Darkwing Duck

Well, here it is, the pilot premier finale Big Two Parter for Darkwing Duck.

We open on Audubon Bridge, with LP driving into St Canard, and narrating that the city is overrun with super-crime, and Darkwing stands alone against it.

Scrooge is talking to Bradford, one of the vultures (apparently not at all minding LP blabbering on in front). I suddenly noticed that Bradford seems to be wearing a human-modelled suit that does not fit his neck at all, giving the impression that he inhabits the suit rather than wearing it.

Bradford criticizes Scrooge for wasting more money on trips, but Scrooge believes LP is onto something big, which seems to be Taurus Bulba. Who is on the front of Swine Magazine (Times Magazine, clearly). Bull of the year. Seems like an overly narrow category, considering the diversity of animal people walking around. That rather lessens the prestige a bit there.

Bulba seems to be an inventor in this timeline. Interesting change. In the original, he was a mob boss abusing the work of an inventor (in the standard I-have-your-daughter-now-you-work-for-me plot).

Scrooge accidentally mouths Bradford off to his face because he doesn't know how technology works. Funny, but doesn't really make sense with something as simple as a TV, which Scrooge would definitely know. Another Monty Burns-style gag that does not really fit the character.

Dewey is going to interview Drake for his show, and... apparently he assumes his identity is a secret. I'm not sure why. Even if they didn't see it directly, wouldn't they have heard about it by now? I guess the show just wants to make fun of secret identities or something.

And then we get a shot of Darkwing on the bridge, which of course immediately turns into a pratfall, because this show is allergic to playing it straight or something.

What, no opening credits? Just straight to title? Ok then.

The ducks arrive at Bulba's headquarters, and Bulba bursts out the door like he is going to confront them, but of course he just greets them normally. Bit of a strange introduction.

Okay, one line of dialogue and this Bulba already seems a bit strange to me. Why is he taking selfies with the kids? Scrooge seems equally unimpressed.

Bulba seems to know everything about them, which doesn't raise any suspicions at all.

Meanwhile, Dewey and LP arrive at Darkwing's hideout (presumably LP got the address from Drake). It already has the motorcycle, and a full base of operations, which seems a bit odd. Just how long has Drake had to build all this? Who funded it? For that matter, who built it?

Drake also has a winterized costume, which... erm... makes him look like a bit like a pimp, to be honest. The fur trimmings on the hat are really too much. And... is he wearing a parka hood underneath the hat? And those goggles... What a fashion disaster. It looks like a snow pimp. After Lena's new costume, I'm assuming this is another Argones creation. I'm starting to think the guy should stick to storytelling and leave the character design to others...

Darkwing makes his grand entry, of course interrupted by LP and Dewey. I hope we can get at least one dramatic entrance played straight this episode, if that's not too much to ask.

This new Darkwing voice also takes some getting used to. It just doesn't sound as imposing as Cummings, and it makes his entry speech fall a little flat auditively, even before being interrupted.

Apparently Fenton hooked Darkwing up with his gizmos, and of course Darkwing mocks Gizmoduck while he's at it. This is an interesting new dynamic between the two that the original show never really explored (I don't think Fenton was ever even outside the suit in the original Darkwing show). While I don't expect too much from it on this show, a reboot certainly could explore an interesting idea like that.

LP gushes about the villains the fictional DW used to battle, naming the Fearsome Four. It rather gives the impression that those are the only four villains aide from Negaduck non-Darkwing fans are expected to recognize. I guess that is the narrow reference pool kicking in, like how casual Batman fans only know about the Joker and Catgirl.

Of course LP expects Darkwing to fight the same villains, or sort of villains, in real life. Of course, there are no super villains running around in real life St Canard, though I find the computer's assertion that there is 0 crime a bit unbelievable. Every metropolis has some crime on a day to day basis, even if it isn't super crime. Not to mention criminal organizations and such. A hero like Darkwing supporting an overwhelmed police force with comparatively normal crimes would have worked just as well, but that's not the angle the show is going with. Apparently there is a new mayor who cleaned up the place. That seems... unlikely. Chances are the mayor is either corrupt, or it's a very convenient plot device to rid the city of crime so Darkwing will have nothing to do.

Also, the computer is a very snarky AI, which is fun.

Meanwhile, Bulba is showing off his invention, the Ramrod. And yes, that is the same name as the original anti-gravity device created by Dr Waddlemeyer in the original. Here, it is a "reality altering mechanism", but it really just sounds like a Star Trek Replicator. This is especially clear when the first thing it does is make food out of nothing. Though I do notice Bulba is stage manageing the food choice towards haggis instead of pizza, so I don't rule out the idea that this is actually a teleporter.

And of course there is a gag about no one but Scotsmen liking haggis. And it's not made with sheep's bladder, but the stomach. Which really isn't all that gross, especially when you know what normal sausage skin is usually made of ( it is intestines). Haggis is basically just a sausage made out of organ meat. From what I hear, it's the side dishes you want to avoid, so there's that.

Meanwhile, Darkwing is pretending to look for crime, complaining that his chin looks weird from this angle, which seems to be a joke at the expense of the original design (I was never quite clear what that fat beak was supposed to refer to).

They finally spot a robbery, which is conveniently across the street from them (seriously, how is a superhero supposed to surveil a metropolis on foot?), and Darkwing goes in for the fight. How he survives a two story (at least) jump down is beyond me. He's not Superman, he's Batman, after all. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Batman stories fudge such details as well.

Darkwing beats the guys up, but then discovers this is a moving company, which suggests this was a false alarm. An all night moving company, apparently, which seems like a terrible idea for exactly this reason, namely that moving stuff in the middle of the night just looks way too suspicious to work as a business model. There seems to be a niche for overnight moving for businesses, but residential moving doesn't seem to be a thing, and is even illegal in most places, not just because of false alarms, but because of noise complaints. And presumably even office movers wouldn't be packing stuff in the middle of the night. But these guys were carrying a couch, so even that seems unlikely.

Also, these "movers" immediately attacked Darkwing, instead of backing off, so getting beaten up really is on them. Not to mention that burglars disguised as movers is the oldest trick in the book, so... yeah, D Arkwing was entirely justified in thinking it was criminal, and the police definitely would have liked a talk with these people.

Darkwing is breaking down over the lack of crime, when Gosalyn shows up to break into a building next door. Man, twice in a row, and only five minutes and one building apart. For a crime free city, all the interesting stuff sure seems to happen in one place this night.

I mean, the figure wears a hoodie, but it's obviously Gosalyn. Kid sized duck, red hair, sneakers, could it be anyone else? How many red haired ducks can you name?

D Arkwing does his dramatic entry, but Gosalyn doesn't wait around to hear him finish. Apparently Gosalyn is after the Ramrod, which conveniently was right inside the building Darkwing was watching. There sure a lot of contrived coincidences involved here.

Also, this metropolis sure is deserted at night. What big city is this quiet at any hour of the night? I live in a residential area in a big city, and even in the dead of night there is some traffic. And this isn't exactly New York either, which St Canard clearly is.

Gosalyn shows up, and of course security shows up to arrest Darkwing, LP, and Dewey. Taurus and the others show up, and Taurus quickly defuses the situation, recognizing Darkwing as the hero saving his lab. I don't know why Scrooge is being so cagey about Darkwing, though. And then... the mayor shows up, out of nowhere, giving a speech about making St Canard safe. And gives Darkwing the key to the city. Um... okay. That sure came out of nowhere. Was the mayor just waiting around in the dark room until they showed up? This feels like a really shoehorned scene, and I can't figure out if we are supposed to find it suspicious or not. None of the characters seem to bat an eye at it, and it wasn't set up at all, so it seems legit, but it just comes out of the blue, which suggests it was a setup by Bulba somehow.

Meanhwile, Huey is trying to figure out how the Ramrod works, because it seems to create something from nothing. Though I should point out that Bulba never claimed that it could do that, just that it could create things. I assumed it would be rather like an advanced 3D printer, though the episode never really elaborates on it.

We cut to Dewey Tonite for the interview. Apparently Dewey has a picture of Darkwing coming out of the shower, though I'm not sure why he would be wearing his mask in the bathroom. Odd little detail.

Darkwing talks about his cook book, and suddenly Gosalyn shows up in his hideout. She asks Darkwing about his plans to stop Taurus. She claims she found the hideout because his smoke bombs contain traces of salt water, which she claims means it would be near the bay. That logic seems rather... flawed in a city on the coast, since the ocean coast would be much larger than just the bay, at least if this is the same sort of bay as San Francisco. It wouldn't exactly narrow things down. Dewey livestreaming sounds much more plausible. It reminds me of that gag with Negaduck's breadcrumb trail and his giant flag.

Gosalyn sounds a bit too old, I think. She has a deeper voice than Darkwing. It will take some getting used to, I guess.

Apparently the Ramrod was invented by Gos' grandfather, like in the original, and the machine is unstable, which he went to warn Bulba about, and then disappeared. Hmm, I wonder if this show will have him be dead as well. The original show was careful to keep that part firmly in the backstory, if I remember right.

The central plot device, by the way, seems to be the key that activates the machine. Interesting, the Fountain episode also put a lot of undue focus on a key. Wonder if that will be a plot point after all.

Darkwing asks her for proof, which there isn't (well, apart from the disappearance, which you'd think would be reported to the police), and points out that her breaking into two places in one night doesn't exactly vouch for her, especially since there isn't any indication of Bulba not being who he claims to be.

Dewey believes Gos, and asks her to be her Webby, who she of course doesn't know (why isn't Webby in this episode anyway?).

LP convinces Darkwing that Gos needs his help, and they ride out on the bike. They jump off the suspension cable onto the bridge, which immediately raises the question of how no one ever notices this.

"Maybe these children should be in school." Funny you'd say that. I don't think they go to school. Like, ever.

Scrooge asks Bulba to see the plan, while Darkwing and Co break into Bulba's office. Of course Bulba comes in just as they are searching, so they hide. The Ducks soon leave, and Bulba apparently somehow knows Darkwing is hiding in the filing cabinet, though he has no way of knowing that. I'm not sure how that worked. Darkwing brushes it off and asks Bulba about Gos, who is in a cheesy family picture with Bulba. Bulba explains that Waddlemeyer was his best friend and colleague, and that he was disintegrated by the Ramrod while trying to fix it.

Gos refutes that her grandfather is gone, steals Bulba's key and runs to the Ramrod with Bulba in pursuit. Darkwing tries to stop her, but Gos explains that her grandfather is not dead, just in a different dimension. So the thing is a teleporter after all, of sorts.

Meanwhile, Huey discovers that the machine is a Salego Circuit, mentioned in the diary. Salego is a... dragon? It looks kinda weird to see a humanoid dragon, to be honest. He claimed that every work of fiction is a window into an alternate dimension. So... this is basically the DC multiverse for fiction.

"Waddlemeyer must have invented it by accident." Uh huh. Sure. He accidentally invented an interdimensional portal while trying to invent a replicator. Sounds legit. Comic book legit, that is.

I'm also amused by the assertion that creating something from nothing is somehow more implausible than works of fiction actually being other dimensions. A bit of Arbitrary Scepticism there.

Bulba admits Waddlemeyer could still be alive, but explains that he doesn't know to what dimension he went, and that the machine is too unstable to search them all. I don't think it would matter whether or not it was stable for that particular difficulty, but okay. Also, how would such a machine even determine what dimension to pick out? You'd think there would need to be some sort of reference to direct the machine, which would make the search that much easier.

Darkwing challenges Bulba on the Ramrod being stable, which he claims it is, though he still seems unsure about it. Bulba suddenly turns on them, proclaiming he will knock them both into another dimension as well. Not sure why he needed to reveal himself there. It's not like he couldn't have let them go in and just closed the portal after them. They wanted to go and search in other dimensions, after all. His sudden reveal as a villain is clearly just a plot point, and doesn't really make much sense in the context of this scene.

Bulba gets zapped by the machine as it activates, giving him his face scar and breaking his horn, and Gos makes a run for it. I'm not sure how her rubber crossbow bolt breaks through a glass pane when it didn't even faze Bulba before. Bulba chases her onto a glasswasher elevator. The elevator starts crashing down, and Gos goes for the brake while Bulba just sort of... stands there and scowls at her. You'd think he would want to stop the elevator too. He then grabs the key and tells Gos it's over, but Darkwing shows up, finally giving a full entry, and beats up Bulba. He also sounds a bit more like Cummings now, which I like.

Darkwing fights Bulba some more, but he and Gos get thrown off the building, and Gos saves them both by using Darkwing's cape as a parachute, with LP catching them down below (how did he even get there that fast?).

Meanwhile, Scrooge and the boys find Bulba desperately trying to make the Ramrod work, and Scrooge orders Bulba to shut it down.

This is an itneresting change for Bulba. He doesn't seem all that criminal here, just misguided in his scientific endeavours, and more than a bit ruthless, but he is hardly a supervillain here.

Bulba refuses and activates the machine, which is tuned to the Darkwing Duck show. And of course it promptly produces the Fearsome Four, who don't seem all that fazed about just having stepped through a portal out of nowhere. You'd think they were just waiting around for it to happen.

Of course they immediately start wrecking the city. Bushroot looks... different. More evil. And his colours are oddly muted. Of course Gizmoduck is already here to fight him.

Bit of an odd cut. The show immediately jumps from the Fearsome Four appearing to them loose in the city, wihtout showing how they reacted to being released, or to the Ducks and Bulba, or how they got out of the building.

The city calls for Darkwing, who... immediately panics and gives up. Okay then. You'd think he would be a bit better prepared mentally, given the character he is based on. And it's not like there aren't witches and gods and whatnot roaming about in this universe.

Then Fenton calls, from inside his suit, somehow without showing the suit on him. I'm not sure how that is supposed to work.

Gos slaps some sense into Darkwing and says they can fight back. Um, how does she know how to operate the computer? Why does it need a keyboard anyway, since it is driven by an AI that can clearly understand speech? It's not even a keyboard, just a bank of big blank buttons. It seems the show can't make up its mind about what kind of sci fi computer this is supposed to be (to be fair, neither could Star Trek, which also had plenty of buttons despite having a voice activated AI). I guess writers don't really have a feel of how to write for AI computers yet.

Gos disses the Fearsome Four, who all seem to attack the exact same cop for some reason. Well, except for Megavolt, who gets a yikes. Yeah, Megavolt always seemed to be the more serious danger of the group, and you can't exactly dismiss being electrocuted.

Gos proposes defeating the villains and breaking back into Bulba's lab to send them back, but Darkwing objects that this is too dangerous for her. He kind of has a point, since she was already almost killed once this night. LP points out that children are often the most daring adventurers, basically describing the kid adventure trope where kids are the most competent adventurers, of which both these shows are certainly guilty at times.

Now that I think of it, where is Gos supposed to be living? In the original, she was explicitly living in an orphanage, and that played a large role in Darkwing forming a bond with her and adopting her in the first place. I wonder if they will keep that here. It was rather important for striking the right tone in the original pilot, after all.

"Sorry, still looking for my real family. Don't need a new one." Speaking of tone, I get the impression the episode wants to avoid declaring Waddlemeyer dead as long as possible. The original pilot did not do that, immediately making clear that he had been murdered, and got a lot of emotional traction out of that. It was frankly more daring than this episode has been so far.

I also notice that Darkwing doesn't seem to have his gas gun. I expected him to use it during his fall from the skyscraper, but no dice.

Wait, Scrooge and the boys are missing? How? Oh, they've been locked up by Bulba. Or rather, he is locking them up right now. So why is the computer showing them as missing? I really feel we are missing a very important transition scene between the portal opening and the subsequent scenes.

Bulba apparently wants to tear down reality in the name of science, so he can build a new world, or something. Not sure how he thinks that will work, but okay. Well, it's official, Bulba has turned into Midnight Sparkle. Even got his evil transformation.

And then Bradford shows up to stop Bulba. Apparently FOWL hired Bulba to crack the Salego Circuit for... reasons, but is displeased that Bulba is using it to sow chaos rather than reign it in. I'm not sure what the end goal for FOWL was here, either. How does opening interdimensional portals help them take over the world? And I thought that wasn't even their goal to begin with. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what their goal is, beyond getting rich and powerful.

Also... does that mean Waddlemeyer was hired by FOWL? He clearly must have known about the Salego Circuit, given the key he made for it, so he must have known about the plan, right? This raises many questions.

Bulba breaks with FOWL, who he considers to be unambitious, just like the others.

Liquidator, Burshroot and Megavolt are down with the machine. I thought Bushroot was attacking Gizmoduck? Is this supposed to be earlier? But Quackerjack is not here, which implies he is already gone to the toy district. The timeline on events seems to be really muddled here, and the episode stilld oesn't really explain what happened between the Fearsome Four appearing out of the portal, the Ducks being captured, and Darkwing showing up at his hideout.

Also, I'm noticing the Fearsome Four haven't said a word yet. This seems really odd from this usually very chatty bunch.

"how many times must I say it? We are not supervillains." Uh huh. which is why you hire scientists to create interdimensional portals. The way they are talkin about limiting risk and chaos, you'd think they would want to avoid such a thing in the first place. How does FOWL expect this to lead to anything but chaos? Their motivation for this episode doesn't make any sense.

Megavolt zaps Bradford, and he finally says something. Bushroot still looks oddly colourless, even in bright light. I'm not sure what's up with that. The contrast between him and Megavolt's palet is rather striking. So why isn't Quackerjack here?

Bulba says he needs something big and flashy to announces themselves to the world as supervillains (because that's Bulba's plan, apparently: to become a supervillain. Odd motivation, to be honest).

Liquidator suggests killing Darkwing. He has a really bland voice, to be honest. At least Megavolt sounds like Megavolt.

Quackerjack's voice sounds a bit off too. It doesn't really fit him, I think. He is faffing around in a toy warehouse, apparently for no particular reason. I don't think the epiosde wants to explain how he got there, either. Or what happened to the fight between Bushroot and Gizmoduck, for that matter. LP and Darkwing begin singing part of the DW theme, while Gos sneaks off to fight Quackerjack.

Meanwhile, Bradford gets thrown into another cell (because of course Bulba has a cell block), and is about to run off his mouth about FOWL when the boys notice him. Not sure how he didn't notice them right away, because they were right in front of him.

The boys buy Bradford's explanation for being here, although it is pretty weak, claiming that he is here to check on Scrooge's adventure.

"Are you sure this is a good idea. You're just children." The episode is leaning into "but you're just a kid" adventure gags today, I see. Bradford seems genuinely confused though, which is odd, since he obviously is well aware of who they are and the adventures they get up to. Bradford calls for a FOWL extraction team, which seems like a terrible idea considering he doesn't want to blow his cover.

Meanwhile, Darkwing and crew discover Quackerjack's giant robot. Where did he get that thing? How did he build that so fast? It can't have been that long since they broke out, or whatever happened. Man, this timeline is a mess.

They flee on motorcycle from the giant robot, which of course rampages after them through the city. And it's kaiju sized, in case you're wondering... which presses the question of where it came from all the more.

Quackerjack thinks he trapped Darkwing, but they escape. Quackerjack is also not very talky. What, did they get only like one line for each character? It makes the villains seem oddly absent from the episode to have them be silent so much.

Liquidator shows up with a commercial quip and chases after them next. No, wait, they chase after Liquidator. I thought he was attacking them, but... apparently not. That scene was shot rather confusingly, making it look like Liquidator was attacking them, but apparently he was just passing by making a random quip to no one. That is poor cinematography and storytelling.

Meanwhile the boys and Bradford search for the Ramrod, and run across Bushroot's roots, which are apparently going to act as alarm wires. I'm not sure why Bushroot is doing this in apparently random abandoned rooms, but okay.

"It's the only way forward." Why? There clearly is plenty of hallway left to search. Nothing about this scene says they have to go through that room.

Of course they go in because... the plot says so, and Bradford almost gives himself away through his communicator, which he apparently can't just turn off. Or you know, tell his crew beforehand to keep quiet. This situation seems rather contrived to put Bradford in danger of being discovered, and he seems way too smart to be this dumb.

Dewey steps on a root with his hijinks, and Bushroot wakes up... doing a Godzilla roar. And acting like a plant zombie. They escape, and Bradford complains about his life being put in danger, despite insisting on pressing on with the boys. I mean... he could just have stayed behind and let the boys risk their lives. Isn't that what he would want anyway, to get rid of those meddling kids? Doesn't he want to destroy them in the first place? I'm getting a bit confused about his motivations here.

Bradford swallows his communicator, which you'd think he should have done anyway since it almost gave him away already.

Meanwhile... Darkwing and Co return from fighting Liquidator. Off screen. So... did they beat him? Did he escape? What happened? I have the same questions with Bushroot and Gizmoduck. And what happened to Quackerjack?

"You guys have other clothes?" Ha, that is a good gag.

Gos and Darkwing fight over what to do next, with Darkwing trying to parent her and Gos rejecting him (rather rightly so under the circumstances, since she isn't even an orphan, at least as far as we know... See how making her an orphan from the start in the original subtly changes the dynamic towards Darkwing naturally taking up a parental role towards her? In this episode's scenario, Gos doesn't really need a new parental figure, at least not yet, and thus Darkwing's behaviour seems a lot less appropriate), and LP has a talk with her.

"Look, I know I'm being hard on him, okay, I just... I need to find my grandpa." "Of course. Which is why DW hasn't slept in days." Wait, days? But they just returned from fighting Liquidator. Which was right after finding Quackerjack. But the boys have just started escaping, which seems to have been shortly after being locked up in the first place. This timeline seems rather wonky.

"He spent all night on the phone talking to Fenton, trying to get your grandpa back". Oh, really, that, that would have been nice if we could have seen that rather than being told. And that doesn't really fit the running gag of Darkwing dismissively ignoring him. And how would Gos not know this? It's not like it is happening in secret. It's not like Darkwing is trying to keep this hidden from her. It's kind of rushed storytelling that skips steps and contrives drama without really setting it up properly.

Of course they immediately overhear Fenton and Darkwing talking, which demonstrates that these conversations are not in fact secret, and that Darkwing is making no effort to keep it that way, having it well within earshot of her.

Apparently Bulba can use the Ramrod only one more time, because the plot says so. It's not really clear how many times he has used it already. I think it's only two times, but it isn't clear because this episode keeps skipping across the timeline and doing things off screen. And of course this is just a setup so that this is their last chance to rescue Waddlemeyer.

Oh. Ohhh. I see what they are going to do. They will have the portal close and the machine blow up so Waddlemeyer is trapped forever, so they don't have to kill him off but can have Darkwing adopt him anyway. That's why they don't have him be dead from the start, they don't want to deal with a dead parental figure. Odd that they are pulling their punches on this, and a real shame. The original Darkwing show wasn't afraid to go there, and it got a lot of emotional traction out of Gos being an actual orphan, thanks to murder, no less. That was daring, and it gave Darkwing and Gos' relationship that much more weight and depth, especially with the orphanage involved. That was what really elevated the original pilot above other cartoons, at the time and arguably even now. I'm surprised that a show that was willing to have Della lose a leg in a rather Fridge Horror fashion is now suddenly squeamish about portraying a piece of actual familial drama, practically handed to them on a golden platter by a previous show. It was right there, but instead they undercut the emotional core of that original pilot by muddling Gosalyn's status as an actual orphan and victim of crime. It's a shame they are not really willing to go through with that. But then, this show often pulls its punches for safe resolution when drama gets to a voiling point. Eager for the build up but faltering at the crescendo, that's too often this show in a nutshell.

Gos taking care of an exhausted Darkwing is adorable, though.

Of course sleep is interrupted by the computer detecting the Ramrod powering up, and Darkwing goes out on his own, leaving the others to sleep. Darkwing demands to be let into Bulba's lab, but of course the Fearsome Four (minus Bushroot, who is apparently not really a character on the same level as the other villains at this point) capture him right away.

LP wakes Gos up for pancakes, and they discover that Darkwing has struck out on his own, and is being beaten up by the villains. I'm not sure where Quackerjack's robot went either. And apparently the villains are content to just punch Darkwing, instead of just using their powers.

Gos figures that the villains don't know they are not on a show, which... doesn't make much sense. After all, to them their show is reality, and this universe is basically the same reality, so what difference would it make to them whether or not they know?

Meanwhile (well, whenever meanwhile is right now...), the boys and Bradford have discovered the Ramrod. So... how long, exactly, are they supposed to have been wandering around? And where is Scrooge?

Speaking of, the Ramrod is turned on for... some reason, and tuned to the original Ducktales, showing the clip of Scrooge being upset about a sea monster eating his ice cream. Bradford assumes this is the same Scrooge from his reality, but I assume this is a different version. He wonders how he will explain this, but the boys confront him, apparently having become suspicious about him, though this seems a little contrived.

Of course he coughs up his communicator, which conveniently spills the beans about FOWL. See what I mean about that extraction team being an obviously stupid idea, to say nothing of wearing a communicator you can't turn off?

Bradford throws the boys through the portal, which... turns them into the original triplets. Okay. So that is the modern Scrooge. But then why is he acting in character for the show? The nephews just sort of appear in the scene with him. I'm not sure what the rules are supposed to be. People start acting in character for the show they go into? But how does that work for the Fearsome Four, who don't really have a role to act out in this show?

Meanwhile, LP and Gos show up dressed as Jambalaya Jake and... um... Mantis girl? Uh, let's look that up. Hey, Bulba had a pet condor in the original show. Now that's an in-joke! Oh, she's the Bugmaster, a news reporter who took on a supervillain identity to create her own news stories battling Darkwing, and decided that she liked the job rather better than journalism. Now that's an obscure reference.

The plan is to fool the Fearsome Four into letting them in as minor Darkwing villains, in any case.

"Ugh. C-stream villains." That was a funny line. Also, why is Mr. Banana Brain so huge? The doll should be small enough to fit in one hand, yet here it is huge.

Of course Quackerjack lets them in. Meanwhile, Bradford is trying to take out the key, which seems unreasonably hard to do for some reason. Bulba quickly explains his plan to reshape reality (well, he doesn't explain it very well, but it's better than nothing) and how he will destroy Darkwing to prove it.

LP and Gos arrive, and LP gives her an inspiring talk when Gos backs down from the reality of the danger. It is a great little moment, and I really wish we could have more of this Launchpad instead of Terra Firmian Launchpad.

Gos distracts Bulba with Darkwing's intro while LP frees Darkwing, who starts to fight Bulba. Quackerjack and Bushroot join in as well. Uh... apparently Bushroot is some sort of viney snake monster now. Kinda weird. The other villains pretty much look exactly like their original incarnation, so I don't know why they changed Bushroot so much.

Bushroot gives another monster screech during the fight. Yeah, they basically turned him into a plant monster.

"Well, technically Bushroot isn't really a villain, perse." Um, yes he is? I'm really not sure where the writers are going with this. I get the feeling they don't really know who Bushroot is.

LP and Darkwing fight the villains, while Gos searches dimensions for her grandpa. The Ramrod conveniently is already set to Waddlemeyer for... reasons. I'm really not sure why. Yet another plot contrivance, I guess.

Darkwing defeats the Fearsome Four, and Bulba joins the fight. Where is that wind and black snow suddenly coming from? Or whatever that is supposed to be?

Meanwhile, Gos manages to return Scrooge and the nephews to this reality. Apparently they've been stuck int he Overly Long Gag with that icecream seamonster all this time. To be fair, the original gag went on entirely too long, too.

Of course the Ramrod destabilizes even more, putting everyone in danger, and Gos decides to destroy the machine, losing her last chance to find her grandfather. Darkwing consoles her while Bradford makes his escape. Of course his crew shows up in a black helicopter with a huge FOWL sign on the side. Yeah, I'd be facepalming too. It's a miracle these clowns keep anything secret.

Oh, and Gizmoduck finally beat the vines... I think? Has he been fighting them for days? How? This doesn't make much sense.

Meanwhile, Darkwing talks to Gos, promising her to find her family. He offers her to become his... crime fighting partner. Okay. Really didn't like the adoption idea, I see. So apparently LP is going to spend time in St Canard now, which gives the show the opportunity to write him out of the plot whenever they feel like it. It's not so much Put on a Bus as setting up a bus stop they can send a character off to!

And then the computer reports a crime happening. Funny, I thought the city was supposed to be crime free with the new mayor around. Not sure how they suddenly resolved that plot point out of nowhere.

So, uh... I definitely have mixed feelings about this episode. I think it works well enough as a standalone episode, isolated from the original pilot, but that pilot is there nonetheless, and the comparison is both inevitable and unavoidable. And in that comparison, this episode comes out lacking. It gets the setup right for Darkwing as a hero, but it bungles the emotional core of the original by refusing to have Waddlemeyer be unambiguously dead. It shows a lack of courage on the part of the writers, I feel, and it diminishes the emotional impact of the relationship between Darkwing and Gosalyn. By not having her be an orphan and victim of crime, it changes both her character and her relation to Darkwing, and because she now cannot be adopted, it basically excludes the parental angle from the equation entirely.

Launchpad calls himself "uncle Launchpad" (which he absolutely never did on the original show, in case you're wondering; he was only implicitly part of the family at best, and certainly not in such a cloying way as calling himself "uncle"), but this rings hollow without that core adoptive family connection between Drake and Gos. You can't just remove such a major part of their relationship, the actual part that makes them actual family, and still call them a family. And while this show occasionally likes to reflect on forming family of your own, it doesn't even do that much here. The relationship is explicitly not familial, but rather professional. Crime fighting partner just is not the same as adoptive family. It is an inherently different relationship.

And making Gos Darkwing's partner fundamentally changes the dynamic even more. In the original, Gosalyn was explicitly not allowed to be Darkwing's official partner in crimefighting, because that clashed with his role as parent, and rightly so. And the original show got a lot of mileage out of that conflict, for the better of the show I think. But that dynamic is now all but impossible, with the episode setting Gos up as a hero first, rather than a daughter first.

It honestly feels like a bit of a betrayal of the original to me. It took something from the original show that was rather unique to it and rare for cartoons, certainly for the time, an actual father-daughter relationship in an action-adventure cartoon. And they just threw that part away, and I just don't understand why, or to what end. They replaced it with something that feels more generic and with less emotional heart. It's a damn shame they passed that up.

As for Gos herself, she's okay, though I feel she's really too mature for a kid her age. She talks and acts more like an adult, especially her very mature doubts about danger at the end, not helped by her rather older sounding voice. She doesn't really feel like a child in this episode, but more like an older teenager, not helped by the excision of the orphanage plotline, which helped establish that while she was brave and adventurous, she was still a child in need of guidance and protection, which I'm not getting at all from this version. The episode doesn't even try to answer the question of who is actually going to look after her as a parent. It keeps the relationship with Darkwing firmly professional, and there's not even a hint as to who will actually provide for her as a parent. And don't tell me it will be "uncle Launchpad" (which, honestly, sounds a little creepy, considering he only just met her), considering how childish and irresponsible he is in this show.

The episode itself is written a bit clunkily after the DW villains show up, with rather inconsistent plotting, confusing time skips, and disjointed scenes. The first half was solid, but the second frankly was a mess. We never found out what exactly happened after the Four show up, why various villains did what they did, or how various fights ended.

Gizmoduck was a bit of a non-presence. I think he was supposed to be busy in the background fighting Bushroot, but Bushroot wasn't even there most of the time, it seems, so I'm not sure what he was fighting there. And Fenton somehow surreptitiously contacting Darkwing without giving away his identity didn't quite work, I think.

Speaking of Bushroot, I'm not sure what the idea was with him. The other Four were pretty much spot on, but he got turned into some sort of... feral plant monster, with the episode even trying to claim he isn't really a villain at all, which is simply not true in the original show, where he was a full fledged villain in his own right, and clearly just as "human" as the others, aside from being a plant. I guess the writers just weren't fans of him. A shame they let that colour their depiction.

The Four were fine, though they didn't get to do all that much overall. Another case of too much characters I suppose, with the episode having to juggle basically the entire main Darkwing cast and Ducktales characters at the same time. Scrooge just disappears partway through, and is never involved int he plot again even after coming back.

Bradford felt shoehorned here, he was only really here to clumsily reveal his involvement in FOWL entirely through his own fault. It feels like a contrived way to push the arc forwards, and it would have been better for the heroes to actively discover his involvement rather than basically having Bradford throwing the revelation into their lap. They could even have Darkwing help reveal FOWL's existence and the vultures' involvement in it. That would really have bolstered Darkwing's characterization as not just a hero, but a master detective, which is also something I find a bit lacking this episode: it spends a little too much time on Darkwing bumbling and too little on showing his skills as a hero.

Bulba was fine as a villain, though defanged somewhat now that he doesn't explicitly murder Waddlemeyer. Removing that plot element diminishes him as much as it does Drake's family unit. In the original show, that one plot detail infused Taurus Bulba with so much dread and power, and made him so much more terrifying, both in-universe and to the audience. And it made him that much more memorable. It was the one villain that inspired so much terror in Gosalyn that it paralyzed her when she encountered him again. And that episode didn't even have to explain why, thanks to that powerful setup. But by taking it away, Bulba also feels more generic, just another scientist going mad with the potential of his invention. He is still effective enough as a supervillain, but he is no longer a personal villain to the main characters, not in the way he was in the original. Throwing someone into a portal to another dimension is just not the same as straight up murdering him in cold blood.

The episode is decent enough as a Ducktales episode, but it pales in comparison to the original Darkwing Duck pilot, lacking the emotional heft and the powerful message about family the original had.

I don't hate it, exactly, but I am deeply disappointed, which seems worse, and this will never be canon to me regarding Darkwing Duck. This is just not who those characters are to me, and I'm disappionted Ducktales messed that up.