Review: Victor and Valentino “Poacher Patrol”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

When Don has to be called away from lifeguard duty, he puts Valentino in charge. The power soon goes to Val’s head and he starts pelting everyone with tickets and citations, even mistaking an environmental conservationist for a poacher, but then teaming up with her in order to stop a swarm of piranhas.

OUR TAKE

We cap off week three of the Vic and Val-fest with probably the weakest of the four this week. That’s not to say it’s bad or anything, and I’d probably say it’s more solid than the Charlene episode, but it’s definitely the least interesting. It’s not as unique as the crossover episode, it doesn’t dive into the show’s source culture like the Teo episode, and it’s honestly not as funny as the Charlene one even if the pay off irks me there. It’s main stand out quality is that it has an environmental message to it, which is certainly important to have in kid’s shows, though everything about it is basically factory setting for the show. Nothing’s particularly WRONG with it, but it’s not really standing out in any particular way. It really does feel like this was written by algorithm or auto pilot. Everyone’s written in character, the plot makes sense, the message is good, it’s all perfectly functional, but I need more than that to really latch onto it like I have with other episodes. And with as many episodes as this series has already, it’s natural that there are going to be episodes like this in between the major highlights, so this is to be expected.

And it’s time once again to rank up the episodes for this week! Obviously, if the above paragraph wasn’t indication enough, this one is probably going at the bottom of the four for being completely bland. After that is probably the Teo episode, inching out by being slightly more interesting through its use of the show’s mythology and pairing that with a more uncommon but very wholesome message. After that would be the Charlene episode, which I’m sure must come as a surprise given how I kinda ragged on it, but I will have to admit that it still made me feel SOMETHING which I’m gonna say is an advantage to other episodes making me feel more or less nothing. Though the Karma Houdini ness of it is what keeps it from taking the top spot, which goes to the crossover with Villainous. Crossovers are by no means easy to pull off, even for one that is only about eleven minutes, so hats off to the crews of these two shows that they were able to coordinate this well on it. I don’t think I’d be willing to check out Villainous just based on that unless I found out it was REALLY good, but it’s still a good effort. Now onto the final week!