Next to last episode: the girls are split up and lose the penthouse to Mandy, and are forced to go on separate missions, but are captured by a collector supervillain who collects spies.
It sure sounds like it would make a good multipart finale, but apparently not. A bit of a waste of a plot, if you ask me. They could have gotten way more out of this idea.
And today's kink is... dollification! That certainly is a new one. Oh wait, no, I think we've had that one before.
Fangirl, the villain, discovered about the spies... through an online underground forum? How very meta. So that's where Totally Spies Underground got the name from. And, well, that certainly explains a lot, both ways...
Oh, and she also has them fight each other in an arena.
And yes, she does treat them like dolls, and gives them lightsabers:
Fangirl also has a battle doll that shoots lasers. The other kidnapped spies are kinda useless though, so of course the girls have to save them.
And of course Jerry reverses his decision. "Merely following WOOHP policy", my ass, though.
The finale of season six, and it's a really good one. The fashion professor's class goes to Versailles, Mandy's luggage gets dumped into the ocean, Mandy gets bumped in the head and thinks she is Marie Antoinette, the villain wants to become the king of Versailles and the world (curiously, he never once mentions becoming king of France), and the girls fight a bunch of living statues (well, animatronics, but still).
It's pretty obvious all the creative energy went into this two-parter, which explains why the latter half of the season seems so slim on ideas and content.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesI just finished watching the "Totally Busted!" trio. Four seasons down, two seasons and The Movie to go.
Next up, Totally Reprised
continues their quest to find movies and shows that are Totally Spies episodes in disguise with Catwoman (2004).
So the TS recap for the podcast is: After nearly getting fired from her job, Alex gets murdered by Yanny Hadere, a make-up mogul with a devious scheme to conquer the world of women's fashion. Now it's up to Sam to catch her and save the day. In the subplot, Clover gets sick and tries to hit on her doctor.
Man, the Freeze-Frame Bonus in the opening credits is a whole expository scene in itself, involving Egyptian Maus (those spotted cats you see in the movie) being exported around the world, a mysterious cat cult (possibly involving witchcraft), and a cat burglar more interested in jewelry than in gold.
You'd think that the introduction of your magic anti-ageing cream would be a bad time to replace your still very good-looking model with a younger one, marketing wise, but nope. Clearly these beauty standards are more about the age than the actual look.
Risking your life for a cat who clearly did not need saving. I'm not sure if this is supposed to show Parience as brave or foolish... maybe both?
"So I found this wallet you dropped in your own apartment building, but instead of dropping it in your mailbox or coming back there later, I googled all the artwork in your apartment, figured out where you worked, and walked into your office to ask you out right then and there... romantic, much?"
"Man, I don't care if women are getting headaches and fainting, but I draw the line at tarnishing their beauty! Women can suffer for all I care, as long as they look hot! Yes, I'm that kind of jerk!"
The guy is clearly okay with cold blooded murder, though, so that feels a bit inconsistent. So Patience gets flushed down the sewer and drowns.
And then she gets resurrected by a cat coven... with cat breath. And then she gets cat powers. Or becomes half cat. Honestly, it's more like the latter than the former.
Patience's friend sure has some "if I can't have you, I'm at least setting you up with some hot boy" vibes, doesn't she? I mean, who gives their friend a leather catsuit for their birthday?
Oh gods, the cop love interest is lecturing a class of schoolchildren about being good, and he gets questions about whether he is going to shoot with his gun. Yeah, that sure hasn't aged well.
This basketball game for two actors who clearly can't play ball to save their lives is brought to you by extensive camera editing!
I mean, really. This is supposed to look super impressive, but it just looks lame. Sigourney Weaver, this is not.
Catwoman on a motorcycle is also supposed to look cool, but not even the heavy editing can quite hide how tame the ride downtown actually is. Especially since it is clearly sped up.
The action scene in the jewelry store is better, but still mixed. Some actual action, but mostly just camera trickery. You'd think that for a catwoman movie, they'd invest a bit more in getting some great action scenes.
The props are great, though. There's a jewelry box for the diamond claw necklace that's in shot for maybe a second, but it looks very authentic nonetheless.
Patience goes on a wiki walk cat-related rabbit hole, and discovers that her cat friend keeps popping up in old pictures and paintings.
The club scene is pretty good. The movie definitely picks up a bit at this point.
Oh hey, it's time for handwriting psychoanalysis! That's a new one.
George goes to slap his wife when she claps back at him, and he hurts his hand on her face. That was great. And then she kills him, because she is the villain. Would have been a great twist if they hadn't given it away early on. Not sure why she uses the makeup when she knows what it does, though.
... Seriously? The police can't figure out two pairs of handwriting are from the same person in different moods, but they can do a lipstick scan on a glass and a picture and find a match? What sillyness is this?
Okay, I get that Laurel frames Catwoman, but how did she get the police to show up so fast?
"You may have lost your woman, but at least you got your man." They are both women. This is a dumb line.
"You know, Lassie would have brought me a key." Hey, this cat literally brought you back from the dead, I think it has done plenty for you, sassypants.
Catwoman then slips through the bars of her cell door, jumps out a three story window, lands on her feet in the road, gets bumped in the ass by a car, and purrs in response. Well, there goes any pretense of seriousness.
Catwoman kills the villain in a much better fight scene (though it does reek a bit of catfight territory at times), and... she breaks up with Tom. It doesn't really feel like it makes sense in the context of this movie, but I assume it is so she can hook up with Batman and be his frenemy love interest or something.
I'm also not sure why the ending is suddenly so ambiguous about her morality. That's probably also something that makes more sense in the context of the comics than of this movie, because she seems to be pretty unambiguously good in this movie.
That was a fun movie, and yeah, it was basically a Totally Spies movie, with Alex and Sam representing the two sides of Patience and Catwoman, and Clover being the boy-crazy girlfriend. And Laurel is very much in the mould of a TS villain, rivalling Helga von Gugen for vileness.
Edited by Redmess on Aug 6th 2023 at 10:38:19 AM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times[[Totally Reprised https://www.audioentropy.com/totallyreprise/2019/9/4/bonus-episode-6-barbie-chuckles-you-mean-the-chaos-emeralds
]] covers another movie that is basically a Totally Spies episode: Western Animation Barbie Spy Squad.
The quality was definitely better than I expected from movie no. 32 in a franchise that clearly loves to pump these things out to sell toys. And yes, this is basically a Totally Spies origin episode from start to end.
And I say episode, because there really is only enough plot for maybe a two parter here (so 44 minutes), stretched out to 75 minutes. The main problem is the pacing, which could be a bit snappier, especially in action scenes, and the dialogue, which similarly could be a bit snappier and better paced. The first half hour is especially slow paced, taking its time with introducing the girls to the secret headquarters, putting them through training, and giving them gadgets, something Totally Spies routinely does much faster.
There are also some elements that seem redundant to the movie, most notably Barbie's brother and sister. The sister gets a subplot about feeling insecure about her athletics performance, which seems redundant since Barbie herself is going through exactly the same story arc. They also discover Barbie and her friends are spies now, but then... don't really do anything with that. If the movie had been paced better, there could have been more room for a subplot with them.
There is also a lengthy dress up sequence, which I guess is par for the course for this franchise.
The robo-kitty is rather superfluous as well. There clearly was only room for one robo-sidekick in this movie, and it's not like there weren't plenty of characters already.
The thief is a rather one dimensional character who switches sides on a dime. I think they could have gotten more out of that betrayal by the main villain. I did like her interactions with the girls, but they could have done more with it. She was still great fun though.
Speaking of the girls, they do a poor job of distinguishing who is who. They feel like stock characters, but apparently they are not?
It is also a bit ironic that this movie wants to be all about teamwork, because if anything, Barbie's teammates are not up for the job and keeping her back, especially early on. I think for that message to work, rather than foxussing on Barbie performing perfectly, they should have gone for showing how a team effort makes them perform better than any one individually.
Edited by Redmess on Aug 17th 2023 at 11:14:35 AM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesFive seasons in and Clover continues to think fashion designers are Always Lawful Good. XD
Come on! Let's bless them all until we get fershnickered!Sorry about the double post. ^_^;; Also five seasons in and Alex can’t quite get over her jealousy towards Britney.
Come on! Let's bless them all until we get fershnickered!"Ho-Ho-Ho-No!" was a shell of a lot better than the previous two episodes. ![]()
Jennifer Hale, Sam's voice actress, confirmed on Twitter
that there's some recasting going on, due to the studio being unwilling to pay their union rates.
Sucks to hear the original cast isn't coming back (or at least, some of them). The reboot as a whole though looks alright. They definitely kept the anime feel, though the weird patterns of the spies' patterns look kind of ugly.
Sure hope those little robots don't wind up being too annoying if they speak, they give off the vibes of annoying sidekick.
I just finished watching "Totally Icky." It was good, although the dirt and grime-themed villain wasn't the only totally icky part. You'd think after a while, Sam, Clover & Alex would get a restraining order against Mandy and Mindy.
Edited by Demetrios on Sep 8th 2023 at 1:34:22 PM
Come on! Let's bless them all until we get fershnickered!
Part of me wonders if the revival is gonna try toning down some of the more tongue in cheek elements of the show like the fanservice, or get even more cheeky with them.
Like, would they still be able to get away with elaborately tying the girls up Once per Episode this day and age?
At this point however, the design and voice changes and announced tune ups definitely give it more vibes of being a Gadgetinis type spin off over a proper new season of the original series.
Edited by Psi001 on Sep 9th 2023 at 2:04:57 PM

That's never brought up. She is a spy, so you'd think she would know, but it is never so much as hinted at.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times