Danny uses his powers to get back at Dash’s bullying, but it unleashes the wrath of a nerdy ghost, thinking HE'S the bully.
5.5
"Mediocre"
After the Box Ghost trashes Danny’s locker, he is assigned number 724, which is said to be haunted. Later on, when Danny has had enough of Dash's bullying, he uses his ghost powers to get back at him. But this unleashes the wrath of Sidney Poindexter, a nerd who used to get bullied back in the ‘50's, whose spirit haunts Danny’s locker! Thinking Danny’s the bully, he switches bodies with him, sending Danny into a 50’s spirit world!
Hmm…sorry, but I really didn’t like this one a lot. I did think of this as worse, but going back through it, I’ll give it a little more credit. Some parts in SI were okay, but most of it was overshadowed by what was not so good.
The opener was pretty good to start with. Sam brought back her true activist ways with her protest against dissecting frogs, even though I think she may have gone just a little overboard with that as time went on. The little fight with the Box Ghost was very funny, even though I have to say that it was pretty sad to have Danny be…well, not really beaten, but just sort of incapacitated. Oh, and the being in those clothes for everyone to see was hard to believe. I mean, how can those clothes just fall on him, and then he stands up from them, and he’s suddenly wearing them? The clothes were also pretty creepy.
After the opener, things started to head downward. I might be able to understand that Danny would want to use his powers for payback since he hasn’t had them for too long and doesn’t know how to use them, but I just didn’t like the way it was presented. It just felt too rushed and had little or no time to really develop in a very good way.
Apart from Sam’s frog campaign, I liked the way she was portrayed throughout. She seemed to realize Danny wasn’t doing the right thing with his powers, and that was IC for the one of the trio who is usually the most logical. But I felt that she was given the short end of the stick at the end. Although her campaign was a success, she was not acknowledged for it. Lancer’s comment about her learning about activism, when she was the one who started it, summoned it up.
The scene at Danny’s house with the family was something I minimally enjoyed. I just didn’t like that Jack and Maddie already wanted to stake out the school when Danny had said nothing about the locker. Jazz was somewhat IC there, even though I didn’t entirely like her comment about Danny being “a clumsy nerd”. But her comment about girls maybe talking to Danny in college was pretty funny.
Danny had his highs and lows in this episode. His pranks on Dash were his lows. But the scene where Danny saw the other jocks picking on other kids and he seemed pretty mad at them when it wasn’t at his own expense was pretty nice, but it would have been better if he had stood up for him.
As for Poindexter, I didn’t like him that much in this episode. While in his first fight with Danny, he did certainly look like an even match for him, but his actual personality just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. While I like that he seemed somewhat compassionate as looking out for those less fortunate, he controlled all the food in the school to splat everybody, so I didn’t like that. I also didn’t like that he wouldn’t listen to Danny’s explanations about Dash being the bully instead of him. Certain types of misunderstandings are things I never enjoy, and here was no exception. But Poindexter’s weird lingo from the ‘50’s was funny, sort of reminiscent of the hilarity of Technus.
The scene where Danny wrote to Sam and Tucker on the ground, only to have them close their eyes, and then have the writing erased when they finally looked, was too FOP, quite like the most part of the episode was.
The final fight was really funny, but didn’t exactly have the appropriate mood for a final fight. Danny’s remarks about Poindexter and the glasses were funny, as well as Poindexter’s pathetic attempts to try and punch him with Danny’s powers. But it was more like a joke battle. But Danny’s quick thinking into tricking Poindexter into overshadowing him so he could regain control was pretty good.
And the ending was done okay. But the fact that Danny’s quick popularity status was wiped out just because of his new locker location was a little harsh, since he had already been put through enough grief. But it’s probably what had to be done, since Danny is pretty much regular as an unpopular kid. The Box Ghost’s final scene with the mechanical frog was funny, and that kept me from giving this episode a rating of less than a 5.
But that doesn’t stop me from making Splitting Images my least favorite so far. 5.5/10. Sorry, Butch.