Belch's Brief Reviews--Aug 18, 2001

[DR. BELCH]

POKJJ#401: A Goldenrod Opportunity
Ash and company reach Goldenrod City, but find the gym there is closed until the next day...so they decide to partake of the shopping and food courts they had been slavering over previously. Note Ash's dedication to his craft is so great he's even willing to forego lunch. Misty is all gaga over the thought of hitting the malls (though it begs the question of where all that money for shopping comes from, unless they're using Oak's credit card), and Brock, as usual, is on the prowl for girls.
He finds one after a Clefairy bumps into Pikachu, and she kindly kisses the boo-boo to make it better. Brock shows his masochist side by slamming his skull against a brick wall and indicating a huge lump in need of attention. The things some guys do for a dame. At least it was only his head he deliberately injured....
Meantime, Team Rocket--between James' never having heard of the concept and Jessy just being a greedy little brat--mistakes a freezer bin in a store for a free sample counter and ends up having to work off the debt. They spot Clefairy and nab it, only to be spotted and pursued by Team Twerp and its trainer. Learning the electric train won't be running for a year yet, they hop a handcart and escape...going so slow a crippled Squirtle could beat them. They manage to exchange Clefairy for Pikachu in the confusion, but get theirs after the electric rat charges the magnetic tracks. They get away all right, although woe to them when the track stops in Saffron City...and a brick wall.
It turns out the trainer--who offers to show them around town but has the sense of direction of a Zubat with an inner-ear infection--is the gym leader, and offers to open up the joint early. It seems she's as bad at battling as she is at finding point B from Point A...Cyndaquil easily defeats her Nidoran and Clefairy. But then she calls out Miltank, a fat cow Pokemon that rolls up in a ball and moves at top speed, crushing the competition. The Fire-Flatulating Pokemon, as well as Totodile and Pikachu, are defeated. It seems Ash may never recover from this loss.

POKJJ#402: "A Dairy Tale Ending"
Taking pity on the boy she's just humilatingly butt-whupped, the trainer (whose name has inexplicably escaped me) offers to take the three on a tour of her uncle's dairy farm, where they raise the strange fat cows and collect/sell Miltank products.
Great joke missed: I kept expecting either Ash or James to come out with the line: "Ah...smell that dairy air!"
Team Twerp tries Miltank milk for the first time (which begs the question of what sort of milk they drank before that--Tauros, maybe?) and "brush up" on everything one needs to know about these creatures. Literally. They're out in the fields with curry-combs, brushing the mighty beasts (Misty hates it, but--um--the boys seem to be enjoying it a little too, much, judging from their movements and their pleasured grunts...tempt me not, evil Muse.).
There's a great shot of a chibi Jessy and James cataloging Miltank products here...and James' capitalistic dream of owning a small ice cream store--then selling it to a big corporation for millions--comes to light. I've always wondered what he'd do if he ever left the Rockets--always pegged him for the stage.
Ash learns not to pull a Miltank's tail or it gets them powerful mad. Actually...yanking any animal's tail is pretty much a no-no, but especially a massive bovine with hard hooves and at least a hundred pounds on you.
Team Rocket shows up in a giant barrel vehicle, which Ash defeats easily, not even thinking about it, by having Cyndaquil hit it from the side to knock it off-kilter and Totodile dig ditches with its water gun to trip it up. Two points: being made of wood, it seems the barrel would burn in the flames, and it seems a water gun attack would wet the soil and create mud, which would stick the barrel fast like the front tire of the family car...but since the Pokemon world seems to exist on a plane all its own, maybe the laws of physics differ. Note how often folks on this show get set on fire and don't even get holes in their clothes.
Anyway, Ash defeats Team Rocket, and, inspired, asks for a match with the cowgirl before their big gym battle. At first it seems he's just repeating old mistakes with Cyndaquil, but then he has Totodile dig a few ruts, and when Pikachu hides in one, he knocks Miltank off-course like a stone in the road, then shocks it in midair. The girl is so impressed she gives him his badge then and there. There's a whole speech about how it doesn't matter where a battle is held and the gym is just a vessel, yadda yadda yadda...but the real reason that she gave it to him in the cow pasture is that she doesn't want Ash digging trenches in her nice gym floors. Linoleum's expensive, after all.

RH:GRT--"Terror in the Tower"/"Canyon Catastrophe"
The first short was intriguing--not because of the contrived (it seems workman would know not to set blueprints so close to sparks from a welding torch) fire in a skyscraper plot, but because of Wendy Waters. She's stubborn, prone to go rogue, always has to be in control of every situation, can't ever admit she's wrong, and can probably drink most of the guys on the team under the table. You have to respect a dame like that. Plus I noted a little chemistry between her and Billy, but with this kind of show it probably won't be followed up in future episodes. Plus a subplot involving an acrophobic, which was too reminiscent of the boy who was afraid to swim in last week's ep. Interesting, also, that the RH's HQ is large enogh to accomodate indoor luge. The second short was about mountain bikers, forbidden trails, and a creature called the Gargantuan. I missed the second half during a visit to the lavatory, though.

CUBIX#2: Electrix!
This plot revolved around a bipolar red-footed robot gas station attendant who flips out and does a Carrie on the downtown area...plus Hella, after learning about Mr. Crazy Eyes Robot Hater, realizes who her young charge's father is and storms out of the doughnut shop saying he's the most stubborn man she's ever met. I say they'll be lovebirds by ep seven or eight, tops.
What is Solex, anyway? It seems to cause erratic behavior in robots, that I get, but is it put there or does the robot manufacture it itself, like an abnormal brain chemical in a schizophrenic?
And after watching Cubix save his boy, Mr. Crazy Eyes starts to soften on his anti-robot policies.

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Wow! Ash thought to use tatics for once! I'm impressed. Sounded like a good two-parter...I also wish I coulda seen that apparent dream sequence with James selling off the ice-cream company. Those things use to get a chuckle outta me.

Interesting take on how the gym leader got her Miltank. It never ocurred to me to link the game's farm and Goldenrod gym Miltanks together.

On another note of Pokemon, they've finally gotten past 400 eppys. How many eppys do you think they'll get before the show closes down?