Winx Club - "Date with Disaster" Talkback

[Freedom Fighter]

And so, the fun continues! Welcome to the talkback for Episode 5 of "The Winx Club," "Date with Disaster," airing this Saturday, July 17th at 8 and 10:30 a.m. Eastern (airs on Sunday in some areas).

The story so far...
Now attending Alfea School to hone her newfound 'Winx,' Bloom is beginning to get used to living in the realm of Magix. Last episode, Bloom's class headed off for a little on-field training in listening to nature. But they ended up helping out Brandon and his friends from Red Mountain recapture the troll that they were supposed to be transporting to prison. Or so it seems, as the Senior Witches kinda beat them to it...

This week...
Stella has been kidnapped! (Yeah! ) Bloom and the rest of the 'club' go looking for her, and end up finding her... well, they think. Could it be... Stella dyed her hair brown and no longer talks like a valley girl? Woo hoo!

Usual rules about spoilers and bashing other shows.

This week's talkback is up a little earlier than usual because I'm going out of town for the weekend (probably departing within the hour). Although I might be able to see the episode (I'm taping it, too), I won't have access to a computer, so the earliest I can post my thoughts here would be Sunday night.

I'll also post ratings then, if they're both available at the time.

[Frank15]

As little as the show's been on, and I already have distinct favorite characters, namely Musa and Flora. Honestly, I thought "nature girl" would've grated on me a lot more than she does. Probably because she seems more just genuinely sweet, and less insane nature fanatic.

Anyway, I enjoyed the show today, perhaps especially since Stella was absent, for the most part. And pumpkin-headed people. Gotta' love pumpkin-heads :anime: !

Musa had some nice lines, though as usual, I can't remember any come crunch time. I need to remember to write stuff down while I'm watching, or something. Or it might just be Musa's delivery. The cook was interesting, too.

Nut makes a... um, groovy-lookin' guy, for lack of a better wording.

The ending seemed a little bit abrupt, as if they were going to say something else, but the show ended first.

[sag_2002]

I agree with Frank15. I'm still a big Bloom fan, but Flora's a close second. I'm especially hypnotized by her voice.

On to today...

The Pumpkin heads were a nice little opener.

Disguises aplenty today. Darsy invades Alfea (as Stella), and Nutt makes a pretty good human.

Continuity: The Ring of Solaria plot (from "Save the First Dance") was renewed, this time with the Treacherous Trio actually getting what they wanted. Although, when Bloom decided to surrender the ring, was anyone but me thinking the Witches were gonna backtrack and take off with the ring AND Stella? I'm surprised they didn't go with that old cliche.

Not as good as the previous weeks, but I still enjoyed it. 3/4 this week.

The ending seemed a little bit abrupt, as if they were going to say something else, but the show ended first.

I've been meaning to say this. They haven't been too good at handling the scenes in the final act.

Case #1: "Save the First Dance"- We never got to see how Bloom escaped the Ice Coffin. Did she just happen to see a hole somewhere?

Case #2: "The Voice of Nature"- The girls figure out that the Senior Witches were in on the whole troll thing, and Bloom wants to find out what they're up to. We're expecting a big confrontation, but when we come back from the commercial, the first thing we see is NOT an investigation, but instead, the Red Fountain guys getting ready to take off for home. Maybe they were thinking ahead towards a bigger plot.

Case #3: The end of today's ep.

EDIT: Now, for the Line of the Episode:

Musa: "Friend or not, she's gonna get mused!"

Flora (confused): "She's gonna get mused? What's that?"

Yet another reason why Flora is starting to catch up to Bloom on my favorite characters list.

[carlos saudelli]

The ending of episode 5 is usually interesting and real, because the 5 girls quarrel a bit. Tecna and Musa wanted to fight the witch, while Bloom took the decision to do not. Tecna says :"We should have fight it was 3 against 4 of us..." Bloom: "No, Stella could not wait any longer to be released by the spirals", Musa"...and who are you Bloom to decide for us, you are not the boss!" Flora "Please, do not quarrel, I agree with Bloom, we should not have risked Stella's life." and then Stella "As long as we stay united, we can beat them and get my mystical ring back" (something like this).
This dialogue give us the idea that Bloom is not yet accepted by the others like their leader. This is one of the key why the people love this show, as the dialogues are very real and the personality very well built, as never seen before for a cartoon. It is not the typical "Everybody has a funny cool sentence to say" like most of the cartoons.

I do not know if what you are seeing is as good as the edition of the show that we enjoy in EU, by the way I heard that the US version has got some part censored and some cuts, however from the summaries that I read the general plot seems to me the same. However the dialogues, are one of the strenght of this show and they are very original.

For the action part I can tell you that soon the series really takes off.
The next episode 6 is already very nice, episode 7 is not so interesting, but wait to see from 8 and 9 onward.

I believe soon you will really get into the cult of this special show.

[oranthal]

Yes, Flora has the sweetest voice of all the girls while Musa might be even annoy me more than Stella. Speaking of Stella, it has been mentioned many times that she is a princess, but that hasn't really been expanded. Sure, she has a ring that seems to have some great importance, but if she's royalty, is her parents king and queen of the land? Are the bad girls the only antagonists of the show? Is the ring going to play an important role later? There are so many questions that really need to answered down the road, hopefully in the next few episodes.

[raykremer]

Not a simple victory for our heroines this time out. Naturally they'll get the ring back next week I'm sure, but with this level of maturity and complexity in the plot, things are really looking good for Winx Club.

[Frank15]

Musa might be even annoy me more than Stella.

Guess I can see Musa grating on some people, but she hardly does for me. Stella and Musa both seem to lack common sense at times, but still, I definitely like Musa more. Musa's "blonde moments," for lack of a better term, seem to stem from naivity, whereas Stella's blonde moments seem to stem more from egotism. Musa's cute in her own, innocent-sorta' way.

Oh yes! When Bloom was mentioning one of the witches pretending to be Stella, she mentioned only Icy and Darcy. As if she knew it wasn't Stormy. Makes me wonder if Stormy's "less advanced" than the other two... which I'd suspected a little before.

[Freedom Fighter]

Okay, I'm back, and surprisingly for some reason, writing this review at 2 in the morning when I gotta be at work in seven hours. I did see second half of the 8:00 a.m. show, but couldn't watch the 10:30 to see the rest, so I had to wait 'til I got home to watch the tape.

Anywho... "Date with Disaster" got a 3 out of 4 for me. Comments...

Pluses:
+ Finally, Musa is the last to show any kind of real personality in the series. I guess she does seem kind of grating to the girls, but I don't see any real problem with her. She had some nice quotes, too. And this also proves that Stella is by far the worst character in this show.
+ Ah, typical disagreements. Teams have them in all sorts of shows, but I think the girls handled theirs in this one pretty well.

Minuses:
- I'm agreeing with the whole 'abrupt ending' theory. Like more could've been done to close up the show. Or maybe 4Kids is making it episodic-like...
- Speaking of 4Kids, in reference to what Carlos said, the final scene was nothing at all like that. Everyone seemed to be okay and trusted that Bloom had made the right decision, regardless of if it really was the RIGHT call. What's wrong with a little discension among the ranks, 4Kids?
- And another thing... sag_2002 referenced it as well. It kinda surprised me that the Witches didn't try to run off with Stella and the ring. So why a minus? I dunno... maybe because it's so weird it doesn't happen more often. It's villain's tradition to not give fair trade-offs.

Other Observations:
* I had forgotten that Stella was a princess, too. Maybe that's why she always acts so superficial and, in the case of today's episode, bossy.
* Okay... Bloom/Brandon, Stella/Sky, Musa/Riven, and Tecna/Timmy. Poor Flora. Who screwed up the show and made it five girls and four guys? Shouldn't there be a fifth guy for Flora to crush on? Or maybe she's just too much in love with nature to worry about boys.
* Since we're going on for who our fave girls are, Flora took the lead away from Bloom today in my book. Something enchanting about Flora makes me like her with each new episode. I haven't given up on Bloom, yet... after all, you're looking at a guy who adores cute redheads!
* Just noticed that I'd know a whole lot more about the show if I took the time to actually surf the 'Winx Club' US TV site. For example, Stella's 17, the rest of the girls are 16. Hmmm... you know, Bloom looks too young to be 16, while Tecna and Flora both look a bit older than that.

Quote of the Week:
There were a couple good ones this week. As I mentioned, Musa had a few, including the one already mentioned earlier (aka 'the exchange with Flora'). I decided, coinciding with my newfound love for Flora, to pick a quote from her...

"Why's she being such a fuddy?" - Flora, talking about 'Stella's' behavior

Kinda find it funny, especially since Tecna thinks Stella's crazy, and Musa believes she's just a real wi-tch.


Ending this week with the scores/ratings:

ToonZone Scores: 2.60/10 for Ep. 4; 2.52/37 Overall
Kids 6-11 Ratings (8:00): 0.5 for Ep. 4; 0.5 Overall
Kids 6-11 Ratings (10:30): 1.1 for Ep. 4 (2nd to 'Sonic X' on Fox); 1.0 Overall

[sag_2002]

"Fuddy", eh? LOL... I'll have to remember to use that sometime in the future.