Dan Vs The Dentist - The Conclusion*
Ladies, gentlemen, and anyone who identifies as both, neither, or a mix, we have reached a new low point in Dan Vs writing. This episode was so bad that it required a split. Let's see if it continues to suck or if it will have a turnaround.
- Dan: I can't believe you were going to hit me in the face with a hammer.
Yeah, I know, talk about acting out-of-character, right? What does it say when even the writers have to draw attention to the fact that they suck?
Anyways, they're at the dentist's office - and Chris points out that it's a children's dentist. Dan responds that the last time he came to the dentist, he was a kid. Eww.
Chris also points out that one kid is too young to have teeth. Okay, well, I don't have any children, but if you don't have teeth, why do you need to go to a dentist?
Chris also suggests that Dan go to a different dentist, since he hates this dentist.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!? It's like Chris's character suddenly shifted compared to what it was just 20 seconds ago. Now he's actually being intelligent, and I'm thankful for that.
Anyways, Dan goes to the back area with the dentist. Then we get this incredibly intellectual discussion:
- ????????????????????????????????
See the problem here? The music in the waiting room scenes play so loudly that I cannot make out what the dialogue is saying. And I've rewatched this several times to try and get a fix on it, but still cannot do so. From what I gather, Dan is an adult acting like a child, while the children are children who act like adults. Can't you guys be somewhat realistic?
I understand that Dan is supposed to be unrealistic. An angry jerk that tries to take on the world. That's the point. And I like it.
But I would like everyone else to be realistic. Chris may be excusable if you want to exaggerate his Extreme Doormat personality - and Elise is excusable once we find out that she's really spoiler alert. But all the one-shot characters should act realistically - which means kids should be wild and weird and crazy and out-of-control. Not acting like responsible adults.
At this point in the show, the only consistently enjoyable character for me is Elise. Because she acts realistically! Now, in fairness, the show would later be changed to be exactly that: Dan is the only unrealistic element.
Anyways, they end up knocking Dan unconscious and fixing his teeth. How? I thought he swallowed the tooth. Oh right, bad writing.
But there's a cavity that they couldn't fill in time before the gas wore off. They need him to come in again. Dan realizes that this is the dentist's evil plan - to fix his teeth while breaking something else, forcing Dan to go back again and again and keep giving him his money. Chris points out how ludicrous this is, but it falls on deaf ears.
Dan needs a revenge plan. And so here's what he comes up with:
- 1) Dan and Chris kidnap the dentist.2) Chris pins down the dentist.3) Dan drills a hole in the dentist's face.
Wow. So much fail in that scheme. Let's go through that again, shall we?
- 1) Dan and Chris kidnap the dentist.
How? You don't know where he lives. How are you going to find him? And if you're plan is to kidnap him from work, then that leaves all of the other people working there - plus the other patients - as witnesses.
- 2) Chris pins down the dentist.
Have you seen this guy? The dentist is, like, 2-3 times your size! You can't subdue him without some sort of tools. And if you do use tools, where are you going to get them? We've seen Dan's apartment - if he had the resources to get good equipment, he wouldn't be living in a dump like that. The only reason you were able to kidnap and subdue someone before was because it was a weak, ignorant child.
- 3) Dan drills a hole in the dentist's face.
Definitely a nitpick here, but you're drilling a hole in his head, not his face. Plus, as previously mentioned, I doubt Dan owns a drill.
THINK!
Chris says that he's not going to do it. Undying Loyalty? What's that?
Cut to later at night when Chris is watching a horror movie with Elise. He is visibly not enjoying it. HELLO!?
Elise is supposed to be the realistic, Only Sane Man in the show. And yet her husband is in clear emotional pain, and she does nothing. Yes, she does ask him if he is okay, and he responds with the affirmative. But anyone with half a fly's brain - and that includes Elise - would be able to see that he is only saying that to please her. His actions don't match his words - therefore he is lying.
Elise should have stopped the movie immediately, and told him that she'd rather do something else. It is clear that he is experiencing massive discomfort from this.
But despite that, I'm not blaming her at all. Because as dumb as it is to not see the needs of a romantic partner - especially one that you are married to - Chris is holding an Idiot Ball here too. By doing what is undoubtedly the stupidest thing to do with your romantic partner: lying.
Elise asked if he was okay. He should have said no. Why exactly didn't he do this? If he did, then she, out of concern for him, would have stopped the movie and ended his pain.
Now, you could say that they're in love and he was trying to put up with the pain because she was enjoying the movie. He was so in love with her that he was willing to take the pain if it brought her pleasure for him to do so.
This is ball crushingly stupid. This is the type of love you experience when you first fall in love with someone and get into a new relationship - not the kind when you've been married.
You two are married! Talk to each other! Communicate! These things are essential in making a relationship last - figure out what would work and what wouldn't. And on the points that wouldn't, such as movie interests, find a new solution.
Elise wants to watch horror movies, but Chris cannot stand them. The solution? Have her watch them when he's not around. And if she wants the experience of watching it with someone, have her invite a friend over. Simple fix! And I thought about this in three minutes or so after hearing the problem. So, are you telling me that a married couple, who are supposed to be looking after each other, and who have had several hours to discuss this issue* can't come up with something that me, a twenty-year-old college student boy who has only been in a deep relationship once in his life*, can come up with in three minutes!? That's bullshit.
Now, if this happened with any other character, I might laugh at it and move on, but this is Chris - who shouldn't be holding an Idiot Ball as big as the empire state building, as that would be out of character - and ELISE. She has already been very well-established as being portrayed like someone right out of Real Life. Hell, her character is the most consistent of the three leads and she's had the least amount of screen time. Why? Because she doesn't contradict herself and her personality the way the other two idiots do.
Until now.
Yeah, on this particular issue, I hate her. She loses all respect I had for her. And Chris does too.
I'm not even ten minutes into this episode yet, and I've already had so many complaints about it. In case it weren't obvious, this is what I consider to be Dan Vs's Dethroning Moment of Suck. This entire episode is the only one that I considered skipping when I decided to liveblog it, before I chose to go along with it anyways.
And boy do I regret it.
But hey, at least it helped move the plot along. Oh wait a minute. NO IT FUCKING DIDN'T. What does this have to do with Dan's revenge against the dentist? I'll tell you: nothing. Obviously the only reason it's here is to give Elise something to do in this episode - otherwise it would focus entirely on Dan and Chris. But Elise's scenes are the ones that I enjoy (except this one). I sure as hell don't want them to go away. What do we do?
Oh, I know! What about that freaking supercomputer that she was building!? Yeah, there's a good B-Plot for you! Why not focus on that instead?
Look, I'm not saying that Elise should be denied a relationship with Chris when she's on-camera. I only ask that it be portrayed more realistically. And if you're going to do this, and portray their relationship poorly, at least have the decency to do this in an episode with a better A-Plot. That way at least something would be enjoyable.
Anyways, the movie is mercifully interrupted by the start of a Running Gag, Dan peering into their house's window at odd hours of the night. Oh goodie, the plot is here. Maybe now there will be less stupidity.
So, anyways, Dan needs to break into the dentist's office. Chris gets out his toolbox and Dan shuffles through it, pulling out various tools and tossing them away until he gets to what he wants. But the animators, of course, got lazy and just repeated the same tools over and over. Now, I mentioned that the animators here are lazy enough to not have distracting background characters. That laziness is acceptable, because its style allows us to better focus on the characters in the foreground.
But here? There's no reason for it. Draw more variety in the tools. You don't even have to think! Just go home, pull out your toolbox, and take a look at every tool you have, and pick from there. And you CANNOT possibly tell me that not a single animator has a toolbox. Even if that were the case, I'm sure that AT LEAST one of them has a friend whose toolbox they could use. Something!
Anyways, Dan pulls out a crowbar, and uses it to smash a window open. Then he continues smashing it until there's no glass left. Then he smashes two more windows with it. Then he pries the door open with the crowbar, walks inside, then comes back out and smashes one more window, before heading back in.
I will freely admit it: That was funny. About as funny as the teddy bear joke from the beginning. Even this episode has SOME good moments.
Once inside, Dan sprays deodorant everywhere (including in Chris's face) to check for laser beams. He then sees that the name on the door is "Dr. Pullem D.D.S. SV". Dan argues that SV must stand for Supervillain. He asks for the crowbar to break into the office. Chris just opens the door instead. Dan says "Fine. We'll break it on the way out."
Once inside, Dan takes his dental file, where the dentist has scribbled nonsense on it. The real way to look at it is through his dental goggles, which reveal it to be a symbol code. They take it to Elise and she has the supercomputer translate it, revealing that Dan was right and the dentist breaks things as he fixes other things. SEE!? This is what Elise is good for, writers! There was no need to have her earlier scene if you were just looking for something for her to do.
Oh, and I would go on a tirade about how no one with a medical degree should place profit above their patient's well-being, but I live in America, so it's kinda a standard practice. Plus, this particular dentist is excused from that anyways, given the upcoming Plot Twist.
The next day, we see the dentist come into his office to see Dan and Chris - with a drill. He wisely chooses to flee. Hey, idiot! Next time you should have let the broken glass at the entrance tell you that something was up and call the cops before setting foot in that building. They chase him through his evil lair and to his evil vehicle where he drives away. Yes, he really is a supervillain - that's the twist.
- He's getting away! Let's go to our car and chase after him!
Is what a normal person would say. But Dan's line gives us the Crowning Moment Of Funny for this episode. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Now, they have a car chase. Hilarity Ensues. Just about everything funny that can happen in a car chase to make it funny happens. The dentist is also wearing his supervillain outfit now, rather than his normal getup that he had previously, but this is "Dan Vs The Dentist." I stopped caring about logic a long time ago.
Anyways, the dentist ultimately gets to the highway and gets away while doing an Evil Laugh. We even see him going fast with his rocket-powered car. If I cared about logic, I would point out that he should have used the rockets from the get-go to ensure a getaway, rather than just making it highly likely. I might also say that when he did use them, Chris's car was close enough that it should have melted or at least caught fire. And I may even go so far as to point out that he'll clearly get arrested for speeding by the police, so the whole thing is stupid.
...but that's just hypothetical.
Cut to later when Dan and Chris are looking for him in the desert. "He has to be somewhere around here." says Chris.
Had I not lost faith in logic, I would point out the contradiction when he clearly said "He's getting on the highway!" earlier and they don't know which exit he took so the dentist could be anywhere.
But there is his secret lair here after all - shaped like a giant tooth.
- Dan: Ya think!?
Dan, you seem to be lost. This is "Dan Vs The Dentist". We don't take kindly to logic here. Chris's statement is stupid because he hot glue-gunned the Idiot Ball to his hand today. But that's okay, because here, we throw good writing out the window! It's Dan Vs The Dentist!
Also, with Dan's comment being criticism of Chris, the writers are admitting that they don't know what they're doing. In any other episode, this would be horrible, but not here, since logic doesn't apply.
Yeah, I'm clearly going insane. Getting some help about that would be logical, but logic went on a vacation, and I wish him well - and hope he brings me a postcard.
Back to the show. Dan and Chris go to the tooth, and they are attacked by Dentobots - robots with dental tools for hands. Sure why not. One fight scene later, two of the three robots go down. "Open Wide." The third manages to tie Dan in dental floss. He breaks out of the device that he's never heard of before. And then pins down the last Dentobot. "Rinse that out and spit."
Okay, Dan is officially the master at Pre-Mortem One-Liners.
They go through his lair, filled with more dentist-themed traps, and at last confront him. He exhibits traditional Cartoonish Supervillainy which includes Failure Is the Only Option. Dan uses this to his advantage and takes the bear that broke his tooth and throws it at the dentist, thus breaking his teeth.
Dan triggers the fortress's self-destruct sequence and drags Chris out. After the countdown, the self-destruct timer says "Have a nice day. Goodbye." before exploding.
Ordinarily, that would be pointless, but here it works because logic isn't going to be applied.
After Dan and Chris drive home, Elise wants to watch another movie, but this time, out of consideration for Chris, she picks a Romantic Comedy. Their dialogue here makes it sound like this was supposed to be a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming. But it isn't. It's just an average moment and isn't heartwarming at all because it's how we EXPECT them to act. This feels like it should just be part of their ordinary daily lives and we want them to be responsible.
And you might say that I Fail Logic Forever because I am using logic on this episode. But that earlier scene with the horror movies was so poorly executed that it transcends the need to leave logic behind for this episode. By extension, this one does too, since this scene wouldn't be stupid if you just left out the earlier scene.
But, like all Cartoonish Supervillains, the dentist cannot be defeated, and so he rises up from the remains of his lair, declaring that he will get his revenge on Dan.
This episode sucks. There's just too much wrong with it to go into detail. Even I could easily have written a better episode about Dan getting revenge on the dentist. In fact, that's exactly what I'll do!
Next page: Dan Vs The Dentist - The Good Version
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