The style Danny Phantom is written in probably finds its closest resemblance in Silver Age comic books (mostly consisting of funny stories targeted toward children). The creator is Butch Hartman, a long-time comedy writer prior to this. This show was really Mr. Hartman’s first experience writing an action show—it wasn’t exactly perfect, but all things considered, it could have been a lot worse.
The series is mostly in an episodic style—that is, ideally, it doesn’t matter which episode of two unrelated ones you watch first, both will make sense. There were big events every now and then that affected future episodes, but there was pretty much no such thing as Continuity Lock Out—you could begin watching at any time and figure things out. The downside here is that things rarely changed much, even when it would have made sense for them to.
The more one watches this show, the easier it becomes to spot Chekhov’s Gun when it appears. Namely, if the Fentons show off a new invention at the beginning of an episode, it will be useful (and usually completely outside of their knowledge) during the climax. Were the writers trying to be obvious? Because if they were going for subtlety, they failed at it pretty hard…
There were some very good character concepts (in fact, nearly all their character concepts are good). Unfortunately, a concept alone a character does not make—a number of them were portrayed… less than perfectly. Then there are the villains, who all too often received few enough appearances that even the interesting ones faded away before long. A number of them also shared the same stock motive of “taking over the world.” This motive quickly loses its significance when it’s all anyone is trying to do. Worse, the villains tended to diverge (far) from their original motivation in late appearances, meaning that a villain’s first appearance was usually their best. The end result is that the characters feel much more static than dynamic (and those characters that weren’t so static were closer to undefined). Too bad, because a lot of them had great potential.
Season 3 (out of 3) of this show deserves a (negative) special mention, because it seems to follow a much different agenda than its predecessors. This is the (primary) one where villains seemed to lose their identities or were left by the wayside. New villains who appeared seemed to be something along the lines of “the same villain each time, but with different abilities.” And how unfortunate it is that a lot of plots were pushed into the background by a developing romance (which was not hidden at all) that was “resolved” in the finale.
The authors’ favorites something like this:
Kyle:
Season one:
–Best- My Brother’s Keeper (#9) – Two great villains are introduced, Danny struggles with a realistic problem, and Jazz grows a personality develops her character nicely.
–Worst- Life Lessons (#18) – I always hated that weird flour-sack assignment—it makes no sense other than as a plot device. Also, Sam was the only one to receive an “A” (how surprising). There was one particularly funny joke here though: that moment “that never happened.”
Season two:
–Best- The Ultimate Enemy (#28-29) – Clockwork’s plan is impressive. Really impressive. On the other hand, it seems that the future they were trying to avoid would never have come about without his intervening anyway… (Think about how Danny got ahold of the test answers.)
–Worst- Beauty Marked (#34) – Among other things, Sam convinced a 1600 year-old society that modern ideals were better than the lifestyle they’d been living. In 10 minutes! She did it by being completely rebellious (probably her life’s dream), and the princess who had been living there sympathized with her. And she won a beauty pageant she wasn’t even trying to win twice!
Season three:
–Best- Infinite Realms (#42) – I like the idea behind this one: a chase through different periods of time. This execution wasn’t perfect, but it was better than a lot of Season 3 plots…
–Worst- Girls’ Night Out (#43) – Septuple character assassination. To clarify:
1) Kitty was never great to begin with, but giving her an evil ability based on women kissing men seems really one-dimensional.
2) Ember, who used to hate adults, is suddenly getting along with Spectra (who has her body back, by the way) apparently just because she’s a woman. In all of her past appearances, she worked with males (Kwan and Dash, Youngblood) with no problem.
3) Spectra suddenly hates her closest friend and is no longer psychologically themed at all. (She also led a show about cooking anti-man delicacies. Am I the only one who thinks something’s fishy about that?)
4) Speaking of that closest friend, Bertrand was pushed aside from being an intelligent, dangerous ally to being a flunkie who dropped out of the story early on.
5) Maddie was stopped from attacking Spectra by being drafted into her cooking show.
6) Instead of attacking Kitty, Sam actually went through the obstacle course, waited an unnecessarily long moment, then was carried away by “Helga”, thereby missing her opportunity.
7) Jazz managed to sneak her way into Ember’s backup singers. She had plenty of opportunity to attack Ember while she was singing. She even started to. Then she blew her cover by singing attrociously into the microphone. Wow.
Overall:
–Best- My Brother’s Keeper (#9)
–Worst- Tie between Beauty Marked (#34) and Girls’ Night Out (#43)
Characters:
–Best- Clockwork – I love a good mastermind.
–Worst- Kitty – What character?
Sam:
Season one:
–Best- My Brother’s Keeper (#9) – This one was great: Spectra was a lot better than most of Danny’s enemies (in that she had subtle methods and was able to use emotion against Danny), Bertrand could have been a villain by himself (interesting powers/emotion use), Danny had a reasonable problem, and Jazz really became important here.
–Worst- Life Lessons (#18) – I never really was thrilled with Valerie (not much interest in the way she turned out), and I hated Skulker’s voice change (face palm).
Season two:
–Best- Reality Trip (#37/38) – It was epic for three reasons:
1) Freakshow is one of Danny’s most unique enemies, the only human one, and the only one with any real good drama,
2) I love a good running away from home plot, and I think it was interesting to have Danny do, and
3) It was the last good event in the series, IMO.
–Worst- Micro-Management (#33) – I hate Dash. I feel that Skulker could have been put to better use. Sam’s physical fitness seems to have come the fuck out of nowhere. Smells of Positive Discrimination, to me at least.
Season three:
–Best- Claws of the Wild (#50) – The only good one. Walker appeared again, and that’s good. I would call it average, to be perfectly honest.
–Worst- Phantom Planet (#52/53) – Nice finale. ‘Nuff said.
Overall:
–Best- My Brother’s Keeper (#9)
–Worst- Micro-Management (#33)
Characters:
–Best- Jazz – She had development, a fairly good role, and I’m a Sucker for a story that features psychology & psychological problems in a good way; she furthers that kind of story.
–Worst- Dash – He was a Boring, flat character. Dash also seemed to win more often then lose, and I feel bullies need to have the crap beaten out of them.