| Reviews -- Teacher of the Year |
| This episode has grown on me a bit since the first couple of times I viewed it. I've never liked Technus much as a villain, with his annoying voice and fractured slang. My level of enjoyment was held back because I know almost nothing about on-line gaming (when I was Danny's age, we played a video game call Pong) and because I had not yet seen enough of Mr. Lancer to appreciate his potential as a supporting character.
Teacher of the Year features an A plot and a B plot that are of equal weight and which integrate very nicely with each other, even though they are not even remotely similar. Danny's obsession with the video game led both to the accidental release of Technus and his failing grade on the poetry test. And then his ongoing concern with defeating Technus stands in the way of his preparations for the retest. Very nicely dovetailed. The fact that Sam was "Chaos" caught me completely off-guard when I first saw the episode, and I give extra points for that sub-plot. Aside from that, the whole game, with its mish-mash of themes, got on my nerves. Shao-lin warriors and a semi-truck? The seven silver keys of the apocalypse? A giant tiki god and the safe at the mega mart? And what is it with that prize: access to the world wide web—don’t we all have that already? The Lancer storyline did seem a little heavy-handed, a little too much like a "valuable lesson" and not so much like good storytelling. In particular, Danny's decision to suddenly feign interest in the subject seemed a little too obsequious coming from a kid who, moments earlier, had said, "I'm fourteen. I don't really care." Now that I've seen most of the episodes, I'm not so surprised when I see fanfics that feature a very sympathetic portrait of Mr. Lancer, who really is a character of great potential. Rating: None given By:Bluemoonalto |
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