Defenders of Berk 201 Review

PLOT A: "Let there be no Dragons"

Convinced that it’s too dangerous to fly with an attack from Alvin looming over the horizon, Stoick puts a ban on dragon flying for the riders to ensure their safety.

This was an…..interesting turn to take for the beginning of the season. I, for one, was expecting, more of a “let’s train a lot more now that an attack is sure to come” but instead it’s just “let’s halt all training”. That seemed a bit odd to me, but the episode constantly hammered that Stoick was doing this to protect the kids from flying into a potentially dangerous situation, so I guess you can put it in the “misguided parenting” files.  

And there was a good vibe of Hiccup/Stoick head butting—which is always amusing to watch—but I loved Hiccup’s reaction to the whole thing. He knew it was wrong, didn’t back down, and delivered some wonderfully sassy dialogue. This is a lot better of a reaction than when he’d mope and dope around about how he’s never going to get his father’s acceptance and blah blah blah, but then, it’s just showcasing Hiccup being more comfortable with himself, I’m guessing. (Either that or they accidently did character development and didn’t even know it).

That and I do enjoy Hiccup's new weapon. The extensive amount of trailers gave us better looks that his shield also turns into a crossbow. So, at least one of the developments I wanted to happen from last season--that being Hiccup realizing he needs a way to defend himself on his own without the aid of Toothless--is coming to a head. I can't wait to see Hiccup kick some butt with that thing!

Though I can see how this plot might rub certain viewers the wrong way who were annoyed with the first season’s constant over usage of the “let’ banish the dragons” plot. While this plot didn’t mirror that exactly, it had certain similarities that can leave a bad taste in your mouth if that’s something that bothers you. But, at least, there wasn’t a direct attack on the dragons, just a “don’t fly” thing…Though I couldn't shake the notion that the initial "ban" part of this plot was more of a plot point than a necessary advancement, while I liked the compliment to having a secret society of sorts, I feel like more thought went into the other plots and this one was perhaps an afterthought. 

PLOT B: “Insert pun about how there is no Dragon Flight Club here"

The teens go all rebel on Stoick’s rules and decide to create a secret flying club called the “Dragon Flight Club” so that they can still train even with the ban on flight.

Okay so the flight club element of this plot seems eerily familiar to episode 105 of Riders of Berk: “In Dragons we Trust”, in which D.U.M.B was founded and lasted all of 5 seconds within the episode before, I guess, disbanding. The flight club, however, seemed a little more well thought out as towards its purpose. 

And, to be honest, the flight club seems to have done more of what they should’ve been doing in season 1. 

That being going out and watching dragons in their natural habitats, studying their mannerisms, and reading the trails they leave behind. They actually showed this montage of learning in a pretty well paced way. The learning scenes were broken up between the Stoick’s plot well enough that it didn’t feel like dead weight—which was common for last season—so at least that’s an improvement. I do hope this new way of training sticks because it actually feels like they’re learning something that they’re supposed to…you know…furthering dragon knowledge…what the franchise is supposed to be about….

And thank Thor during the scene where they were being chased by the changewings they all finally grew brains and just flew up. Seriously, they could cut so many problems in half by flying up, I remember how much it annoyed me in “Gem of a Different Color” when they were being chased by the changewings that they didn’t think to fly up. Sometimes I think they confuse learning new things about dragons with ignoring common sense and then magically getting it back so that it seems they learned something.

But I think this plot would’ve benefitted more if the flight club had gotten more “secret time”, as in extended the plot of the secret flight club across a few more episodes, just because all of the teens secretly continuing their studies at night has a lot of appeal to it, and it would’ve avoided the D.U.M.B. repeat of having a group come and go within one episode, but that's really just my opinion. For a one episode secrecy thing, it did it's job well enough. Also with maybe cutting out the scenes of Hiccup and Astrid telling everyone else individually about how there is no dragon flight club. It would've been a better usage of time to just tell Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs all in one sitting than go through all of theme with their own scenes. It was clearly used to comedic purposes, but I'm always skeptical because wasted time in this show never ends well.

All that being said, though, the episode ending with Stoick asking about the flight club does imply that it’s going to stay…though there’s really no point in it being secret anymore. And does this mean it’s just going to be called “Dragon Flight Club” and not “Dragon Training Academy”?  I guess only time will tell. But seeing as how I was much more impressed with what they were doing with the flight club than the training academy, my vote goes towards the flight club. Oh but there is no dragon flight club whoopsie.

PLOT C: "Alvin’s latest Cliffhanger"

Making what seems to be a half-baked attack on Berk actually ends up being a scheme by Alvin to distract the riders while Mildew and Savage plant baby Whispering Death eggs underneath Berk.

I got a bit worried when I looked at the clock and saw that yet another ending battle was coming up and there was only 5 minutes left of the episode, but as far as the content of the fight went, it being short lived worked to the advantage of the late placement in the episode.

It didn’t have the characteristically slow paced action that Riders of Berk seemed to have the majority of the time. The fight kept moving, the short breaks where strategy was traded in conversation was fast and to the point and then right back into the action. And given that the fight probably only last 3 minutes tops…it did its job and didn’t feel rushed, in fact, it felt like a real fast paced fight. The camera kept moving, it didn’t stay on what one character was doing for too long, and the angles used to portray the mid-air fighting was pretty darn good—and big points for finally showing Stoick do some great fighting on Thornado! And, at the end, there was even time for some non-rushed aftermath and a cliff hanger.

Which, speaking of, I’m loving the show’s cliffhangers, if there’s one thing you can count on for this show is that when there’s a cliffhanger, it’s going to be interesting.

So now there’s little baby whispering deaths underneath Berk, and everyone’s in the dark about it as well as still in the dark that Mildew is working for the Outcasts and not held against his will—though I did enjoy Hiccup’s lack of trust that Mildew could keep his mouth shut when under questioning. I still hope we eventually get an explanation of why Mildew switched sides and, more importantly, how and when in season 1 did he do so? But it’s good to see all the villains working together and making advances in their schemes, and for staging a bogus fight just to distract them from the others planting dragons. That was a smart move, which is good, because in the first season I often questioned Alvin's intelligence. He's evil, sure, but if he keeps dishing out well thought out plans like this I might actually feel he's more of a threat than he seemed last season…

And I'm loving that this time the good guys aren’t even aware of the danger looming beneath, so that’s sure to be interesting.  

FINAL THOUGHTS:

So, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting magical fireworks in this episode—though ironically there were literal fireworks in this episode—and while there was nothing super special going on in terms of mixing things up, as an opening it was solid enough.

Points for the cliffhanger though, that was a good one, and extra points for the good fight scene, since keeping a consistent, fast paced, fight was a problem that kept surfacing in the first season as well.

But I can say that while this episode had smooth transitions and a decent pace to it, it lacked a focal point. In many cases the plot lost it's sense of grounding—no pun intended. The plot seemed to not know what it wanted to stress more, the flight club or the ban on dragons. While both plots are a result of the other the episode did a limbo a little too much between showing Stoick’s dilemma and showing Hiccup’s while mixing the conflict with the teens trying to start a rag tag secret club to continue training.

These two elements were evenly matched in screen time between the two plots, but then, that kind of contributed to the problem…it was all too even and what was the main point..? The family drama or the flight club? By what they choose to end it with—being a conversation between Hiccup and Stoick—I guess it was supposed to be the family drama, but then I would’ve liked that to be stressed a bit more and perhaps cut out the “going to each member’s house and telling them the same thing about how there is no dragon flight club” scenes as they just seemed like ways to add in comedy yet didn’t advance the plot or keep it moving.

But at least the problem wasn’t pacing in this episode, just proper plot stressing.

Though I will say something about this episode that is absolutely commendable is the fact that it was able to capture something I've been hoping the show would catch onto, and that's slow moments. What last season lacked was those slower moments to reflect on the events or feelings towards the events, which always gives a feeling of "gotta go fast" plots, and no breaks. 

Two moments that successfully did this was the scene where Astrid was talking to Hiccup after catching him flying, and the ending scene with Stoick and Hiccup. The scenes don't need to be long, but what all shows need are slower moment in between the plot to simply reflect on the situation or shed light on how a character feels/their motivations. In the conversation between Hiccup and Astrid, Hiccup revealed his motivations for flying that night by himself, and then Astrid offered a solution while agreeing with him and giving him a little reassurance with her backup. That's good. And I'm not talking about Hiccstrid, just about a solid moment for the viewer to be on the same page as the characters. 

As well as the scene at the end where Stoick tells Hiccup he was sorry and he knew he was wrong, as well as told him why he did what he was doing. And Hiccup offered a response that he understood, no hard feelings. That added a sense of closure to the issue, and released the tension. And that wasn't a very long scene either, but just cutting out that extra time to have a scene like that is what gave this episode a sense of finish to it. 

In season 1, these types of moments were much too sparse and the motivations behind characters was either never addressed verbally or given to the viewer in a rushed way. During a battle or during a fast paced scene in general is not when I want to hear Hiccup reveal why he's doing something, or apologize to someone...that needs to be before or after the faster stuff for the viewer to not feel like they got whacked in the head with a ten ton block of plot. 

But, moving on from that, this premier is simply going to feel different than the premier last year, as we already know the show’s weakness and strengths and are simply looking if they’re getting fixed alongside this new season.

It’s too early to tell if the pacing has been completely fixed, but this episode didn’t have that many blindingly obvious pacing issues so, at least they got lucky with this one. And the animation was absolutely beautiful! Such warm colors, especially for the sunset scene, and very fluent movements.  

It did its job and introduced the first obstacle the riders have to eventually deal with, which is the mini-herd of whispering deaths living underneath them and, I have to admit, that’s a really interesting issue to deal with. I just hope they pull it off just as interestingly as the premise sets up for. And kudos for making many multiple references back to season 1, something as simple as the characters mentioning past events from the previous season gives a great sense of a continual plot. 

But as an episode, it evened out to just being average. It was a good episode, but nothing that made it great. But it's nice usage of slower character moments did balance out it's misguided plot stresses every now and then.