Danny just for dealing with Dash. The utilization of the returning ghosts is really good and much better than in Prisoners of Love, despite this being some ways weaker in almost every other aspect. The fight scene at the end where Danny needs to watch his power level is a lot of fun. This episode is entertaining to a good enough extent and moments of heart, albeit every now and then, are there. I felt mixed about Valerie and Danny starting to go out in this episode; Valerie is written better in this episode than Life Lessons except for being a sucker towards Vlad with likable moments, but still not enough to fully regain respect from that episode at least as of right now, and make me not feel like Danny deserves a better girl (but again Sam isn't written great either here). The two other major flaws aside from Sam chastising Danny for dealing with Dash are
when it looks like Danny's town is about to fall under attack by Pariah but it turns out everything ends up not in danger
and on the topic of Pariah Dark, him. He is a generic and boring villain with no interesting characteristics whatsoever, and easily the worst villain of the show without any question. While still a (mostly) entertaining episode it is still much too uneven to be anywhere near a great one.

7/10 Doctor's Disorders- This was a fun episode with it being one of the funnier, maybe even funniest episodes of the show. The ghost disease is creative with a lot of highly entertaining uses. Though I wish Penelope Spectra was utilized better, as she is underused and there is one scene where she feels uncharacteristically naive towards how Danny could thwart her. That being
the Danny pulling the handkerchief out of his pocket part
Any of the other characters are well-utilized and funny, though. It's not the deepest or most flawless episode of the show but still a good time.

7/10 Identity Crisis- This was a good enough episode. I like the arc for Danny I found to be about not sacrificing oneself in unnecessary ways. I also like Sam here; she is supportive about trying to make sure Danny is true to himself. Technus has a better role here than Spectra did in the last episode as he shows up more and has some of the episode's funny jokes. David Kaufman hamming it up as Super Danny is hilarious and I loved every second of Super Danny. The episode does have flaws, though. The humor is still a bit more hit and miss than Doctor's Disorders, despite having better villain utilization as I mentioned and slightly more depth. One joke about sniffing Tucker's hat isn't funny, and occasionally Fun Danny does become a bit much, despite not quite being the worst as some of his interactions with Super Danny are good. The ending is satisfying, but I won't spoil it.
6/10 Pirate Radio- This episode wasn't bad, though it falls a bit short of being one of the better episodes of the show. Youngblood is a fun villain in terms of his childlike antagonistic personality being funny, and his running gag is good. I like his parrot too. Although it still is not one of the show's funniest episodes, being more clever than funny most of the time. For example the gags about Tucker and Sam wanting to party without Danny's permission aren't as funny as they could be. But as mentioned it is clever; I like how they unravel the secret of the hypnotic music for example. Ember's back and could be more interesting, but she was never one of my favorite Danny Phantom characters. Seeing Danny being really confident and charismatic when rallying the other kids is extremely satisfying. Danny's army fighting Youngblood's forces on the ship is a lot of fun too. The worst part of the episode is the ending, though. Danny gets grounded for helping save everyone from Youngblood, which while not quite as bad as the ending of Fright Night because it could have been avoided if Danny admitted he was a ghost, is still unsatisfying and unsatisfactory as he's grounded for throwing the party too when Tucker and Sam did that, especially since you don't see them fess up to Danny's parents about it either.
3/10 The Fenton Menace- Ooh boy, this episode. I didn't like it at all, and it manages to be worse than two out of three of the episodes in by bottom three for Season 1. Might as well start with the good, because there's… a lot in the opposite category.
Jazz's speech at the beginning of the episode makes it seem like it could be thought-provoking and having a bigger thought-provoking feel when the episode itself actually doesn't go the direction of either characteristic. Mostly each of the characters except for Jazz, and at the end Danny, are in character and not horribly written (Tucker, Sam, Mr. Lancer, Jack, and Maddie, and Youngblood despite his running gag being extremely annoying) and it still takes until the third act for Danny's characterization to drop noticeably. The bathroom scene has two really funny jokes, one being what Jazz says that triggers Danny to go into the bathroom, and the second being Mr. Lancer's comment when Danny is fighting Youngblood in the bathroom. There's also one actually really good line from Sam towards Jazz about not being bossy I won't spoil (the episode looks like it's actually going to be good at the beginning, if only it actually was!) The very end isn't as distasteful as the very end of Fright Night, as there is a decent action scene, and then you do see Jazz say she respects Danny, and this episode is also not as bad as that episode because at least neither of the out-of-character characters put the life of an entire town in danger.

Now for the bad. Probably the biggest problem is that I really do not care for Jazz in this episode. Basically all she does here is gaslight Danny about him seeing invisible Youngblood when he makes a move to try to fight him, insisting that Danny was just seeing things and was delusional, despite having already learned before that sometimes Danny sees things that other members of the family don't see. Even considering Jazz's tendency to think she is more right than others, how she acts in this episode is really off and I perceived it as out of character; the subtlety of her conflicts in Prisoners of Love and My Brother's Keeper that still don't turn her into a brat, which is refreshing for a fictional older sister, are nowhere to be found here as all she is here is a one-dimensional annoying older sister stereotype. Her constantly insisting she knew why Danny is seeing Youngblood is like she learned nothing about not always being right from Prisoners of Love. Another problem that's consistently obnoxious about this episode is the markedly more mean-spirited and less funny feel of the episode and its humor. Now one could argue this kind of blends in with the Jazz writing problem, as there's one extremely constant and thus constantly annoying running gag about Youngblood pranking Danny when invisible that's executed in a way that feels cruel instead of funny each time, but especially because Danny gets all the intensity of it, as it sets off Jazz needling Danny about thinking he didn't see anything more. But even then aside from the bathroom scene at the beginning being really funny even the… good might be a strong word, but better jokes in the episode feel through the motions for the show. For example Tucker's alibi machine has some tolerable humor unlike the mean-spirited humor Danny gets, but even then it feels similar to the "spray was useful after all" shenanigans in Doctor's Disorders, and still is just partly fart jokes. Next, back to the sibling conflict feeling inauthentic and not subtle. By the climax especially it feels like it's just "siblings being jerks to each other" humor back and forth between Danny and Jazz, like the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 episode Oh, Brother except not funny, but there's one scene especially, that being how Danny forces Jazz to be able to see Youngblood, that really is too nasty and too mean-spirited for Danny, even considering what Jazz puts him through in this episode. Of course instead of doing something funny humiliating Jazz to bring out the child in her it has to have been
Danny being that much of a bully to Jazz about her personal property (even admittedly after him making some other also not funny attempts to make Jazz a child)
and the episode tries to portray him as in the right for it without him having to apologize to Jazz. Really, the episode about lives down to its name as both the Fenton siblings are not well-written by the end. Even with the handful of redeeming qualities it does have which shouldn't be ignored, as they're a bit more than Fright Night's, The Fenton Menace is mostly a menacingly frustrating episode, as it just doesn't have the heart, charm, or wit that made most of the other episodes of the show up to this point work, or at least was a redeeming quality to most of the worse ones.

8/10 The Fright Before Christmas- This was a pretty good episode. All of the rhyming was inventive and funny, and integrated well into the plot. Ghost Writer is a really interesting, colorful (and not colorful) villain with his introverted, calculated prankster personality, and the episode does a good job not letting him off the hook just because he was wronged by Danny. On the topic of Danny, he learns a good lesson about learning to tolerate what brings other people cheer even though he dislikes it. Yet on the other side, there's one really great scene with Jazz where she says she doesn't blame Danny for hating Christmas with his parents, feeling for me like having the three-dimensionality she didn't have in the previous episode. The villains are also integrated well into this episode and about each of them show their characterization in a shining way.

The episode's two weak points, while this section is longer it actually doesn't mean they overshadow the positives, just that they're complicated, are that I don't think Danny owed his family an apology for being silently grumpy because of Christmas, though this is not as bad as in Life Lessons as it's portrayed more as guilt here instead of the main part of hating Christmas he needed to apologize for, which was being intolerant of others' cheer in the form of taking back apologizing for destroying Ghost Writer's book after finding out it was Christmas. This is the second weak point; Danny comes across as pretty bossy for being unapologetic for destroying the book. Like I know it's not out of malice considering you were sorry until you found out it was about Christmas, and you think you're doing the Ghost Writer a favor because you see Christmas as evil, but even then your writing seems a bit weak here. But at least Danny has to apologize this time unlike with last episode, and I still link it to his arc about learning not to be bossy sometimes. Because of this, I still don't see this episode overall as a misstep in Danny's characterization, and his writing in the rest of the episode is really good.

8/10 Micro-Management- I liked this episode a lot. The theme of gaining strength even without powers is really well-done as it's great to see Dash, and also Danny work to stop Skulker even with only normal abilities, with great character building for both of them. Danny is written amazingly here; he's confident just like usual, but he also is patient with Dash about what to do next, and even Dash is likable and funny. The humor in terms of how they navigate around when so small is really funny too. I also enjoyed the subplot with how Sam gets Tucker in shape, her handling of that was cool. Even the ending being slightly
bittersweet as their results are still shown not to be anything special
is still satisfying as you still see the improvements Danny and Tucker have made. The only two weaker parts are its occasional similarities to Honey, I Shrunk The Kids though it still has plenty to stand on its own, and that it would have been cool to see Dash maybe spout some occasional extreme intelligence (like he did in Fright Night as the only good part of that episode), but aside from those there really is nothing wrong with this episode. I would definitely recommend it.

5/10 Memory Blank- This episode was aggressively okay, with a flaw for every good thing about it. Sam's characterization here is amazing, with her having the perfect combination of competence in tough situations, being a good friend, and growth of learning weird is okay. Desiree is still fun in this episode, and any of the other characters here are in character with two exceptions, but they're pretty marked. I really didn't care for Danny in this episode, as he comes across as uncharacteristically stupid about instantly blaming Sam for the ghosts appearing especially considering he does it so constantly, and is unappreciative about any good thing Sam does. The only exception to this is him realizing his mistake right after Sam says she wished she never met him, but that is far from enough. I also find Tucker to be annoying in this episode, especially since he thinks Sam intentionally caused the ghosts too. The humor isn't all bad as there aren't exactly any unfunny moments like there were in The Fenton Menace, with some good jokes surrounding Paulina, actually, as well as
Danny relearning his powers,
but it still could be more standout. The alternate world is not done as interestingly as in the next episode I watched, The Ultimate Enemy, as it feels just like the normal world of the show, with the only exceptions being
the Mystery Meat callback and Danny being less respectful of girls due to not having Sam's influence.
Overall, this was inoffensive but not memorable, making it easily one of Danny Phantom's weaker episodes.

10/10 The Ultimate Enemy- An amazing episode. Its darker tone works perfectly as you see how horrible Danny becomes when fate punishes him for cheating. Jazz finding out Danny plans to cheat has some frightening resonance with other instances similar, like finding out family members are becoming addicted, and one really feels for her. Dark Danny is an amazing mix of competence, remorselessness, both physical and emotional sadism, and a sheer lack of empathy that make it exhilarating to root against him, and the crown jewel of this episode. Although, Clockwork's confident, outside-the-box attitude to gradually saving Danny make him a great character too, and the entire plot of proving to the Observants that they saw things too narrowly is amazing. Every second of Danny and Jazz doing everything they can in their power to work against the clock and thwart Dark Danny leads to incredible suspense. Future Vlad is an astonishing contrast to normal Vlad as he actually feels remorse for his actions in that future, and even ends up not being one of the notable antagonists. Especially the fact that not even Vlad was evil enough to want what happened, even in the present right after the incident, ups the feeling of dread. Yet the ending has an amazing heart and feeling of victory, and really does feel like it wraps up the show up to its point.

This episode is not perfect. It would have been better in my opinion if
Danny cheating on the test more directly led to his loved ones' deaths, like
if Danny not knowing something critical he needed to know on the career aptitude test led to others' deaths.
I wish we got to see more of the future world than just it being a post-apocalyptic world, though it does show the town was at the beginning before Dark Danny destroyed it. And I guess the moral is similar to what the stated one of Fright Night's is, but we don't talk about that episode and its moral would have been better to be about not stealing anyway. But it still is a truly good episode that I would absolutely recommend.

6/10 Secret Weapons- Neither on the marked lower end of the show or as good as it could have been, Secret Weapons has a lot to be fond of about it but has one critical flaw that stops it from being one of the better episodes. Danny's writing is excellent here, showing a three-dimensional mixture of good heart, confidence, and his usual blunt nature. Jazz is much better written in this episode than in the season's first episode centered around her and she comes across as legitimately well-intentioned instead of a one-dimensional stereotype. Her conflict about wanting to help but it having hindering effects had some personal resonance as I've been in her situation before, and it, mostly, makes her easy enough to sympathize with. This episode understands the line about making most of her actions annoying to Danny but funny to the viewer where The Fenton Menace failed to, as the comedy of her failing to fight ghosts and her nicknames for the ghosts are funny. It also is quite an an enjoyable experience with some suspense to see her snoop on Vlad and uncover his power-hungry plan, and while it is done a smidgen similar to Maddie's shtick in Maternal Instinct, the spying aspect gives it enough to stand on its own, showing a competent and rootable side to Jazz. It would have been better if one saw Jazz's pain due to Danny snapping at her somewhere in this montage, however so it didn't seem like it vanished. Tucker and Sam are also fun in this episode, with Tucker having a fun running gag of thinking Danny being trapped in the thermos was funny and regretting it and Sam getting another moment of being kind but firm towards Jazz. Vlad is true to character here as well, maintaining his tactical (except at managing being perverted towards Maddie) nature and being an intimidating large ham to watch but still having funny moments (such as his "absolutely" remark). On topic, the episode in general is very funny, such as the checkers fakeout joke with Jack and Maddie and Danny's reaction to Jazz's overconfidence about hunting three ghosts in the car. The slower moments, like Danny being informed Jazz went missing and the ending, as well as the good continuity from The Ultimate Enemy, really give the viewer a feeling of being immersed in the episode, and the episode a feeling of being immersed in the show. The fight scene between Danny and Jazz also has some fun physical combat moves and some technically impressive angles. That being said, this episode has two problems, and I'll get to the smaller first, that being I don't see how it was that hard to get Danny out of the Fenton Thermos to the point of him being trapped in there that long. Or did Jazz just forget to or not care? That part isn't explained well. But the much worse crack in an episode that would have otherwise been great is how the episode handles Danny apologizing to Jazz for erupting at her earlier on, for hacking into his computer. He is entirely unassertive here and does not include telling Jazz to not do it again or asking her to apologize, and Jazz causes him to by saying "this is for humiliating me in front of the entire school!" Where while Danny still went too far even considering Jazz's actions, it comes across as Jazz not realizing the extent to which she misfired. While this is not as ruining towards the episode as with Life Lessons, because Jazz realizes she made a mistake at the end of the episode, this really dampens the episode like rain. A matter that is too bad because it would have been one of my favorite episodes of the show otherwise.
7/10 Flirting With Disaster- This is another episode where some parts of it really work and a couple other parts of it really don't. Valerie regains respect lost in Life Lessons, being hardworking and well-intentioned, and funny occasionally. Her conflict of wanting to feel trusted is easy to sympathize with. Both of the fight scenes are enjoyable, though the first is much better because Technus has much more of a presence with foreboding dialogue and it feels more... I'm not sure if gritty is the right word, but real because one sees all the positions and attacks the possessed suit tries at. The second fight scene is fun but weaker because there is not as much in it and it cuts back in forth between the space area and the (still fun) attacks Technus tries on everyone. MOST of the jokes are funny, with Tucker getting some funny commentary on Danny's and Valerie's crushes on each other, and how Technus draws Danny and Valerie together is fun as well. On that topic, I love how Technus is written in this episode. He is much more tactical and smart, and more sinister than in previous episodes, with intimidating dialogue and a smart strategy about using Danny's and Valerie's emotions to benefit his plan. He certainly learned some about being smarter about his evil plans from Identity Crisis, even not announcing them to other characters when necessary. The episode has good pacing and a feeling of buildup, and not much of it feels like filler. How Danny's and Valerie's parents initiate talking to them about their crushes on each other is good-hearted and makes for a funny running gag between the two conversations. The scene where
Valerie breaks up with Danny
is noticeably mature for a kids' show as well; Valerie has actually unselfishly intended reasons for doing what she did, and it is powerful to see such an emotional low point for Danny. However, there are two weak points making this episode almost as uneven as the last one. The first is that Danny and Valerie should have had more lines of dialogue together. Aside from the online chat at the beginning and the Neil Armstrong joke, they have about no lines of actually talking to each other. The dialogue where they talk about their romance to other characters is well-done, to be fair, but if they actually talked more it would feel more immersive. The episode does try at the "puppy love" explanation for this but it still does not feel as fleshed out as it should. The second is the ending, where (I'm going to spoil this whole thing)
after Danny is really distraught due to breaking up with Valerie, Sam disparages him as clueless (over the running gag of her not understanding what the ring says), and skips off grinning, which really is Sam's low point of the show. It's made worse by that Danny is completely unassertive once again and doesn't warn to end their friendship right then if she doesn't apologize for the potshot.
While Secret Weapons is marginally weaker because its one flaw is more definitive towards the episode's entire conflict, these two flaws mean this episode could have been so much better, and is similar to Teacher of the Year where one character's writing really is the highlight of it and brings it up a lot, but it still has a couple critical weak parts otherwise.

9/10 Beauty Marked- Despite its premise not seeming interesting when I heard about it (partly because admittedly I misheard it as Sam being mean to Danny to get him to sign up), this ended up becoming one of my favorite episodes of Danny Phantom.
That the least interesting antagonist of Season 1, Dora, becomes one of the show's most interesting characters is delightful. I like her dramatic diva personality, and her interactions with Sam all around. As her obsessive-compulsive desire to follow the rules on beauty tradition contrasts harshly with Sam's individualistic nature, such as the funny moments in the preparation for the beauty contest. Her snips at other characters are quite funny, as well, such as toward Tucker at the beginning. She ends up being a redeemed antagonist and it is really genuinely done, giving her both an understandable motive why she did wrong and making it satisfying to see her do right, when some cartoons don't execute that well. Her dragon role in the fight scene is also epic, where one sees her give her big speech.
Sam is at her unquestionable best out of the entire series so far in this episode. Her desire to enter the beauty contest solely to one-up what she sees as bad tradition is a fascinating one, and how she handles her success at the end is really fun. How on top of everything she was in Memory Blank returns in full form, and an enchantment to watch. Every situation she gets in she has a funny, inventive, and sometimes thought-provoking plan to manage. Her passion in talking to Dora is outright exciting to watch. She challenges Dora's views, forcefully goes against them when necessary, but at the climax treats her like no one else ever has: a person. The whole time Sam is able to get what she wants just by staying true to herself and giving the honesty out. Plus she has some really funny moments like how she makes sure she is unappealing to Aragon.
The episode also intertwines arguably two of the show's best morals, one of them maybe even being the best. The first moral is that tradition is not always good. This is executed through that the sexism of the tradition in Dora's medieval world turned her into having no inspiration to do her own will, due to Aragon using it as a crutch for his bigoted beliefs. The episode has a great payoff that, as mentioned, once Dora starts going against what is considered "normal" which is following Aragon's rules, things start to look up for her immensely. The second covers a more gutsy topic, that standing up against abuse and fighting against the abuser is always the right fight. There is haunting realism in that Dora for so long thinks she's happy with her demeaning situation solely because Aragon convinced her she should be. In fact, Aragon's tactics are impressively accurate to real-life abusers for a kids' show, where he withholds being more toxic than he already is, as long as Dora does exactly what he wants. As sometimes one is not aware of how miserable an abusive relationship makes them until they are able to think about it more deeply. Sam's response to Dora when Dora insists she wants a "happily ever after" by continuing her current path leads to a moment that really hit personal levels with me.
The episode is also pretty funny. Again, I like the jokes about tradition, some of them being how it impacts perception of beauty, such as the glass slipper logic, Mr. Lancer singing, and the ending about the veggie burger. Even though the "Danny becomes very popular" theme is back from Lucky in Love, the running gag about the blatant ways the girls constantly try to win points with Danny still makes this version of it stand on its own. Tucker's outside the box method of using technology to defeat his enemies makes for some lively moments.
 
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Updated with the color rankings not having as convoluted descriptions, and One of a Kind and Parental Bonding are reviewed now on the OP.
 
Updated with Attack of the Killer Garage Sale and Splitting Images reviewed now in the OP.
 
I've reviewed up through the first half of Season 1 now, take a look and I think you'll like it
 
I now have all of Season 1 reviewed, take a look 'cause I'm really proud of it!
 
Okay, NOW I've got half of Season 2 reviewed.
 
(Beauty Marked review continued)
The episode is also pretty funny. Again, I like the jokes about tradition, some of them being how it impacts perception of beauty, such as the glass slipper logic, Mr. Lancer singing, and the ending about the veggie burger. Even though the "Danny becomes very popular" theme is back from Lucky in Love, the running gag about the blatant ways the girls constantly try to win points with Danny still makes this version of it stand on its own. Tucker's outside the box method of using technology to defeat his enemies makes for some lively moments. Dora's dramatic personality and good voice actor, Susanne Blakeslee, really sell her quips in the episode.
Beauty Marked does have its flaws, namely Danny not believing Sam that Dora is an instantaneous problem, and Tucker's obsession with girls does become a bit much in this episode. But overall, I would really recommend this one with its good humor, making a seemingly boring character interesting, it having the best depiction of Sam and two of the show's best morals, and its satisfying nature overall.
4/10 King Tuck- This is a pretty clumsily made episode, with its positives not being enough to save it. The first problem chronologically is that Danny and Sam are notably dull-witted in the entire beginning of the episode. There are two scenes where it completely should be easy for Danny to hear Tucker, but he still doesn't listen to him and says he can't hear him. He and Sam in addition think "you can't spell Foley without F" symbolizing Tucker's bad grades is a good school president slogan for him. Not only that, but when Tucker gets angry that that's the best they had they aren't understanding about it. This is another case, like with Fright Night, where one of the episode's biggest problems is that Danny forgets the moral he learned in only the previous episode, in this case listening to what your friends have to say from Beauty Marked. Like with What You Want, Tucker's aggressive side comes too quickly in this episode. The middle of this episode is a bit better than the beginning and the end because it's more inoffensive, but it still forgets about delivering the moral and focuses only on the Egyptian antics, which even then it takes too many creative liberties with. Examples of this being that the chariot scene is more Roman-based and that the old time pharaoh has glasses on feels too historically inaccurate. I get that this is Danny Phantom we're talking about, but it still feels like seeing the pharaoh would have given more of a sense of power to the episode if it didn't goofy his design down like that.
The ending has multiple problems as well. While the idea of Tucker learning to be humble and understand when power is too much for him is a good idea on paper, it comes right after he used his authority to do good by stopping Hotep-Ra, so this scene feels like an absolute 180 from the type of arc it looked like Tucker was about to get. In addition, Tucker making this type of decision should lead to a happy ending, but it throws the rest of the school into chaos more, as by effect Dash becomes school president and dedicates an entire day of the week to hurting nerds. I don't think it's the right execution of a moral that Tucker hurts everyone else by setting his own limits. In this case, considering Dash is the only other candidate, it would have been better if Tucker stayed in just to win the election, and then resigned and gave power over to someone he trusted. As bad, in this scene the episode takes Mr. Lancer's tendency to side with popular kids who bully and ramps it up to a more intolerable extent, as when Dash announces the anti-nerd Friday Mr. Lancer says and does nothing about it.
Despite some really awful negatives, there were some things I really liked about King Tuck. Hotep-Ra is a great villain it introduces, with his intimidating, intelligent voice and personality, his sinister, foreboding design, and his role as the chessmaster in this episode. I do think it makes for thought-provoking real life parallels when it comes to manipulation that Ra is able to win Tucker over by convincing Tucker he has his best interests in mind and that Tucker is deserving of respect, and that Ra is constantly effective in seeming to help Tucker. When everyone else is so ignoring of Tucker's wishes to the point where even his closest friends are ineffective in carrying out his wishes. I can see how this type of intense competence would greatly impress Tucker, someone who wants to be appreciated so much when no one appreciates him in much of the episode. However, the way Tucker instantly adores Hotep-Ra feels too naive, even for Tucker.
The episode's humor is also passable. I like some of Danny's commentary on the situation in Egypt, where here he's consistently in character and likable unlike in the beginning. The reference to the Old Testament at the beginning of the episode is clever, and Hotep-Ra calling Casper High an "poorly funded educational center" in an extremely serious tone. Dash has one really hilarious line about his situation working for Tucker in Egypt that's one of the funniest quips in the entire season. I also did like how Tucker gets a positive spotlight in the climax and is the one to ultimately defeat Hotep Ra, in a riveting way, too. What the episode's moral is, to listen to others' desires feels more clear than in What You Want, the problem being that they way it's executed makes it look like Danny and Sam learned nothing from Beauty Marked, just the previous episode. Ultimately, this episode is still slightly worse than What You Want, feeling like it has more contrivances and problems in its character writing.

King Tuck's handful of silver linings keep it some ways above being an irredeemable episode, but its character writing problems, forced areas, and its lack of development means not only is it certainly not the king of Season 2, but in rankings is tucked below almost every other episode of the show's first two seasons.

8/10 Kindred Spirits- This was a quite enjoyable and satisfying episode, with the contributions it wants to add to the canon not being irritating like the next up Vlad episode. Tucker and Sam are very likable in this episode; it has some of their best writing in Season 2. I like that they take the fall for Danny when necessary, but they still are firm to him about needing to treat his friends as as important as him without being jerks to him about it. They have some funny humor too, like Tucker's "old man" comment and both their reactions to Danny apologizing too much. On that topic, it does show some good growth for Danny that he is quickly willing to apologize for inconveniencing Tucker and Sam and thank them, and how constantly he does it makes for some good comedy. Although, I do wish that Danny tried to protect his friends more in the flashbacks. On that topic, the moral of treating one's companions as as important as oneself is a good one, and it is well-written how it splits it between Danny and Vlad, where Danny keeps his friendships by giving his friends more credit, but since Vlad sees Dani as less important than him he ends up being exposed about it and proven wrong. Dani's free-spirited, mischievous personality livens up the episode, and it is good development how she starts to use her pranking for good at the end to stop Team Phantom from
getting into trouble with Danny's parents and Mr. Lancer
after seeing when who she thought was a guardian misused his powers. The episode does a great job making one hate Vlad, such as his callousness towards Danny's failed clones and the phoniness in his tone when he says he values Dani. This aspect of him makes him an interesting antithesis to Aragon as an abusive guardian here, because Aragon was outwardly abusive and straightfowardly treated Dora like a nobody. Vlad succeeds in intimidating in this episode by acting less on his hinges even than usual, examples being his infuriated speech about not being a Froot Loop helped by Martin Mull's performance and threatening walks (though I wish he tried to attack Danny and Dani more quickly here instead of monologue). He also is as complex as the other episodes he is written well in, because his self-righteousness is expanded here; he still does not think he is a villain for all the lust for revenge and power he, ahem, possesses. Kindred Spirits also has some of Danny Phantom's most magical animation up to its point, showing the episode's theme of freedom versus oppression subtlely. For example, the animation in the scene scene where Tucker and Sam skim the water with the Specter Speeder gives a sense of youthful joy, with them being actual friends to Danny. On the other hand, the animation gets a lot darker when Danny's clones malfunction, and has exquisite detail at being terrifying, such as
when one clone's eye pops out,
symbolizing Vlad's distortions himself as he only pretends to be Dani's friend but really sees her as his slave. Occasionally all the artistic elements of the episode come together at the same time, namely that Dani's farewell to Team Phantom where she flies out the window gives a sense of freedom and peace, from the relaxing music, to the sunset, to the window looking much higher up than Danny and his friends with the animation, to that they're sitting down when she flies away. I do also wish that the moral of being considerate was fleshed out slightly more in Danny's dynamic with Dani, and by Danny protecting Tucker and Sam, not just Dani. Other than that this is still a quite satisfactory and satisfying Vlad episode. Also, the Maddie AI that Vlad sets up is hilarious, especially in its payoff.

5/10 Masters of All Time- This is an extremely uneven altered timeline episode, where quite a few parts of the episode that work work very well, but it has two overarching flaws that really bring it down. The first flaw is that how the time travel is managed has several aspects that don't make sense. Whereas the ecto-acne is shown to be extremely dangerous to Tucker, Sam and Vlad to the point of almost killing them, in the alternate timeline Jack has been able to live with it for two decades, which isn't elaborated on why. It feels bland and fairly lazy that Vlad still has the castle he wants in the alternate timeline, when he does not have his ghost powers to make money more quickly, especially when it does not show him have a job lucrative enough to make him be able to buy that. In general this aspect feels like it doesn't change enough, even with the cheese twist. But the most obnoxious example of this by far, and what really interferes with the episode's tone is that Vlad still has light gray hair even though the incident did not affect him at all. It feels very anticlimactic that Vlad looks the exact same regardless of whether he was hurt, and the reason this is the worst example is that this feels very in line with Vlad's writing problems in the alternate timeline. I'll explain these as this is the second major flaw.

The problem with Vlad's writing is that it tries to retcon what was a much more interesting and with depth idea for Vlad's nature in his backstory. This being that he was originally a good person but the sense of loneliness and rejection from the accident caused him to become crooked with obsession. That idea feels more realistic than "Vlad was always evil". Here even without facing the misery from the ecto-acne, Vlad is virtually as willing to cut corners to get what he wants, such as by lying to Maddie that Jack stopped caring about her. He even tries to kill Danny when Danny gets in the way of his and Maddie's marriage. Vlad also hates Jack to just as obsessive of an extent even though Jack has not ruined his life.


Now, to give this episode the benefit of a less unfavorable interpretation, there is one way I can think of for how Vlad could have still been a good person at the time of the accident, but become a bad person even without the ecto-acne because of the different way the experiment unfolded (to explain, Danny changes the direction of the beam Jack accidentally shoots so it's away from Vlad, but it ends up ricocheting off the walls and towards Maddie, which Vlad has to push Maddie out if the way to stop, causing Jack to get the Ecto-Acne.) Now, in the show it is clear that Vlad is set off very easily about topics he is intense about, of course. Since two of these are his desire for safety, and being efficient for people he wants to be on good terms with, these would likely fuse together if Vlad was actually in a relationship with Maddie, where Vlad would be focused on severely punishing anyone else if they tried to hurt Maddie. Now, as mentioned, Jack almost does seriously hurt Maddie, so when Vlad saw this happen, through his protective side he started to hate Jack, and his rage started to put him in the delusion that Jack was a threat to Maddie (though still on top of wanting Jack out of the picture of his and Maddie's relationship). This consumed Vlad so greatly that by one later point they were dating he lied due to his intense desire for security, in both aspects. Likewise, how he's deteriorated into not minding trying to kill Danny or Jack shows that over the 20 years he's changed into being fine with doing anything to keep Maddie safe, no matter how immoral due to his trigger of the idea of Maddie being hurt coming back. There's a chance that maybe Vlad was so obsessed with there not being any talk or technology related to ghosts out of paranoia that Maddie would hurt herself.

But that still doesn't click well with me, as again, I prefer to see Vlad's cruel cynicism as because everyone ignored him because of how he was no longer appealing and that that corroded the health of his mindset. In addition, alternate Vlad is not a very interesting or well-written character in general. He is too one-note about being a jerk, when even making him still crooked but adding a different personality characteristic from the normal timeline would be more interesting. Like with Sludge in My Little Pony's Father Knows Beast, the episode doesn't get the line between making him obnoxiously egocentric to Danny but in a compelling way to the viewer and making him obnoxious to both because of how his self-centeredness grates. Alternate Vlad being compeletely one-dimensional about his selfishness consequently feels like a squandered opportunity to make this episode more thought-provoking, and like what I mentioned about the light gray hair annoying me extra because of his writing, feels virtually exactly like Vlad in the normal timeline.

Masters of All Time certainly does have some positives, and some of the parts of the episode that work, work very well. It does an excellent job making Danny feel like a hero, even better than most other episodes. His plan to save his friends is an interesting one, he retains his confidence even with the edgier stakes and is persistent enough towards Clockwork, even when Clockwork says no at first, to convince him to support his idea. He has good-hearted moments and makes for many of the funny moments in the episode, such as his epic dance at the end and his reactions to the eccentricities of the other characters. Danny feels like a character here such as through his realistic responses to the stakes, neither making him perfect or a whiner, and feels three-dimensional where alternate Vlad does not.

Jack Plasmius is another character with more depth in terms of how he is written here. He has a more on-guard, blunt attitude in the alternate dimension to show his being more in touch with pain than Jack in the normal dimension, while still feeling like a version of him with his usual overdramatic moments but good heart. This, combined with his interesting grim-looking character design, and his backstory that both is sad and adds some humor while not feeling distateful to the grim tone, make him easy to sympathize with. Because of him being enjoyable here, it is moving to see him and alternate Maddie get together, where she accepts him for being beautiful on the inside despite being ugly physically.

As a matter of fact, the writing for every character except for alternate Vlad is on point. Alternate Maddie is similar to her intense about kindness but sometimes aggressive personality, but how her aggression towards Danny plays out is funny, with her having some other funny moments. Sam has some dry humor like usual such as towards Tucker when they're in the emergency room, which works humorously. Jazz has some more suspenseful and entertaining moments of concealing Danny's identity, and her terror at how their parents act about their 80's love is chuckleworthy. As is Jack and Maddie's actual fixation on these trends. Even Vlad's normal self here is more interesting than his alternate self, such as his pretending to be nice to the characters being intimidating.

The episode also at least puts a passable amount of effort into showing differences between the normal world and the alternate world, although not as much as it should, but still more than Memory Blank. Jack's house being severely run-down is an interesting aesthetic design change. I mentioned that Vlad having the same castle was boring, but its cheese theme and gags were kind of cute. Other contrasts, like that Jack would have hated the name Danny if not for Maddie, and how Danny realizes having scientist parents can be good through the alternate dimension in a way he wouldn't have through the normal dimension, at least add enough color so the episode's alternate world is not entirely bland.

Masters of All Time also tries for a darker tone than most Danny Phantom episodes, and aside from the very anticlimactic elements covered, this attempt generally works pretty well. Seeing Jack's less happy moments and bleak condition compared to him usually being happier in the show makes the episode feel less happy-go-lucky. The sense of suspense is done sufficiently well as Tucker and Sam being in the state of dying from ecto-acne is effective at keeping one not at the back of their seat, especially due to the creepy way they look and the cutbacks to their condition. Another area symbolizing losing time is Danny running out of attempts from Clockwork which does give off that feeling. All these aspects make Masters easily one of the more intense episodes of the show.

This episode also has, for the most part, a good moral. Learning to not wish one's family is different constantly and accept them for their quirks is a sweet and important lesson, when those quirks aren't extremely hindering. The way it is developed is through the arc of a character appreciating something more after seeing how much worse it could be makes for a conflict I could relate to; I find appreciating my life by comparing it to a much less fortunate one to be very useful when I really focus on it. Danny's excellent writing in the episode helps as he is charming and funny in his comments when realizing his lesson. I do wish Jack and Maddie learned a lesson about not being embarassing towards Danny and Jazz in public, however.

While Masters of All Time is not the worst episode of Danny Phantom, and is even substantially better than the worst episode of its first two seasons, its plot holes, and weak writing from one of the characters it was most important to avoid that with, turn it into one of the weakest, though not quite the worst, episode of Season 2. This episode's very good aspects make it watchable, but Danny Phantom has had much better episodes due to them not having uninspiring low points as much as this one.

6/10 Double Cross My Heart- This is an episode that was net positive, but probably a bit better on a subjective than objective level.
The best part about it is easily its antagonist, Gregor, who makes this episode a lot funnier because of how he fakes being an easygoing but passionate foreign exchange student in an extremely convincing accent, which makes his meltdown at the end of the episode a lot more standout when he has a stereotypical American jerk accent. All of his running gags like the "goth white" line especially are very entertaining. Even though he ends up just being a perverted jerk, I like how he still has a lot of talent, when it comes to it he's excellent (for the most part heh) at pretending to like being around people who he thinks are losers and give the impression of adapting to their interests. It really gets funnier and funnier when thinking about how endearing he legitimately seems up until the end, like being extremely nice to Danny even when knowing he doesn't like him. So he improves this episode on a subjective level, but it has other flaws objectively.

For Gregor's execution, I also like how the episode is competent at not giving away the mystery who Gregor actually is. Even though you can tell there's something Gregor's not revealing, that means all the more, along with his extreme competence at blending in socially, that you think Danny might be right that he might have some sort of hidden power, like association with the Guys in White, but I thought something else. I thought that he would be a ghost who fed off of love as his power source, but who maybe worked with the Guys in White to have the government protect his actions, my guess on Gregor's reveal having felt backed up by that a lot about his design symbolizes a good manipulator, including his white, pulled back hair, lean, tall body, and black glasses. So, the fact that he is just a teenager with a very strong romantic drive felt even more surprising to me personally. I liked it.

However, while this episode has one of my favorite antagonists in Season 2, a major part of it is, as I mentioned, that Danny wants more information on Gregor so he starts to spy on him, which the episode summarily doesn't handle as well. First off, Sam is indisputably hypocritical in her response to finding out Danny was spying on her and Gregor, blowing up at him and wanting to end the friendship, but this leads to issues on her end as she had no problem and didn't feel guilty spying on Danny when he was dating Valerie. This weakness becomes more noticeable by that the episode references Flirting With Disaster repeatedly, such as the fact that Danny feels sad about not dating Valerie anymore and that the same music plays when Sam and Gregor have their dating montage as when Danny and Valerie had their dating montage. I do think this could have not been a flaw if the episode pointed out that Sam was being contradictory, and Sam learned a lesson about quickly blaming behavior without acknowledging you have engaged in it before. I can have strong romantic impulses, so I can completely understand how Sam would be too angry to think about her record on spying. Considering she's always said she's different from shallow girls, one area in that regard would be thinking she's better than blindly falling in love with any guy she barely knows. So finding out someone else witnessed her give herself an exception to her principle, especially considering how Danny uses sledgehammers and snark to mention he knew that Sam and Elliot were kissing which is intimate, would make complete sense for Sam to feel embarrassed, and consequently too blinded by anger to think about her record, in response to. This episode could have been a great opportunity by using both Sam's contradictory record on spying and romance to add a moral about acknowledging when you've done the same things you've criticized others for doing for Sam to learn. But the reason Sam's hatred of Danny spying fails to work very well in the conflict is that the episode never points out, such as by using the ways I suggested, that Sam is being contrary.

The next weakness this episode has also is related to Danny's spying, this being how its depiction here is the opposite of in Flirting With Disaster. In that episode Sam and Tucker are portrayed as in the right for spying on Danny and Valerie, but here Danny is portrayed as in the wrong for spying on Sam and Gregor. On Tucker's end this is made a bit more weakly written by that he is suddenly against Danny's spying when Tucker spied on him only five episodes ago. To be fair, I can see how the spying in Flirting With Disaster was slightly more of an absolute necessity than in this episode. Since Tucker and Sam were dealing with a technology ghost who was everywhere at once instead of people then, it was indisputable that spying was the only way to know for certain whether Technus was trying to draw Danny and Valerie together. I think the writers felt that since Gregor was a person, and since people are human with emotions and flaws that can be used face-to-face, that those could be used instead this time, making spying less necessary as there was more of a choice on how to handle Gregor. One could also argue that it was more guaranteed to be necessary that Tucker and Sam spied on Valerie than Danny spied on Gregor because it was known for certain that Valerie wanted to throttle one form of Danny. This episode to its credit does provide an alternate method to going behind someone's back; in this instance being manipulative mentally, which is Tucker being aggravating around Gregor until he blows his cover. But there are still some flaws to the writers' logic here.

First off, the episode does not explain why the spying is less warranted than in the Valerie romance episode, which again the references to that episode make this more awkward. And consequently makes it feel more that it's indicating Danny should have to learn to just take being spyed on, whereas it's only inappropriate if it happens to Sam. Secondly, again, Tucker is being hypocritical here to as he spied on Danny in Flirting but when Danny does it he instantly goes all-out with advice that it is a bad idea. Thirdly, even though Gregor is a person and has emotions, since the Guys in White are important government workers, if they were planning to use a double agent like Danny suspected, they make sure the person they were working with was phenomenal at resisting direct manipulation the episode proposes the alternative of to spying when it comes to getting more information. To be reasonable, the episode does show that Tucker is extremely good at being annoying to the point of being able to affect someone even as good of a chameleon as Gregor into revealing his true identity and true colors. But the Guys in White would most likely try to make sure the person they worked with was even better at hiding their true self than Gregor. In addition, if Gregor had been working with the Guys in White, he could have just walked with Sam to a moment he said would be "private" and then let the Guys in White ambush Sam during then and hold her hostage, possibly before anyone could manipulate a dent in his façade. A case like this could only be prevented by spying, unless you had someone who was that much of a mastermind at starting to crack people's illusions quickly right from the start, in this case causing the illusion to continue to crack further without them realizing it. 13 is another episode where Danny is portrayed as in the right for spying on Jazz, although in that case the human/non-human difference plays a role too as Johnny is obviously a ghost, with more likely powers, up to no good. Summarily, while I can see where the writers were coming from about portraying spying more negatively because there was more of an alternative to it this time, there are still weak points to how this depiction is executed.


After all that, I'll go back to another positive this episode has. Most of the jokes in this episode, even not having to do with Gregor and his behaviorisms, have good amusement value. For example, Danny has some funny reactions to Sam's romance with Gregor and some funny and occasionally thought-provoking lines about and towards the Guys in White. Jack has a funny line when being investigated by the Guys in White as well (involving my favorite color!) Seeing another old-timey antic of Mr. Lancer's is entertaining, which blends in well with an explosive mistake by the Guys in White. The Guys in White have a interesting perspective about the marketplace they are in, as well. Seeing how they scare Mr. Lancer into giving information is humorous too, although Mr. Lancer not paying his taxes did surprise me considering he can be very orderly and focused on warning about the dangers of not being perfect in the real world. Though a counterpoint is he can give himself exceptions to his own principles sometimes.

This episode does a good job making Danny human and not too perfect as well. I did sympathize with him when it came to his heartache about Sam dating Gregor, and all of his romantic heartache in general. For example, the beginning of the episode where Danny feels bittersweet about seeing Valerie is handled in good taste. Danny's jealousy and by effect dislike of Gregor is executed in a way that feels cute and funny, such as his one-liner about predicting a spaghetti kiss and the scene where he practices talking to Gregor, when the episode could have been bland and melodramatic about it (aside from his fight with Sam for the latter adjective, though that's just one spur-of-the moment outburst.) He is still confident here and one can see he has his friend's best interests at heart. Though as I have mentioned, the episode feels like it could acknowledge that more. As for the Guys in White, they are solid antagonists here, with their trying to be collected and harsh demeanors and interesting codenames, while still having some wacky moments. The action scenes with them using their planes to be combative are interesting to watch by how their lasers are utilized, though especially later on these can be short, and they should have had more of them. Their role here is more interesting than in The Million Dollar Ghost's bounty role, giving them a slightly more personal rationale for going after Danny.

Tucker's writing however is more and very 50/50. The biggest problem with his writing, as I mentioned was that him judging Danny for spying on Sam while having spied on Danny is hypocritical. However, he does have funny and heartwarming moments about handling Danny and his contempt of Gregor. His "three guesses" line and his suggesting Danny not to when he's revealing he saw Sam and Gregor kiss are both quite funny. It makes for a funny dynamic that Tucker finds Gregor to be super cool complimenting his being annoying towards him. After Danny and Sam fall out, Tucker has a relievingly good-hearted exchange with Danny to calm him down, being a good friend here. However, Tucker has two running gags which, while lead to some funny moments, can feel a bit too much like you're laughing at Tucker more than with him. The slid-down hat running gag makes for some funny slapstick and character reactions, but as was a flaw in Teacher of the Year and King Tuck, it makes Tucker feel too gullible and unperceptive. The scenes where Tucker crosses the line being obnoxious to Gregor are funny, but it sometimes is more because of the given buildup as well as Sam's and Gregor's reactions that it works, as some of how Tucker is annoying could feel more clever, like that him playing video games loudly when they're watching a movie could be funnier. The first of these is the funniest when Tucker loudly compliments Gregor to make him fudge up his mini golf putt, because it feels like Tucker is being the most crafty about thinking about how the output could be funny, and how intensely the golf ball ricochets and where it ends up. Tucker's antics do have an epic payoff, but they still seem a bit contradictory to the episode trying a respecting privacy moral, but where Tucker only outwits Gregor by disrespecting his space. But I guess the episode's moral is not to go behind your friends' back specifically. Wrapping this part up on a positive note, even Tucker's "bad idea" comment makes for some good comedy from Gregor.

The scene revealing Elliot was handled well. It shows good loyalty on Sam's part that she instantly draws the line when he tells her to drop Tucker as her friend, and it shows good development compared to the beginning of the show where they hung out more because they knew Danny than anything else. The buildup of Tucker finally being able to bait Gregor over the line into revealing he is Elliot, especially when waving his hand in front of Gregor's face, is done with enough of a feeling of awkward intensity to work. Before Gregor breaks his accent, it is interesting that he is so immersed in his role that he keeps his accent quirks even when he goes out on a limb revealing to Sam he thinks Tucker stinks. Elliot's outburst is exhilirating to watch and made even funnier by how much Elliot's normal "blunt angry immature teenager" voice contrasts with his friendly Hungarian accent, and how he was so effective at pretending he liked Tucker until Tucker pushed him into 180ing. So, while this is not the episode of the show that writes Sam the best, seeing her dump Gregor is every piece as satisfying to watch as it should be.

This episode's ending also feels satisfying as a conclusion to its trends, and has its sweet parts. Danny is a good friend about complimenting Sam when she reveals a more vulnerable, less secure side, and this leads to some okay humor about Danny leaking out a hint that he likes Sam. I do like for Sam's modesty as she doesn't always show it, that she does acknowledge that Danny was right for being stubborn that she should not trust Gregor, so their reconciliation does feel genuine, although I wish the spying contradictions were addressed here. It is fun to see the running gags in this episode get a final mention, and to see previous scenes in the episode resurface as running gags. For example, the final pulled down hat joke with Tucker is funny irony that it is less hazardous as Tucker is in a plain, but that doesn't mean it is not hazardous considering, but I won't spoil.

As an entirety, Double Cross My Heart is more good than bad, being pretty fun with a great villain, good and original humor, and an interesting story. However, due to the weak execution and contradictions in its spying conflict, it is kept from being very much more than an alright episode. Some parts I wholeheartedly liked, but not quite the episode overall.
 
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