(Some of) of my assorted thoughts on: this blog's standing.

As we're jut a couple days away from it being halfway through 2014 (this past week, I was floored as it began to sink in that we're a few months away from being halfway through this decade), this is a good time to take stock of the progress this blog has made and map the road ahead.

Next up for Aladdin episode reviews is "Never Say Nefir", a great satire-oriented episode with excellent animation. The Gladstone (and other Disney comic) reviews will continue, since people like 'em. Ideally, I'd do one Aladdin review and one Gladstone review per week, but one or the other seems to be the most realistic. Whichever one it ends up being tends to be based on what I feel like or what I'm more caught up on in my reading and viewing. I think I will continue to operate that way, since I'll feel more pressure if I lock myself into a rigid schedule (e.g., alternating weeks between the two).

I've mentioned that these days, I post reviews without editing, since it takes long enough just to write them in the first place. However, I was just now adding tags to a few of the Aladdin reviews for which I'd originally forgotten to do so, and it struck me that the writing was barely intelligible. Any thoughts on this? (Hopefully, it's just me!)

On this blog, in the near-and-long-term future...

...more of THIS!

...and THIS!

-- Ryan

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 5: "Much Abu About Something" (3/27/94)

A confession: the reason that it's taken me so long to get around to this episode is that I just am not very enthusiastic about it. So, to quote Peter Griffin, "*exhales disdainfully* Okay -- let's just get through this."

In the same way that "Fowl Weather" was centered around Iago, this is basically an excuse for an Abu-centric episode; a contrived plot in which something arbitrarily happens to him, rather than a series of events "organically" arising because of him ... or, if you will, an integral phase of his character arc (of which there really isn't one in the first place). An obligatory attempt at character development is forced upon is in the form of Abu's resentment over never being listened to and Aladdin always speaking on his behalf. Um, okay ... it always seemed to me that the scrappy, self-sufficient Abu had no problem communicating with others what and when he wanted to just fine. The conditions that he "overcomes" in this episode had actually never existed before, and so the premise is actually a degradation of his character.

In this rare Abu-centric episode, Abu's 

portrayal allows him the dignity that he deserves.

"Fowl Weather" was still a likable episode because of its whimsical concept and visuals and the lively comic interplay between Iago and Thundra. But "Much Abu" really has nothing going for it. The mountaintop village, its resident prophet, and their generations-lasting predicament are bare-bones and sub-interesting in their under-development. There's nothing funny about Abu being heralded as a long-awaited savior and being crowned and given a throne. In fact, that this trite mockery is supposed to be funny is actually insulting.

That guy is a pale imitation of the gentle wise elder type.

And that mountain doesn't seem very natural, does it? 

And is that supposed to be its nose?

Tad Stones once again found that "the machine needed to be fed", and was unable to get around his aversion to big monsters. Having the obligatory monster be a Tyrannosaurus rex seems to be an attempt at doing something original and unique. But, like many of the series' incidental monsters, its design is ugly and rushed, and rather than coming off as a larger-than-life menace, it's presentation is completely under-whelming.

He's not very scary, is he?

Perhaps the production team had considered doing a "lost valley of dinosaurs" episode, but never fully-developed into it, and so decided to salvage what they could of it here. Though the "lost valley" idea is a tired trope, it still could've been an inspired episode, if the right inspiration hit the creators and some real effort were put into it. But it also could've been a total flop. In that case, or if they actually had never intended to do such an episode, I guess it's just as well, as the monster here had to be something...

But then, did the tribe's plight even have to involve a giant monster? How about for centuries, their mountain had been surrounded by, I don't know, a sea of lava, and no one else had ever even known they were there, and the prophecy was that Abu would find a way to open a floodway from the real ocean to their valley, washing away the lava? I mean, that's not the greatest idea ever, but as far as avoiding the old big monster fallback, it's a start!


Okay, I think that about covers it. *phew*, at least that's over with. What's up next? ...ugh, "My Fair Aladdin"? Hoo, boy, I'm gonna have to slog my way through a lot of this project, aren't I?

-- Ryan

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 4: "The Prophet Motive" (2/27/94)

To my regret, I no longer have a copy of the issue of Animation Magazine -- that I figure would have been released at some point in the summer of '94 -- that had a news item on the Aladdin series' upcoming joint Disney Afternoon-CBS launch. Tad Stones was quoted as saying that he had "designed" (in so many words) more cookie-cutter episodes "with Saturday morning in mind", but CBS opted for episodes with "more of an edge" (or something to that effect). That single quote gives insight into the series' production, and how which episodes ended up where in the fall of '94. The inference that CBS had first dibs on whatever episodes they wanted is very interesting.

Although "The Prophet Motive" was the third episode to air on CBS, I'd argue that it was the one that set the template for the episodes they chose. As it was one of the episodes to have been "previewed" (as far as I'm concerned, to have premiered) on The Disney Channel in early '94, it's easy to imagine, given Stones' account of CBS' selection process, the network people saying, "We like that one! We want it! And more like it!"

What exactly distinguishes the CBS episodes? They tend to have a darker, thicker tone; the magic, the monsters, and the ancient temples, objects of power, and prophecies were more primordial, menacing, and potentially devastating. The action was more highly charged and the set pieces were more imposing. If -- n the most general sense -- the syndication episodes were pop-rock, the CBS episodes were heavy metal.

That is not to say that there weren't syndication episodes of a nature comparable to the CBS ones. I want to be very careful in stressing that the syndicated and network episodes were NOT two separate series. (And while I'm at it, despite what Wikipedia and other online episodes lists will tell you, the fall '94 CBS episodes were NOT "season two". They were part of season one.) The fact that CBS picked episodes that Stones didn't expect them to indicates that at least the earliest CBS episodes were produced as any other episode would be. If CBS hadn't been a part of the picture, most if not at all of the 13 fall '94 CBS episodes would've been produced anyway, and instead would've just first showed up on The Disney Afternoon instead.

Those stipulations out of the way, let's get down to the meat of this episode itself, and what specifically distinguishes it besides just tone and narrative style. The opening is visually made up of a series of stills designed to look like ancient paintings depicting the day's epic myths of apocalyptic, furious battles between (what could be) gods and beasts. These images are accompanied by an eerie score and a voiceover narrative delivered in ominous, deep tones with almost a hushed reverence. This is nothing like anything seen in the three early `94 Disney Channel "preview premieres" that had preceded it.

The opening narrator turns out to be, of course, Phasir, who makes his debut here. (Well, that's arguable. I am very happy that this episode technically aired before "Do the Rat Thing", which premiered in syndication before CBS' first airing of "The Prophet Motive". I suppose it doesn't matter, as in "Rat Thing", Phasir only appears briefly before Jasmine and Iago, and Jasmine didn't meet Phasir in "Prophet" and Iago doesn't give any clear indication in either if he recognizes Phasir or not. But still, this means that -- again, this is a technicality, because by and large, the Disney Channel airings don't seem to be considered as having "counted" -- no Aladdin episodes premiered out-of-order continuity-wise, as was the case with Darking Duck. Er, obsessive much, Ryan?) Episodes in which Phasir is tied into the plot -- rather than just giving a prophecy or overseeing events to confirm that they "happened as they were meant to" -- together form what at least I consider the closest Aladdin ever got to having a series mythology. One could say that Mozenrath has his own mythology unto himself, but he never really transcended the function of recurring villain. By the same token, what we know of Phasir's backstory -- his relationship with his brother Fashoom and his connection to Mirage -- are his own business (if you get what I mean), in all of his appearances, some to greater extent, there was the implication that he had particular cause to be concerned with our heroes' destiny. In some cases, there were cryptic suggestions that he knew something them that they didn't. Nothing ever came of this and his few appearances are only loosely tied together, but the semblance of some sort of series "mytharc" (to use an X-Files fandom term) was for me exciting enough and always one of the most interesting aspects of the series.

Besides the more "hardcore" approach of "The Prophet Motive", what makes it typical of CBS is Phasir himself. Although he appeared in two episodes that premiered in syndication ("Do the Rat Thing" and "The Sands of Fate"), all of the "mytharc"-leaning Phasir episodes ("The Prophet Motive", "Eye of the Beholder", and season two's "While the City Snoozes") seemed to be the purview of CBS. His aforementioned syndication appearances affirm that we're talking one and only one TV series here, but I can't really get around that Phasir-plus-the "heavy metal" approach is a formula I associate with the CBS episodes. Notably, the voiceover-and-mythological ancient paintings intro motif was reused a couple of more times for I believe only CBS episodes.

In truth, there isn't much to this episode's plot -- it's a very straightforward, even bare-bones narrative dressed up in a bombastic, explosive package.It boils down to: Abis Mal and Haroud abduct Carpet to use him to get to the location of a long-lost treasure. Aladdin and the king pursue the villains to rescue their friend, are captured, have all escaped by the time they arrive at the treasure's location, where a giant monster statue comes to life, threatening the heroes and the villains, but the heroes get away and the bad guys get their comeuppance by not acquiring the treasure. This really could've been done without Phasir and the prophecy he delivers to Aladdin at the beginning of the episode and that hangs over the gang's head throughout the adventure. But the mystical, esoteric nature of Phasir and the way that the prophecy facilitates a stronger tension and sense of imminent mortal danger throughout the episode are really what give the episode more of that edge and fieriness that bring it to the soaring heights of your typical CBS episode. For instance, without the prophecy, we wouldn't have that (literally) edgy little Act One cliffhanger where Al and Jas almost get impaled on jagged rocks. And the literal skeleton key is more typical of the Saturday morning episodes; they were more grisly, by children's TV standards. I dunno, I just like the episode.  It's cool, you know? The flying ship, the exterior of Fashoom's cloud-borne palace, and the treasure room inside are particularly striking.

The only thing I really dislike about the episode is Fashoom's character design, which I find goofy and just kind of ugly. You may argue, "But a giant brute should be ugly", but I guess it's that they erred on the goofy side. 

This is technically Abis Mal and Haroud's first appearance (although something about "Air Feathered Friends", the first Disney Afternoon episode, gives it a "pilot" vibe and feels like it was intended to establish their part in the series). It's interesting to see such mundane villains brought into these larger-than-life affairs. Although they do get involved with magic and other big-stage things in many of their other episodes, those tend to be as a whole more comedic outings. The interplay between the two is as funny as ever, with some downright classic asides from Haroud when obeying Mal's orders to sew Carpet to the mast.

(Abis Mal discovering that he does not have that certain special touch that Scrooge McDuck does.)

Iago's cynical, "everyone has some sort of angle, since I always do!" reaction to Phasir ("I smell a RIPOFF!!!") is a great character moment. And unlike last time in "Fowl Weather", Jasmine isn't just sort of along for the ride and kind of naggy -- here, she's just as alert, on top of things, quick-witted, athletic, brave, and capable as Aladdin, if not more so. They play off of each other much better when they're presented as of the same "type".

The episode is what it is -- the Aladdin episode equivalent of a big-screen Star Wars-type popcorn flick. It works for me.

Genie Watch: The G-man obliviously remaining in buoy form and for a good while after he, Aladdin, and Jasmine have been "netted", not taking any initiative to free them, is excruciating to witness. It definitely recalls when he stayed in ostrich form just for the hell of it in "Mudder's Day" while he and the rest of the gang were swept down the raging current of the underground river that brought them to the realm of the Al Muddy, another Genie-chosen course of action that spurred much *facepalming*.

-- Ryan

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 3: "Fowl Weather" (2/20/94)

Overall, "Fowl Weather" is a nice showcase for Iago, even if the character arcs do have some faults, and yet another example (as are the majority of episodes, really -- I suspect this will be be an aspect of most of my future reviews) -- of the series' flair for world-building ... or, more appropriately, world expansion. 

Some episodes, or at least certain elements of such, have a historical basis (as we saw in "Getting the Bugs Out" with the Greek aesthetic of Mechanicles' home base and garb), while others indulge in pure fantasy (as did "Mudder's Day"). The premise of a tropical valley from whence all of the planet's rain originates that is the domain of an avian goddess who directs and controls said rain has a decided mythic bent. As such, this is a more whimsical and -- despite the furious Thundra's assault on Agrabah -- light-in-tone episode. The "phantasmagoric" mud beings and their colorful realm in "Mudder's Day" certainly exhibited their share of whimsy, but with the heroes' captivity in the Al Muddi Sultan's palace and his attempted Godzilla-like rampage on the surface, that episode had a more perilous, sword-and-sorcery, heroic quest angle.

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of history knows that many ancient civilizations and cultures had a pantheon of specialty gods. Many of these did indeed include a rain deity, although some fleeting Googling hasn't turned up any of an ornithological orientation. Thus, as far as I know, Thundra is a fairly original -- and conceptually well-defined -- creation. True, her snobbishness, temper, and her reactionary hostility toward her visitors are one-dimensional and prima facie, but it gets the job done in regards to carrying out the plot. Her Romani/gypsy accent (complementing the garments she's adorned herself with) is a bit over-the-top, but at least it exemplifies the creative team's continued dedication to locales and cultures of the real ancient world, even as part of such a fanciful palette. Or, it could just be the creative team falling back on a stock caricature type.

Unwittingly finding himself the object of Thundra's passion, this isn't so much a character-defining or character-building episode for Iago as it is just an episode in which something happens to him in particular and he reacts to it. In fact, the whole reason Thundra's a bird may just be for the purpose of "something happening" between her and Iago! He's his irate, recalcitrant, grumbling self throughout, and I, for one, enjoy the angle he adds, as I always do. His revulsion toward Thundra and protests against her advances are highlights, and ring true to character and are sympathetic, given how overbearing Thundra is. But I don't buy his softening toward her when she descends upon the palace -- it seems like a forced way to bring about a resolution and to vindicate and not contradict all of Jasmine's "it's wrong to mess with a woman's heart" admonishing. On the other hand, Thundra's "a rain bird's work is never done!" declaration is a clean out in terms of the writers getting her out of the picture and keeping Iago at home for the rest of the series.

Jasmine's aforementioned objection to the boys' encouraging Iago to lead Thundra on so that they can make off with a storm cloud while she's distracted is not only forced and preachy in delivery, but it's a fairly transparent case of the writers finding a role for the one of the main cast members who otherwise would just be along for the (carpet) ride. Still, it's a necessary one, and for the deceit not to be addressed and to have been maintained through to the episode's close would've made for a sour note. While there's a certain logic to Jasmine identifying and sympathizing with Thundra, was it really so necessary to play it up as a gender-dividing matter, as if it's a "guy thing" to play others for suckers and a "girl thing" to object to such? 

The production values are notably lesser than the preceding two episodes and the OVA before it. The backgrounds are stark and blunt. Even the animated storm clouds and the thunder bolts that they generate are minimal and underwhelming. This is even the case throughout Thundra's vengefully turning her wrath on the palace, which should be a cataclysmic spectacle, but comes off nondescript and even casual. In fact, upon further consideration, the rudimentary visuals, along with the sunniness of most scenes, may account for the episode's light-heartedness more than anything.

Don't think that (quite) all is fun and games, though; the peasant boy seen at the very beginning and tail end and the gang's efforts to aid him during the drought are an exception. They bring a down-to-earth realism and sense of palpable need to the episode, much like the villagers in "Getting the Bugs Out" and the character interplay in "Mudder's Day".

Genie watch: Overall, he comes off better than usual. He has some extended impersonation bits -- a TV weatherman and a door-to-door vacuum sales cleaner -- that find him reveling in the role and function for which he's best-suited. He even is helpful at more than one turn, being the one to inform the gang of Thundra's valley and propose it as a solution to their drought woes, and later using his powers to eavesdrop long-distance on Iago and Thundra, to monitor if Iago's keeping the ruse going. However, they could've found a gag to carry his failure to hit water when in the form of a drill bit, hoping to help the little boy, without making it look like a result of his incompetence and making him look so undignified -- after all, it WASN'T his fault. His one true "dumb" moment of derailing the gang's efforts and taking an unnecessary amount of time to recovering, though, is when he crashes into the rain forest while attempting to rocket-propel Carpet over the valley. Oh, and he's not particularly helpful when the palace is flooding and the roof is caving in, but at least he's not shown actually TRYING to do, and thus not botching, anything.

-- Ryan

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 2: "Mudder's Day" (2/13/94)

A giant monster holds the heroes captive and threatens to eat them. After much persistence, they escape and thwart the giant monster. Essentially, that's what this episode boils down to. Sounds like an absolute cliché? Well, sort of, but the fantastical visuals are just imaginative and lovely enough, and the monster is characterized just uniquely and humorously enough, to make a fulfilling, absorbing viewing.

We open on the usual gang, accompanied by Razoul and a few of the other guards, traveling on camelback in a caravan across the desert. Through some dialogue exposition, it's established that they're making a delivery for the Sultan, and the trek has been so long and the sun so hot that they're parched. As rife with fantasy as the series is, it had a particular flare for realism in scenes such as this one. Despite the infamous edited version of part of the first verse of "Arabian Nights "Where the heat is immense and the sand is immense; it's barbaric, but hey, it's home!" (which, of course, was rewritten yet again for the series' version), the movie never conveyed the sense of the middle of the desert's harshness and remoteness as well as this establishing scene does. It's the depiction and emphasis of a utilitarian, drudging undertaking – bearing the elements with a heavy physical burden and next to no protection against the elements – that imparts this dynamic so effectively. Being engaging, it's easy to identify with, if vicariously – you can imagine what it feels like to be there with them – unlike the physical impossibilities of, say, Genie's musical number in the movie. And in the latter, the desert was just window dressing.

I like that when they do come upon the oasis, there's only a passing sense of relief. Aladdin cautions that they should first determine if the water's safe or not, maintaining and even intensifying the sense that the odds that the characters are facing are continuous. This endangers Aladdin's vigilance and assertiveness – it comes off as a military operation, with Aladdin taking command. It is greatly to the creators' credit that they were able to take the characters and general world of the movie and apply new dynamics to them that are so different tonally and operate on a more literal level. As the water does in fact lead to an antagonizing beast of sorts, the architecture of the scene, with the grittiness of the raw elements and the long-tried band of adventurers, and the trepidation with which they approach the water and the ominousness of the Al-muddy's presence (which the viewers are given a glimpse of before the characters), Tolkien's description of Frodo and the Fellowship's treading lightly along the edge of the lake at the West Gate of Moria comes to mind.  The Al-muddy's cartoonishness, the comic relief from the sidekicks, and the sunniness (if you consider the desert sun in a different aspect) make the proceedings considerably lighter than Tolkien's, obviously. But the air of toiling exertion and an unseen menace is there, without mistake.

What ensues is the by-the-numbers capture-by-giant monster described above. The heroes being held in a cage on the giant's kitchen table, with everything being to scale with the giant, is the oldest one in the book. When their freed, he even swats at them as Genie and Carpet [?] dart through the air around him, annoying and distracting him. Nonetheless, the episode is still fun and exciting even to an aging guy like me. The visuals are rich, the action is busy, and the Al-muddy is just arrogant and aggravating enough to make you root for the good guys to put him in his place.

Yes, the monster has a personality. Tad Stones has related that he'd wanted to avoid the monster tropes – and ideally, monsters at all, a trope in and of themselves – for the series, but there was a need "to feed the machine". So, what do you do when you have a giant monster but want to make it-ungiant monster like? You make him intelligent and snobby, of course. With his deep, drawling voice, with its dry British accent and varying inflections of scorn and intolerance, his cushy, pampered lifestyle, and his refined, picky taste, it almost seems as if they went the most obvious non-roaring, storming monster route they could. (It's actually surprising that they went ahead with a giant monster episode so early, but they clearly went out of their way to make it as unique as they could.) That's not to say that the character isn't entertaining. This persona does give the episode flare and variety.

It also seems that they went out of their way to do something "a little different" with not just the monster itself, but with the monster's locale. The lavish background paintings of the underground world, and of the outside of t Al-muddy Sultan's tower are more illustrative and storybook-like than the series typically is. The 15-feet high pillowy, multi-colored mushrooms that align the floor of the large cavern in which the tower is built, and the differently multi-colored tower's non-angular, soft but imposing, remotely Persian or Turkish, elysian design. The Al-muddy Sultan's cozy but elegant living quarters near the top of the tower, which also has vaguely Persian or Turkish features, brings to mind a wizard's study or observatory – you know, the kind have hexagonal or octagonal windows with glass frames embedded with cross-stitch patterns. The creative team's work on this "set" isn't as exquisite and intricate as a Brian Froud painting, but that reference might give you an idea of the "genre" Stones and co. are flirting with.

The Al-muddy Sultan is consistently well-animated. In fact, of the various monsters yet to come from the series, he possibly has the most full-realized, flawless design. Care and complexity went into his anatomy and poses that are more typical of theatrical animation. The "up shot" of first the mud Sultan as he emerges from beneath the desert, and then the similar composed "shot" of him attempting to slam his fast down on Aladdin, only to begin drying out from the sun and "cracking up" are pure squash-and-stretch eye candy with a particularly -- and appropriately -- bloated and gelatinous bent. Sort of the visual equivalent of those "bouncy houses" you got to go in as a kid at birthday parties, carnivals, and such. The jagged cracks that spread throughout his dried up form are a good contrast with his pudding-like former mud form.

It's appropriate that Aladdin was acting – or trying to act – as commander in the first oasis scene (as discussed above), because a character arc that actually "organically" extends from the characters as we know them is built into this episode. Assigned by the Sultan (Jasmine's father, not the Al-muddy Sultan) to lead the caravan, Aladdin is worriedly preoccupied with not letting the Sultan down, and beset by Razoul's resent and harassment. As you'd expect, Razoul's mind is changed at the end of the episode by Aladdin's victory. It's an A to B character arc, after all. Razoul's change of heart is incredibly sudden and met without any resistance on his part, and his apology awfully wholesale and supplicating, as if he's aware there's half a minute left to the episode. Still, Aladdin and Razoul's rivalry is one of the more fiery character dynamics of the series, and it only spices up the episode.

Now, the way that Razoul and his men are conveniently left out, and the grudge between Aladdin and Razoul, are completely forgotten when the "core" cast is sucked underground, and then are suddnely brought back into play at the very end, when the gang re-emerges, is sloppiness that I can't excuse. Imagine if it'd just been Aladdin and Razoul to be sucked ungerground, and spent the episode forced to cooperate but constantly a breath away from being at each other's throat? Then, there'd actually be a PROCESS leading up to Razoul's coming around! Imagine THAT!

Genie watch: WOW, is he STUPID here. And only the second episode aired? That didn't take long at all. *grits teeth* Seemingly unable to think for himself and completely dull-witted and imperceptive, he frequently doesn't react until Aladdin asks him to do something. To keep Genie from saving the day prematurely, the writers came up with some inane idea (totally unprecedented by the movie) that if Aladdin tells him what they need, he can't think of the most effective answer to that request. So, when Aladdin asks for "something that flies", Genie turns into his an ostrich. How his synapses and neurons arrived at "ostrich" from processing the input "something that flies". I mean, WTF?Several variations of this occur throughout the episode. To my revulsion, when the gang is first pulled into the underworld, Genie appears to completely forget that he can fly. Worse yet, when he changes into something not helpful, he just STAYS IN THAT FORM for a good while afterwards, not bothering to amend his mistake. He just remains in ostrich form as they're swept along the underground river and through the rapids. ARGH!!!! Genie jumped the shark here. How the creative team let Genie slip so fast but held the rest of the show together for its entire run, I'll never understand.

-- Ryan 

Aladdin (the series) 20th anniversary -- Episode 1: "Getting the Bugs Out" (2/6/94)

If Wikipedia's episode list is correct, this was the first episode of the series aired … by The Disney Channel on February 6^th, 1994. Like Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck before it, Disney's premium cable channel aired several episodes as a "preview" in the spring immediately preceding the series' Disney Afternoon debut (and in some cases, as with Aladdin, its co-debut on network Saturday mornings). For this blog series, I'm going go by broadcast order, including Disney Channel's "preview" airdates.

Following Abis Mal's introduction in Return of Jafar (well, technically, Disney Channel premiered this episode BEFORE Return's release … but I'm cheating a little here in my ordering system), here we meet the series' second recurring villain, Mechanicles. Like Abis Mal, Mechanicles isn't a powerful sorcerer or supernatural entity of any type; he's a mere human being, and, used for comic relief, a very bumbling one. However, rather than being pure comic relief, Mechanicles' machines are a legitimate menace. Mal's villainy stems from his scheming nature, which oft results in a clusterfuck that our heroes are inevitably pulled into … whether deliberate or not.

Mehcanicles. (Not from "Getting the Bugs Out".)

A genius – at least in a highly specialized aspect – Mechanicles may be, but that is offset by his eccentric aloofness and obsessive compulsiveness. The latter trait is a clear attempt on the writers' part to give Mechanicles' a distinctive quirk or twist. It does come off as forced and unimaginative, but Charlie Adler's vocal performance (shrill and grainy as it may be), the gaunt features of his character design, and the jumpy tension in the animators' better poses work in conjunction to convey the character's high-strung irritability and misanthropic disdain. The result is consistently entertaining and, as uncongenial as the ancient tinkerer may be, endearing … at least to me; perhaps it's an acquired taste.

With little added in Return of Jafar to the environs of the original theatrical movie other than Abis Mal's lair, this is our first taste of Stones and his crew's -- I suppose in this case, writer Steve Roberts' -- world-building.The peasant village located at the bottom of a cliff that suffers Mechanicles' repeated terrorism is a modest, but by all means suiting, addition. Mechanicles himself is an acute, well-considered expansion of the series' universe: the "base" setting, Agrabah, is ambiguously Arabian in terms of time and place. So it's logical and feels natural that somewhere across the desert, there co-exists a caricaturized ancient Greece or ancient Greece-esque domain, with a least one Athenian-like elitist inhabiting it. (We never see any of Mechanicles other' people; they probably couldn't stand him as much as he couldn't stand them.)

Of course, we shouldn't overlook the very crux of Mechanicles' function as a villain: his creations. As these constructions represent technology found in whatever era the series is set in, I'm considering them a component of the world-building, even though said technology was exclusive to the villain that would literally be nothing (except a selfish, irate, somewhat autistic Poindexter) without them. The show's creators were right on the mark in designing Mechanicles' individual and various squadrons of contraptions in a fashion that look like they COULD be a product of the Ionian Enlightenment, yet are just fantastical enough to be a part of the series' amorphous reimagining of the ancient world.  

Now, where the hoity-toity one's Greek temple-patterned workshop -- being set on a hill covered with a flourishing of grass that's beneath a spring day-like blue sky – actually is in relation to the desert on which Agrabah is built is unclear, but he and the heroes seem to get back and forth between it and the peasant village – which is implied during Aladdin's crew's search for the source of the deadly toy mechanical bug to be on the outskirts of Agrabah -- with ease and rapidity. Such vague geography is curious, but I'm not gonna let it get to me. (Perhaps Mechanicles' headquarters shares a temporal wormhole with Magica De Spell's rock mountain carved in a giant-sized likeness of her head.)

Opening the episode with Jasmine exploring the marketplace "disguised" under cloak and hood is an appreciable gesture of continuity with the original movie. The same can be said for the Sultan's fascination with toys, but it's even more impressive and effective that they used that character trait to set up the plot. The mechanical toy bug carrying out its Trojan horse programming and going into predator mode makes for a whammy of a shift in tone. This revelation of its true nature facilitates a mystery as to its origins, functioning as a decided plot hook.  

On the other hand, Jasmine's disgust with Aladdin's arrogance and Aladdin learning through the course of the episode that he's nothing "without a little help from [his] friends" is a forced, trite, and overly preacher attempt at a character arc. Worse yet, it rings as out of character – I don't remember Aladdin as ever being nearly this smug or conceited in the movie. He was confident and crafty in his acts of mischief and flaunting authority, but never an outright jerk. Tad Stones has said that the most difficult thing about the series was its star already having in the movie already gone through his major character arc. This episode certainly shows that Stones and crew were struggling to figure out what to do with said character. I would contend: why was a character arc so necessary to this episode? We already KNOW who the characters are. Isn't the plot enough? The real motivation here is Aladdin and the crew being compelled to track down the source of the mechanical bug. (By the way, did have Sultan HAVE to say, "If there's more, others could be in danger!"? Did it have to be spelled out? It made it feel as though our heroes are supposed to be the Super Friends.) Why does Aladdin need to be chastised for a trait he really never exhibited before now?

The big climax, the battle with Mechanicles' biggest machine yet, is well-done in terms of action and visuals. The animation of the turning gears, acting as a gauntlet that Aladdin has to run, inside the rampant robot, is especially good. Toby Shelton's directing here is top-notch. Why does a damper have to be put on all the fun immediately afterwards, when Aladdin "wakes up" and "accepts" that he couldn't have done it without the rest of his team coordinating their efforts? Couldn't they just do that anyway, like they do in every other episode?!

Iago spends most of the episode griping over how he doesn't want to be a part of this situation – a standard performance for him, nothing more, nothing less. He'll really hit his stride in future episodes.

One point of contention: It seems to me that it'd be easy enough to just have the damaged bug 'bot that limps and sputters its way into Mechanicles' workshop BE ENOUGH to alert him that he should go to the village to find out what happened? Did we REALLY have to have the bug draw a vivid picture of Aladdin and co. fending off the fleet of 'bots?!  So, it can SEE?! And somehow store electronic memories of visual information?! Stones said that he hadn't wanted the bugs to be sentient, but it was too "complicated" to have to explain their engineering to the audience. But in this case, there was nothing that NEEDED explaining!

Genie watch: At a couple of points, when a particular dilemma arises, Aladdin effectively orders, in more or less words, "Carpet and Genie, get on it!" A couple of times, they follow through by COMPETENTLY working together, going off of some sort of strategized game plan utilizing each one's particular skills. It'd be nice if the two magic entities on the good guys' team continued to coordinate their efforts like this throughout the series, but alas, the writers decided the easiest way to handle Genie and his powers was to make him an idiot. Here, he remains distracted and oblivious as a way of holding off on the heroes' victory, but at least while being wrapped up in something else, he doesn't do anything particular dumb or incompetent. (Ryan, you have to double-check this – I think I vaguely remember an extended bit where he juts did nothing in particular.) 

 -- Ryan