Pilot episodes are hardly ever as good as the rest of the series. That stands true for “Mystery Meat”, the first installment of Danny Phantom. However, it does redeem itself by introducing the characters well. The first few minutes before the theme song are truly entertaining, because we get a good hearty view at Jack Fenton. The entire wacky family is displayed very well. Also, they keep Danny’s “problem” mostly hidden until the first confrontation with the villain, showing small bits of his lack of control at convenient moments. Him losing his ghost body several times uncontrollably causes for several humorous moments.
Animation is sub par – Sam’s color scheme is green for a full battle sequence. The voice actors don’t seem to have the best grips yet on their characters and sound different later on in the series (that is common amongst first episodes, though). The battle between vegetarians and meat connoisseurs gets tedious after a while, especially with the villain being strangely meat obsessed. The lunch lady isn’t the best enemy to open with, and her mood changes get predictable after a while.
For anyone who wants to see Danny before he became the superhero, this is a good episode, but that’s its only real purpose. The theme song does enough to introduce you to the basics of the show. Good for a pilot, but not the best it could be.
By Saramis Kismet
We meet Danny a month after his “accident” in the portal; he has recovered from his injuries and is well on the way to developing control over his powers. He can transform at will, knows how to fly and phase, understands what his ghost sense means and seems to be aware that he is strong enough to fight a ghost hand-to-hand. On the other hand, he is surprised (and greatly relieved) to discover that he can turn other people and objects intangible. His powers tend to misbehave when he’s under stress, which unfortunately is most of the time.
Danny’s delicate emotional state shines through in several places. In the opening scene (after the credits) Danny comes within one Jazzy intervention of telling his parents everything. His approach to fighting the Lunch Lady is a curious blend of bravado, hesitancy and sheer terror, an intriguing change from his usual cockiness. While it’s not unusual in other early episodes to see him lose control of his tangibility (particularly that pesky right arm), this episode also shows him transforming at inconvenient moments. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to have the opposite problem—changing spontaneously from human to ghost—or his secret would be short lived, indeed.
I guess the Lunch Lady is a good villain to start the series with. She’s not a super-villain, she doesn’t have a plot to take over the world, she’s just a ghost with a very specific purpose in life. Uh. . . afterlife. (I have to wonder what sort of personality she would have if the lunch menu had never been changed?) My only problem with her is the crude way that she is drawn in her meat-covered phase. Even assuming that there was enough meat available in the immediate vicinity to “build” such as monster, I wish they had gone to the trouble of making her (and her little minions) look less like mud-monsters.
Sam and Tucker’s vegetarian/carnivore conflict seems a little forced, but they drive the plot forward quickly without requiring very much exposition. They both understand that Danny’s problems far outweigh their own petty quarrel, and can put their dispute aside fairly easily. I’m also very relieved that they relaxed the concept of “ultra-recyclo vegetarianism” so we don’t’ have to watch Sam live on a diet of turf and topsoil.
Jack and Maddie, however, are shown as being a little too clueless in this episode. The Fenton Finder leads them directly to Danny, which I could understand them disregarding because he’s their son. Yet, a moment later they jump to the conclusion that their daughter is a ghost, based solely on her uncharacteristic concern for Danny’s well being? I’m glad they got this unfortunate tendency to turn any odd behavior on a child’s part into a ghost-hunt, because Danny’s behavior is just going to get stranger and stranger as time goes by.
All in all, Mystery Meat is an episode that I am always glad to watch, if only for Danny’s wonderful character development.
By: Bluemoonalto
Average Rating:
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