Season: 3
Episode: 24
Original Airdate: December 7, 2013
Director: Neill Fearnley
Writer(s): Erik Patterson, Jessica Scott
So
recently, Adam West had passed away. This was the guy who put Batman on
the map with the 1960's Batman TV series. He was also famous for his
role as the mayor in Family Guy and his role as Catman from The Fairly
Odd Parents. One of the characters I distinctly remember him playing was
The Galloping Gazelle in the Goosebumps TV episode titled "Attack of
The Mutant". Also, I only have two more episodes of this season left to
review.
An irresponsible
boy named Jason is only one screw-up away from being shipped off to
military school as per his strict father and must prove himself
responsible when assigned to care for an egg as part of a school
project. Trouble is, the eggs donated to the school are rejects from a
biochemistry lab harboring an ostrich-like monster that is not fit to
live among humans, and now Jason must keep his father from knowing about
his latest mistake while keeping the monster away from two government
agents posing as pest control workers who want the monster back.
One
of the things I liked about the episode was Jason. While he does start
off as a bit of a goofball by making jokes about the egg assignment, he
starts to take it more seriously and even forms a strong bond with the
creature that was inside of the egg, which kind of tugged at my heart
strings a bit.
The other
thing I liked about the episode was the creature named Timmy.
Throughout the episode, you only see brief glimpses of it until the very
end of the episode and when you actually get a good look at the
monster, its design has a great balance between cute and ugly. Not only
that but its has a bit of a personality that shares some traits with
Jason's personality such as having a hatred for Jason's father, as
evidenced by the scene where he drops a paint can on his head.
Unfortunately,
one of the major problems I have with this episode is Jason's father,
who I will be referring to as Dr. Douchebag from this point forward. So
if you couldn't tell already, my problem with this character is that
he's way too unlikable. I understand that he's a strict father but Dr.
Douchebag seems to flat out hate his son and treats him as if he were a
mistake. Hell, even when Jason tries to take the assignment seriously,
he doesn't seem to praise his son for it and instead says something
along the lines of, "Wow, looks like you haven't screwed things up for
once," in a cold yet aggressive manner. To add insult to injury, when
Jason tries to admit that he screwed up by telling him that he broke the
egg, Dr. Douchebag just ignores that and tells his son that he's going
to military school.
Based
on this description, Dr. Douchebag seems to be an abusive parent, which
might've worked and made a bit more sense like in My Robot, if he were
intended to be a villain. But as far as I can tell, he's not because the
actual villains of the episode are two government agents posing as pest
control workers trying to get the monster back. What's funny about this
is that the villains are portrayed more sympathetically than Dr.
Douchebag because all they want to do is catch a potentially dangerous
creature and keep it out of human society in order to prevent someone
from getting hurt. Sure, they can be creepy when going about it at
times, but from what I saw, they weren't being abusive towards any one
and their struggle is played out like a more subdued version of a
Roadrunner cartoon. Screenwriting 101: If a character who isn't intended
to be a villain is more villainous than the actual villains, you dun
fucked up.
Overall, Bad
Egg is an episode that I feel really bad for because it has likable main
characters such as Jason and Timmy, yet has an extremely unlikable
character like Dr. Douchebag that really drags down the quality of the
episode for me. If Dr. Douchebag was made more likeable or taken out of
the episode altogether, I think this would've been an extremely solid
episode. But as is, it's not horrible but it's not as great as it
could've been.
Overall Grade: C
I've noted, "I don't like any kind of movie, horror or otherwise, in which the protagonists are abusive toward their own children (physically, verbally, etc.). Why on Earth would we want to root for child abusers? I don't want to hear, 'Oh, well, sometimes in those movies the parents are possessed!' because if they're possessed, then in my opinion they've stopped being protagonists and become antagonists." This applies here. It sounds like they botched that completely. The rest sounds pretty good, so it sounds like if they'd removed the bad doctor, they'd have a good episode. I do like how the "villains" are portrayed as well-meaning and not as cliched creeps.
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