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W.I.T.C.H: The Magical Girl Show which Greg Weisman wrote the second season for.

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Spak-Spang:
Most Cartoons at that time and still today are marketed for boys.  Boys buy more action figures and play with toys in a way to break them or lose them.  So then they buy more.  Or at least that is what marketers believe.

pokepal148:
The idea that this show was held to any kind of content standards is kind of surprising considering how fucked up some of the stuff in Season 2 gets.

pokepal148:
Episode 4: Happy Birthday Will.

The whole idea of Will telling Irma she doesn't want a birthday party and than Cornelia deciding to throw a surprise party for her anyways and hold it at Irma's house feels like a deliciously underhanded way for Cornelia to **** with Irma. You all probably thought I was exaggerating when I said Cornelia was a bitch, I really wasn't.

This is the first episode where Ulriah's little gang makes any real appearance so I feel like talking about them. They're basically Bulk and Skull except there are three of them, they are less likely to smash their faces in some kind of cake during every scene they're in, and they don't have Bulk and Skull's theme music. They have their role in this show, and they do a pretty good job with it. They are actually down a member though, in the comics Nigel, who is Taranee's love interest, was a part of their group as well but I guess the writers didn't want to have one of the main characters be in love with a delinquent or something.

Caleb is the leader of the Rebellion. While in the comics he was a pretty minor supporting character the show elevated him to main character status and I think it's one of the best decisions the show made. He just adds a lot to the show. By having actual combat experience and knowing his way around Meridian he is of great help to the girls, especially during the first season. Outside of combat however he tends to be incredibly socially inept during his scenes which leads to some amusing hijinks, especially when he's on Earth. He lacks magical powers to take advantage of during fight scenes but he is more than enough of a skilled fighter to get by without them.

During the episode we're also introduced to a few girls from the school, being Elyon and Alchemy. Since they don't turn into magical pixies they aren't really that important. They seem to be pretty into Caleb though and their reactions to his shenanigans throughout the episode are kind of adorable. I've always intuited that since Cornelia and Elyon are supposed to be BFFs or something that they are primarily Cornelia's friends but they seem to get along with the other girls just fine.

While something like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers likes to pretend that parents don't exist this show digs pretty deeply into the relationship it's main characters have with their families. In this episode alone we see Irma's parents and her little brother, Chris along with Will's mother, and Cornelia's little sister, Lilian. Irma’s family gets a lot of focus this episode, mainly in that once Irma finds out about the party one of her top priorities is to get them out of the picture so they don't embarrass her only to have to have them hold the fort while the girls go and fight a giant snake man in city hall get pizza.

Yan Lin gives Hay Lin a map. What's interesting about this scene is that in the comics Yan Lin dies almost immediately after this leaving the girls to figure everything out on their own while in the show she's alive and able to give them sparodic advice about the whole Guardian thing. People like to attribute her hands off attitude with the girls to her comic counterpart's death but I think there's another reason that relates more to her own career as guardians, although I won't be able to get too much into that until season 2 for spoiler reasons. Anyways, the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I want to give a shout out to how the comic handled Hay Lin learning about her death. Take a look:





The comic has a ton of issues that make it difficult to recommend seeking out but the way it handles these more serious moments is absolutely sublime. Overall though, I feel that the show does more than enough with Yan Lin as a character to warrant keeping her around. Her quirky and aloof attitude about everything is kind of fun in general and I feel she adds a lot to the show.

Now let's talk about the villains in this episode. I like that it's established that Phobos basically just feeds off of Meridian's life force to get his magical powers. It's also established that that well is starting to run dry and the reason he wants to find his younger sister on earth is so he can steal her own powers because unlike him she apparently doesn't need to freeload off of the land's life force.

Cedric proposes that he could venture to earth to steal the earth city's birth records for girls her age so they can narrow the search to girls who weren't born in the city. Let me see how many problems I can find with this plan:

Whoever brought her to earth could have easily stolen the identity of someone who was born in Heatherfield for the princess to assume. It wouldn't be easy but the true heir to the throne seems important enough to take such lengths.

2. We are given no reason to assume that she is still in Heatherfield and that she isn't just hiding out in Faddon Hills or something. You can infer from stuff we learn later in the season that the fact that the portals between Earth and Meridian are opening in Heatherfield specifically means that the princess is hidden in Heatherfield because her power is what's opening all the portals but since they never say that at this point it just looks like they're jumping the gun a bit here.

3. Because practically everyone and their goldfish who has any kind of magic powers has the ability to use some kind of illusionary magic in this multiverse which includes changing the appearance of themselves or someone around them. There is no reason to even assume that the princess isn't disguised as someone with a different age or even gender to make her more difficult to locate.

4. Breaking into city hall risks drawing attention from earth's authorities which would potentially complicate any future attempts to locate her and bring her to Meridian when everyone is on high alert for snake man and his goon squad. This universe also has a government agency of some sort that focuses specifically on mystical and supernatural stuff, at least based on the comics.

5. Cedric doesn't know where such records are kept so there's a good chance he'll just end up drawing a bunch of attention to himself and end up leaving empty handed.

Overall, this is a really good plan.

I do like how this means today's fight with Phobos and his Crazy Friends will take place on earth for a change. I just wish it was for something meaningful and not just some filler arc. There isn't much else to say about this though, they fight in city hall and Cedric manages to leave with the birth records he came for. There is a weird continuity thing where Taranee asks why they don't go to the police for this stuff even though the main reason they got involved with this is that Irma's father is a police officer so if he ends up getting called in to investigate the calls about a lizard man in City Hall he'll probably get himself killed.

When Will returns to the party she didn't want in the first place she meets a boy named Matt. Matt is Will's love interest and the relationship between Will and Matt is one of the two main love sideplots we get for this show (The other one being Caleb and Cornelia which will start to gain some steam later on).

The Caleb and Cornelia relationship is generally pretty well done, it feels like it grows organically, and while I don't want to get into details, in my opinion both Caleb and Cornelia benefit as characters from being in that relationship, both in terms of personal growth, and as far as how we see them as the audience. At the same time that relationship is never allowed to define either of them as characters.

Matt on the other hand is explicitly introduced as Will's love interest and while he does begin to become his own character later on I feel like the fact that he is introduced explicitly as a love interest hurt him a lot as a character. Caleb is introduced as a badass rebel leader who wrestles with a giant snake man every other week, Matt is introduced as some kid at Will's party with an incredibly stupid looking hat who shows up so they can make goo goo eyes at eachother and hold hands at the end of the episode even though they literally don't even introduce themselves to eachother.



The problem with Season one is that even though W.I.T.C.H generally tries to tell it's story as a serial, where events in one episode will effect the very next episode, it's overarching plot for the season is incredibly thin which makes it difficult for episodes like this one not to feel like they're just filler even though stuff does happen that ends up progressing the season's plot (specifically Will meeting Matt and team Phobos beginning to actively search for the princess on Earth). I suppose they're trying to keep things simple but they kind of went too far with that. When you throw in stuff like Matt's introduction we just have a poor episode. The setup of Cornelia basically trying to screw Irma over could have probably salvaged things a bit but I just don't feel like it really went anywhere.

5.5/10

pokepal148:
I've had this sitting on my phone completely finished for two weeks. Here you go.

---

We open with Phobos and Cedric trying to pretend that the birth records Cedric stole last episode are going to lead to something. Phobos claims pretty matter of factly that the Princess doesn't know her true identity. He doesn't even acknowledge the possibility that her adoptive parents may have told her of her heritage at some point, likely to explain her magical abilities. He claims that while her ignorance was once her greatest protection it now presents him an opportunity. Personally I'd say that taking her to another dimension when traveling between Earth and Meridian is as much of a pain in the ass as it is in this show probably qualifies as her greatest protection. Phobos than claims that he has a mission for Cedric that will require him to pass as a human. That may seem like a simple task for the guy who can literally transform from a giant snake man into a human but considering how long it takes him to transform from snake to human, which is conveniently long enough for the show to burn through a few seconds of recycled footage from his transformation sequence to pad out the runtime, I could see this plan going south if Cedric were to somehow get cornered in snake form or something. Then again, Cedric has proven himself to be a much more competent villain than Phobos is so that probably isn't a problem. Either way, my point is this scene makes Phobos look like an incompetent idiot.

Thankfully things pick up a bit when we reach the school. I like the community service day setup. It's the kind of thing that probably actually happens in some form in some communities but at the same time they exaggerate it in an amusing way with how most of the community service jobs on offer present massive safety hazards and you're putting a bunch of middle schoolers through this stuff. At the same time it doesn't take up the entire episode which is nice. The whole thing mostly exists as far as the episode is concerned to introduce Mr. Collins and get the ball rolling on today's Meridian plotline.

The revelation that Will's mother is dating Mr. Collins is handled in an interesting way I quite like. The whole Mr. Collins subplot kind of gets put on the backburner after this for the rest of the season which is a real shame because this episode is one of the few bits of character focus she gets during season 1, at least that I remember. Will's lack of character development throughout season 1 is really glaring when literally every other main character on the heroes side, including Blunk, gets a character arc.

This wouldn't be such a big deal (especially given how much focus Will gets in the second season) if Will had a strong, likable personality like the other girls do but there just isn't much that's worth talking about in that department. She also doesn't get any powers of her own during the first season so she can't really contribute to fight scenes. Instead she's the one who activates the other girls' powers.

A lot of Will's personality from the comics, particularly her shyness and social awkwardness, were heavily downplayed in the TV show (with Tarannee essentially inheriting Will's shyness.- which results in Will feeling more like a collection of character traits than like a cohesive character.

Will is very conscious about how other people feel about her. She also struggles to accept the idea of either of her parents (who are divorced) seeing other people. She can be very paranoid which certainly isn't helped by the fact that she has an extremely dubious moral code, which we'll see the first big example of later in the episode. I'll probably have to talk about Will again about halfway through Season 2 but for now she kind of just isn't a very good character.

While Will and Hay Lin are painting what appears to be an abandoned train station completely unsupervised they find some strange writing. Caleb takes them to someone known as the Ancient One who can decipher the writing and she makes some interesting revelations. Firstly, she reveals to the girls that Phobos has sent one of his minions to earth and that the writing was a message to that person. She than claims that the Heart of Kandracar can reveal the true form of a beast who has taken human form by touching a beast with the heart. She warns the girls that the beast will attempt to get close to them.

Will calls a club meeting to propose her current theory: Phobos's minion is disguised as Mr. Collins. Her reasoning for believing this is because he has the hots for her mother and clearly that's a massive red flag. Caleb is less than enthusiastic about this theory, and is quick to make some points that would make most rational human beings reconsider this theory like asking how a monster from Meridian would be able to attain enough knowledge of Earth's history to become a history teacher, but the girls are already so wrapped up in this whole theory that nobody is going to talk them out of it.

The rest of the episode features the girls finding flimsy evidence of Mr. Collins being a monster from Meridian and then beating him up with magic powers. When they touch him with the Heart they realize he's just a history teacher after all. Also apparently Cedric holed himself up in some bookstore downtown that he'll be using to search for the princess from here on out.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

I kind of really like how they had Elyon be the one storming out of the school assembly ranting about community service day. Elyon has been established as a supporting character who, from the one or two scenes we've gotten from her, has been portrayed as generally being in pretty good spirits. She's has had just enough screentime at this point to make her being this upset about something have a decent amount of impact.

The sort of subplot that explores Cornelia and her little sister's interactions was pretty well done as well.

I appreciate having an episode that doesn't really feature a Meridian plotline. It honestly feels more like a slice of life type thing than anything. Season 1 suffers from having a lot of fillery episodes that don't really contribute to the overall plot and while I certainly feel this episode falls into that trap it also gives us a bunch of really good characterization for the girls and honestly doesn't really pretend to have any real meaning for the plot.

Overall, it's a fun, but kind of unremarkable episode. 7/10.

pokepal148:
What makes W.I.T.C.H's 1st season interesting watch is how it seems to be basically on the verge of greatness but fails to reach it. Generally each episode has one or two moments where you get a glimpse of what this show can become.

This episode is an example of what Season 1 can be. You have some incredible characterization from the girls, great world building on Meridian, and probably the most significant progression in the overall season's plot we've seen so far.

This is the first time we see Cedric's bookstore owner persona that was established last episode in action. The way he's portrayed as a friendly bookstore owner is really interesting. Instead of having an overt "look at how evil I am" routine like a lot of villains who try to pass of as human in kid's shows do, "Rick" basically behaves like a regular old boring book shop owner. The way the show informs the viewer that he's evil is through the show's music and through camera angles and stuff like that that none of the characters in the actual show would get to see. I honestly wonder why they actually revealed that Cedric was the bookstore owner if he's going to be so subtle. It feels like they should've just let "Rick" having the same voice as Cedric and the creepy atmosphere they gave the bookstore speak for itself and given the viewer some time to figure it out for themselves instead of spoiling the whole thing before "Rick" even got any screen time at the end of the last episode and again at the beginning of this one. However I still greatly appreciate that, from the character's perspective, there's nothing really giving him away. Also apparently Cornelia's friend, Elyon thinks he's cute so I guess he's popular with the ladies.

While in the bookstore Irma, Cornelia, Taranee, and Hay-Lin find a weird looking book and are somehow warped into a labyrinth of bookshelves on Meridian. Taranee being the smart one manages to eventually lead them out of the labyrinth by leaving a trail of string she got by slowly undoing the stitching of Cornelia's sweater. They reach the end of the maze and start basically wandering around until a middle aged woman spots. The woman named Trill tells them they aren't supposed to be there and guides them out of the castle.

Since this episode focuses a lot on Taranee I feel like we should focus on her a bit. Tarannee is the smart bookwormy one of the group. She controls fire which is ironic because she's kind of afraid of fire. She's also afraid of bugs, skiing, and her own shadow but that's it's own thing. Taranee is basically the group's second in command. That role kind of fluctuates depending on the episode or situation but she's the one who's most likely to take charge if she needs to. Both the comics and the show depict her as the most independent one out of the group. Like Irma, Tarannee has issues dealing with her anger. Unlike Irma however who will lash out at anything that's bothering her Tarannee tends to internalize her anger and frustration. The animators actually found a great way to show this by having this effect of fire being reflected by her glasses to the viewer. Taranee also inherited some of Will's shyness and timidness from the comics which pairs well with everything else about her character.

Blunk saw the girls disappear and runs off to find Will, who than meets up with Caleb and Yan Lin to figure out what's going on. Yan Lin calls it an insta-portal or something and sends Will and Caleb to go through the insta-portal to find the others. They follow the string out of the castle only to find rather unwelcome company.


a wild Phobos appears

This is where Will's lack of magical abilities for combat really hurts the show. This is essentially Phobos's first fight scene. Phobos is the first season's main villain so this should have been a chance for him to show that his fairly substantial mystical powers are at the very least enough to let him overpower Will's powers and send them running for the hills. Instead Will doesn't have powers so he gets to throw Caleb around a bit with Telekinesis until Will pushes a bookshelf on him. Bravo good buddy.

The episode manages to pull itself together after this with the scene of the other girls in the forest. The village lady, Trill, provides a bunch of exposition about how it's a hard knock life in Meridian. This scene is absolutely dripping with atmosphere. The sounds of the campfire in the background and the guy playing flute thing in the background really add so much to this scene. It's absolutely incredible.

edit: The youtube vid I found of this scene got deleted so I made a clip of it using youtube's clip feature. I can't embed it but you wouldn't be able to see the embed because lol forum software.

link

Trill informs the girls of rumors she has heard that Meridian's princess and the true heir is somewhere on Earth. The girls resolve to find her and bring her to Meridian. I'm pretty sure Yan Lin mentioned all of this during the opening exposition during episode one but I'm also pretty sure that the first two episodes went through some rewrites since there is a lot of weird contradictory stuff with those two episodes that I can think of. Either way it's been a while. Since that plot point is going to be relevant in a couple episodes it's worth mentioning it again.

The ambience of this scene is ended by the entrance of the Tracker. The Tracker is actually an original character to the show. We have already seen a large number of characters introduced for the show like Alchemy, Blunk, Aldarn, Gargoyle (the giant golem thing from episode 2) Raythor (that guard guy from episode 3), The great mage from last episode, and now Trill. The show is really good at integrating it's original characters into the show and making them feel like they were always part of this universe.

A good example of this is this scene with the Tracker. The show did not set aside screen time for the Tracker to be built up as a threat like a lot of shows would do. Instead they weave him into Trill's exposition scene. He seems to have become rather infamous around town before this. His presence alone is enough to send the gathered townsfolk into a mass panic, which both reinforces Trill's whole speech about everyone living in fear under Phobos and establishes the Tracker as a threat to the viewer in a really elegant way. I really dig it.

The girls run around a bit while the Tracker chases them. season 1 is really inconsistent about whether the girls have any kind of limited access to their powers when they're in human form and unfortunately in this episode they do not so they're kind of in a bit of a pickle. Will finds them, and they transform and whoop the Tracker around a bit. The episode sadly doesn't have enough time left to give the Tracker a full fight scene and honestly pretty much everything after the scene with Trill feels a bit rushed but the Tracker will get plenty of action in a few episodes so don't worry about that.

And outside of a B plot about Tarannee's essay that's this episode in a nutshell. I'm starting to see what a slog this first season can be but episodes like this one show the potential this show has. Sadly the next one is one I am absolutely dreading because if this episode is some of the best this season has to offer than from what I remember the next one is some of the worst.

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