*Episode premise spoilers.*
It’s a Goldie episode, which always makes for a good time. Throw in some mystical shenanigans, a guest starring appearance from Nestor Carbonell, and some sleuthing from the triplets, and this one is a lot of fun!
Scrooge and the kids are on the hunt for the fountain of youth, and much to Scrooge’s annoyance, the only accommodation near the rumored location of the fountain is a hotel that caters to the spring break crowd. His old rival/flame Goldie O’Gilt is also after the fountain, and in their bid to get there first, both of them get an unexpected taste of the fountain’s waters.
I’ve seen Nestor Carbonell in all kinds of stuff, but I’ll always remember him first, and best, for playing Richard Alpert on Lost. Here, he plays the hotel manager. When Scrooge discovers that Goldie is sniffing around the fountain, he and Webby head out on the quest immediately, leaving the triplets behind at the hotel. This gives the boys a lot of interactions with Carbonell’s character as they investigate some strange goings-on regarding age there as well. And just to keep with the theme of the episode, Dewey and Huey get into it over Dewey’s frustrations that Huey gets to be the one in charge because he’s the oldest, having hatched first by several seconds.
The adventure is the show’s usual fun romp, a nice mix of peril, mystery, and humor. But as with any Goldie story, the interactions between her and Scrooge are the headline here—“Fancy meeting me here,” she purrs when he runs into her at the hotel. And this episode puts a new spin on their relationship, as an unwitting encounter with the waters turns them both into teenagers. No longer weighed down by trick knees or bad backs, they race to beat one another in the expedition with extra gusto, not to mention flirting! While they maintain their typical combative one-upmanship, they also get a little more familiar with each other, even as they both get bashful over it.
David Tennant does a nice job with the contrast between old and young Scrooge. At the start of the episode, the hotel situation has Scrooge dialing up the crankiness, grumbling, “Youth is wasted on the young,” as spring breakers run around wildly. And after he’s de-aged, he has much more lightness in his manner and in Tennant’s vocal performance. Tennant’s voice does sound younger and brighter here, convincing as a teenage Scrooge without overdoing it.
I like that, while he understandably gets caught up in the excitement and increased mobility of being young again, and his newly teenage brain serves up an extra helping of recklessness and attitude, he’s still fundamentally Scrooge. “What good is erasing past mistakes if we’re just to make worse ones?” is a great line.
No comments:
Post a Comment