"Detention's" 13 Eps - Review-wise Summaries

"Detention's" 13 Eps - Review-wise Summaries
Of course, a show's gotta have some eps. I've seen some of these eps and have put up review-wise summaries on USENET at alt.tv.animaniacs for net surfers to read. I've decided to put up these summaries. I'm presenting them as-is, without editing (though when there's a need for notes, they'll be in italics). One word of warning: There are more spoilers here than an LA traffic jam. To pad some space, I might as well put up the titles of the 13 eps first (with the premiere dates):
Shareena Takes the Cake (premiered 9/11/99)
What Did You Se'ance? (premiered 9/25/99)
The Man with the Golden Brain (premiered 9/18/99. Yes, before the "Se'ance" episode)
The Contest (premiered 10/9/99)
Too Good to Be Truant (premiered 10/23/99)
Breaking Out (premiered 11/6/99)
Comedy of Terrors (premiered 11/13/99)
Little Miss Popular (premiered 11/20/99)
Capitol Punishment (premiered 12/4/99)
The Blame Game (premiered 1/8/00)
Boyz 'n the Parenthood (premiered 2/5/00)
A Friend in Greed (premiered 3/4/00)
Rule the School (premiered 3/25/00)

The Man with the Golden Brain
This ep got off to a slow start in the first segment... after an X-files styled opening fantasy sequence (a must in every "Detention" ep, and I mean the opening fantasy sequence) there wasn't much in the way of plot. All we found out was: there was going to be a "mandatory" spelling bee, and paranoid guy Emmitt saw that the principal McQueen had a human brain. Emmitt said that "The truth is out there" (X-Files ref) and decided to investigate.
The 2nd segment basically had everyone except Emmitt and the comic book freak Jim reading up for the bee (with the twins saying "I'm gonna win" -- hey, they're brainy). The other two were looking for evidence that McQueen was indeed a brain sucker. They called a press conference to show off their finds and got sent to the principal for that (it was against school regulations). You could see the paranoia on their faces as they were dragged to the principal! Anyways, that ended the 2nd segment.
3rd segment had the stuff I was waiting for: the spelling bee. The show frequently cut between this and the other two dudes' "paranoia attack". So let me break them down individually:
The bee: Cute girl Shareena thought that "perky" was a foreign word. Scout girl Shelly couldn't spell "decay". Duncan's yo-yo ran out of rope while he was trying to spell his word (started with "call"). The twins (Orangejella and Lemonjella) got words so tough I couldn't remember most of them (there was one that started with "preci", but that was all) and they kept getting them right. Then when Orangejella got "rivalry":
O: R-I-V-A-L...
L: (butting in) R-Y!
This disqualified them BOTH. (HUH?! "Thanks a lot!" complained Orangejella. Lemonjella's response: "You wouldn't have won anyway!") Gug was up and had to spell "vociferous". Flashback to segment two when he was being "tutored" on these hard words: he was sitting between the 2 when they were spelling the word:
One of them (looking at "Really Hard Words"): Vociferous. V-O-C-I-F-E...
The other (looking at "Really Hard Words II"): R-O-U-S.
(Note: not sure if I got the separation right)
Gug just repeated that (Cue "Who Wants to be A Millionaire?" sound effects!) and won.
The paranoia: Jim was reading "Superman" (another WB property) while they waited. The two were called in. After a little talk. McQueen said he had to go somewhere. Their paranoia suggested that he was going to suck the brains out of the bee winner. So they ran to the auditorium where the 2 storylines converged.
The two tackled McQueen who was carrying the box with the "brain". The "brain" slipped out and Emmitt caught it. It turned out to be the gold trophy that was being presented to the bee winner Gug ("Wow, my first trophy!").
Anyways, in (what else?) detention the twins forgave each other (using big words for bad like malicious). Shareena showed Emmitt the news of his hoax (not to mention Gug's big win). At the end, Emmitt showed McQueen with antenna from his head... turned out to be TV antennas. The end.
Notes!
1. "Vociferous" means loudly complaining. Possible reference to how fans are complaining that many of Bob Doucette's shows aren't getting a chance, perhaps? (Well... perhaps not.)
2. The first 2 outs were an example of cartoon irony: Shareena was targetting yucky words like "decay" and Shelly was targetting nice ones like "perky".
3. Favorite lines:

Teacher when she was getting rid of the twins: "If you wanna audition for the World Wrestling Federation, do it on your spare time like I do!"
Shareena when she saw that McQueen's antenna were just a TV's: "Get a L-I-F-E life!"

4. This was the first time viewers knew the twins' names and how they were pronounced (erRONjella and leMONjella). This was also probably the ep where their names were most mentioned. (Actually, this was more like the first time *for me*.)
5. The twins said "Sister!" when they forgave each other. Possible ref to their sitcom "Sister, Sister" perhaps? (Again... perhaps not.)
6. Let me see if I got this right. Lemonjella got disqualified for butting in. OK, so far so good. But what on earth did Orangejella get disqualified for?! This certainly was a flawed spelling bee... Latest: When I described this to Don Del Grande and asked him what would really happen if this occured:

Not sure - I think whoever butted in would be disqualified and whoever 
was spelling the word would be given a new one.

Also, click on the link above and look for a discussion on spelling bee rules.
7. Other critical thought: I never saw anyone the LaBelles' dual DQ coming. I also never saw Gug's win coming... until Gug was the last one left, that is.

Breaking Out
I decided to watch another ep of "Detention" as there wasn't anything else good on TV at the time. I tuned in during a sequence explaining how the teacher had locked the gang in for Saturday detention while she was checking papers (basically, stamping F on all of them). Then they talked about a TV star (some guy named Shawn Gregory from something called Lawson's Lake -- a ref to Dawson's Creek). They were so desparate to break out to meet him at a bookstore. So that's what they did.
Silent dude Duncan made this ep all about him as the kid basically used his yo-yo to help the gang. Examples:
1. He used it to swing a couple of guys over a set of laser beams (looks like the teacher is not so smart...).
2. He used it to fall down a couple of underground stalactites to make a pathway across a chasm for them to walk on.
3. A bulldozer was chasing Gug (self-proclaimed look-alike of Shawn). Duncan used his yo-yo to pull the brake on it.
After all that, they managed to run in to the dude -- but only because he had forgotten his little pen when he'd left (the pen's logo looked like that of the WB's). Basically he got the gang some Shawn posters to sign.
After getting the posters, the teacher ran in to them (asking for Shawn) and told them about their infraction. But, Shareena argued that she was supposed to be in detention hall as well. So, "Dismissed!"
Final scene was basically scoutgirl Shelly talking to cardboard cut-outs (probably explaining how they managed to slip out unnoticed).
Quote of the day: "If we work together as a team, we can succeed in anything" -- Shareena, after getting those posters.
This ep seemed to be more about Duncan's yo-yo than the gang's desire to meet that star. Also, the finis seemed ever so slightly contrived just so things worked out in the end (unless you were doing drama, not doing so would be a no-no). Still, the ep was quite tolerable -- if only because of the refs to "Dawson's Creek".

Comedy of Terrors
Yesterday I saw an ep of Detention. This was my first time with the series. I tuned in late so I started when Shareena (baby dil on rugrats AKA Tara Charendorff) wanted to take revenge on some guy who won the role of Hamlet in a school play (around 13 min. in). Meanwhile some guys were planning to take revenge on this guy by ruining his soliloquy (that's a fancy word for speech). Basically Shareena locked the guy in the costume room, and the guys executed their plan by mistake (hey kid, here's a thought, don't give the other guy the signal!), wetting Shareena. After all that happened, they basically recounted what had happened: the guy had apparently accidentally sat on the guys' science project. In fact someone else did. Anyway, at the end after getting detention, the science project dude said that the hamlet guy helped him rename his project "the big bang theory" and got an A+. Weirdly-named twins Orangejella and Lemonjella (played by real-life twins tamera and tia mowry respectively -- how's that for an in-joke!) (Actually, it wasn't as much as an in-joke as it was a "clever" bit of casting.)said "as Shakespeare said: beneficial circumstances arise from events that conclude in a good manner" (or something like that). The rest: "Huh?" Twins: "All's well that ends well!" I figured that out before the twins even finished the "fancy" version.
Anyway, I kinda liked the show, except for one thing. It's not like the WB I used to know. Compared to the days of animaniacs and RoRos, Detention is quite tame. God wonders what Bob Doucette was thinking. Anyway, I still yearn for RoRos -- there's something about humanoid dogs, body armor, super vehicles and weapons and the type of comedy you'd see in Jerry Bruckheimer films that appealed to kids enough to beat superman in the ratings. Man, life is SO unfair. The RoRos did everything to beat the man of steel, and Supe got renewed simply on commercialism rather than ratings. But enough of my laments.

Capital Punishment
Well, got around to seeing another ep of Detention a couple days ago. I saw the opening sequence for the first time and it actually looks good! Wow.
Anyway, the ep was called "Capitol Punishment" which had the gang go to Washington. basically some of the gang (especially the paranoid dude Roswell) thought that a spy was pursuing them and did many things to get away from him (like using a yo-yo like a Batwing to swing between buildings). scout girl Shelly (she looks like the girl from Johnny Bravo) missed their flight because she had to go get baggage claim and so had to take the bus and met some colorful guys along the way. while main girl Shareena got a surprisingly fun tour of DC from the teacher. at the end, we found out that the "spy" was supposed to give them white house passes, and teacher took them on a surprisingly fun tour of the white house, ending in the war room.
Observations:
1. Right at the beginning, i noticed that one of the twins' hairbands (if that's what you call them) briefly changed color when Shelly shook her hand.
2. When Shelly missed the flight, she was concerned over how to get to Washington. wouldn't the rest be concerned over how to claim their baggage (though that might not have been an issue 'cause i never saw their bags)?
3. The segue to the 2nd break was, IMO, botched. cutting to break right after Roswell (i think) said "here he comes now!" (when he saw the "spy" leave the rooftop elevator) could have been acceptable, but filling 8 secs with increasingly intense "suspense" music and showing the "spy" approaching before breaking is definitely not!
4. Neither twin said anything during the first segment. the first line either of them said was "the only agents around here are travel agents" (after Roswell saw the "spy" early in the 2nd segment). Their last line (IIRC) was "we're gonna hit (WHAM!) the wall." (when silent guy Duncan used his yo-yo to swing the gang between buildings), and that was early in the 3rd segment (if they said something else after that, I apologize for my mistakes). my theories on why they said so little:

Tia and Tamera Mowry (the real-life twins who play them) have a sitcom of their own and probably have less time to record their audio. (then again, Tara Charendoff who plays Shareena has regular roles on at least 2 other series, Rugrats and Powerpuff girls)
WB writers too lazy to write much intelligent dialog for them to use. (hey, they're supposed to be very smart! then again, the writers also write a good deal of intelligence for their younger brother Tahj to use on "Smart Guy")
WB writers feared that the intelligent dialog would sail over most viewers' heads (probably explains why they summarize, in simple terms, everything intelligent they say)

5. Smart line of the day: "Our weight on the yo-yo string is affecting our trajectory..." (or something like that) the twins (who else?), when they realized that they were going to miss the opposite building's window in the yo-yo swing and, of course, hit the wall.
6. I read the official dirt on the twins (just go to www.kidswb.com/detention/detbios/lemon_orangejella.html) and it said:

they like arguing with each other (didn't see it here)
they're bossy (didn't see it here either)
they've got sky high IQs (saw some here with the "trajectory" line above, and the "beneficial circumstances" line from the last ep I saw)

7. In the last post, i said "Detention is quite tame." What I meant was, it wasn't as slapstick as Doucette's earlier shows like Animaniacs and RoRos... but i guess you'd have figured that out by now.
The only problem with Detention now? in the US, it got 2 seasons of airing (from 13 eps). Compare that to RoRos which only got one season of airing (from an equal amount of eps). And BTW it seems like this show has only 2 relics from the earlier era of WB toons: everyone has 4 fingers, and the title card (at least this ep's) looks like something you'd see on Animaniacs.

Boyz 'n the Parenthood
Just saw another Detention yesterday, and all wasn't well for my favorite characters Lemonjella and Orangejella:
I caught the ep about 4 min in, and the teacher was giving out some water balloons to the kids: Shareena had been paired with Emmitt, Jim and Gug were paired with the twins (don't exactly remember who was paired with who, but I think Jim was paired with Orangejella), and Shelly was paired with Duncan. Apparently, it was some health assignment about bringing up babies (the balloons had some sort of turn switch to stop them from crying). Basically, after seeing them take care of the balloons for a while (with Duncan leaving Shelly for a yoyo convention) the first segment bascially just ended when Emmitt told Shareena that he'd be going on vacation (with his father) and just left her holding the baby -- literally.
Second segment: Basically, the rest of the boys were recklessly playing with their balloons, and the girls decided to interrupt their little reckless play for a little talk. Then some ice cream truck came, and thus the girls were left holding the baby -- literally. As for Emmitt -- he was left thinking that dad was on some secret mission when he never arrived. (This would later prove to be important as his mommy talked to him about responsibility, which was what the assignment was all about. Angling for the E/I requirements, aren't we?) Basically another slow paced tedium of the girls taking care of their "babies", ending with Shareena repeatedly getting annoyed by her balloon's crying.
Third segment: the girls filled the balloons up with water, and gave them to the boys for their trip to a museum, apparently to get back at 'em. Emmitt was the only boy who actually succeeded in turning off his balloon's alarm (apparently, the balloon was too big for the others to turn it off), while the rest were involved in a chase with the museum's guard over the crying balloons, ending with the teacher getting splashed when the boys had to give up their balloons. The final result: The LaBelles would have to repeat the class (and of course they got detention) and one would presume that Shelly would have to repeat too. Shareena and Emmitt presumably avoided detention (as well as repeating the class), and the ep ended with Emmitt telling Shareena that if they had to do an assignment like this again, she would have to be responsible. "Darn!"
So what do I think of this ep? Needless to say, I feel sorry for the twins, especially considering this:

They didn't hatch the plan, Shareena did and got away scot-free.
Wouldn't the teacher have known about undeserved punishment already? (Considering that she'd just wrongfully accused the twins for stealing her novel in the previous ep)
It wasn't their fault they failed the friggin' health assignment. It was the boys' (they even admitted it, dammit).

Still, a somewhat touchy ep.
Observations:
1. The boys were playing with their balloons and took a lot of beating, especially when they threw them down basketball hoop. Also, Shareena's balloon bounced on the floor a few times without breaking. And yet, the boys' balloons broke when they hit the teacher on the head. HMMMM... of course you could argue that when the balloons got bigger, they got more fragile...
2. Ever noticed that the balloons seemed to be color-coded? Orangejella got an orange balloon, Lemonjella got either a purple or yellow one (my memory hasn't been serving me well) and Shareena got a purple balloon. Only Shelly and Duncan got a non-color-coded balloon (IIRC, it was either red or orange).
Latest Update: After seeing the beginning again here's the pair ups (and balloon colors) in that ep:

Shareena - Roswell, purple

Lemonjella - Gug, yellow

Orangejella - Jim, orange

Shelly - Duncan, pink

3. This ep was a finalist in SHINE Awards 2000: Sexual Health IN Entertainment. In the Youth Program category, there was:
Detention-"Boyz 'n the Parenthood" (WB)
Fathers Too Soon (Channel One)
Teen Files-"The Truth About Sex" (UPN), which won this category.
The WB also landed 2 finalists in the Comedy and Drama episode categories -- from the same show, "Popular", proving that this show can be funny and serious at times. (More like the board couldn't make up their mind which genre the show was, I say...)
Comedy Episode
3rd Rock From The Sun-"Sex and the Sally" (NBC)
Everybody Loves Raymond-"Sex Talk" (CBS)
King of the Hill-"Aisle 8A" (FOX)
Moesha-"Let's Talk About Sex" (UPN)
Popular-"Booty Camp" (WB)
"Moesha" and "Popular" both won this category.
Drama Episode
Any Day Now-"Hey Ugly" (Lifetime)
Judging Amy-"The God Thing" (CBS)
Once & Again-"Let's Spend the Night Together" (ABC)
Popular-"Tonight's the Night" (WB)
The West Wing-"Take Out the Trash Day" (NBC)
"Any Day Now" won this one.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer-"Where the Wild Things Are" also took a Scene Stealing honoree.

My thoughts about the series so far:
1. Kick ass theme song! Very catchy.
2. The twins seem to be getting less intelligent. It almost seems as if Shareena's actually smarter than them now.
3. For those of know who think this is a knock off of Recess, I've got no opinion on this -- no broadcaster here's picked up that show. (When I say "here", I mean Thailand.)
4. The teacher can be funny at times (especially the toothache ep). I've still only seen four eps though (as of this writing), so there's still a long way to go before I'm going to give my final analysis of the show.

A Friend in Greed
This episode had a VERY monotonous plot... all the ep concerned was basically the "Detention" gang (which, as you probably know by now, consists of: Shareena Wickett, the LaBelle twins, Jim, Duncan Bubble, Shelly, Emmitt and Gug) and the teacher (Ms. Kisskillya) looking for some buried treasure in a forest. Of course, everyone wanted it (thus the title "A Friend in Greed"). All they did was walk in the forest, caves, etc. looking for it (often cutting between 2 groups, each led by one of the twins). Eventually the teacher found it under some large boulder (but see note below). Apparently, their little tiffs ended up adding to quite some wasted time. (Said Gug, "This stinks!") At an unveiling the teacher said to some guy "I'm gonna give what the kids deserve!" (of course, meaning detention). But the guy misinterpreted it (to the teacher's pique) as "I'm gonna donate the money to make a video arcade!" The students went "Yay!" And as for payback, they basically put paper found in the forest onto the teacher's car (the teacher fainted upon seeing this). Said Shareena: "She can always go on a 'paper route'."
Notes:
1. How could the teacher lift that boulder, and why did she bother putting it back up just to toy with the students? Even they needed to "utilize a fulcrum to maximize our force" (Lemonjella's words, not mine), that is, "use leverage" to lift the boulder.
2. One sequence made my day for me: The one where the teacher accidentally hit a beehive and was chased by bees, ran off a cliff, into a cave where she was chased out by a bear and then running into a log which rolled down a hill hitting a moose which kicked her over another cliff and onto poison oak. That's a good idea of the show's humor.
3. Is it just me, or do the LaBelles seem to be only good for them saying the same thing together? At least they showed off their "intelligence" this ep (the aformentioned "fulcrum" line).

Rule the School
The final ep of detention had Shareena (the main girl) planning some sort of party while her parents were away. Meanwhile Gug (or Gugliamo, as teacher likes to call him) got a master key from the teacher, and he kept citing school rules and stuff (basically making it impossible to retrieve a party pamphlet that'd slipped into the teacher's lounge). In fact, the twins even complained that no one would go to the party Shareena'd planned because of Gug getting carried away over his "power". So the little perdito bandito (what Shareena called Gug this ep) had to retrieve a report to redeem himself (presumably to avoid another group docking that would preclude the party). When he did, Shelly was around yelling causing the teacher to wake up. Gug had to use some evasive skills to avoid getting slammed by the teacher. He also used a little help from a yo-yo (Duncan made a "spider web" for teacher to crash into). Anyway, after Gug mentioned stealing the report (so, of course, they wouldn't have to spend Saturday school), they had their party. Shareena's parents came home early, but it seemed that Shareena'd planned ahead (she threw an anniversary party downstairs, and had the real one upstairs). Said Gug, "Shareena - you rule!"
Lone thought: think of the party as a wrap party for the show -- as I said, this was the last ep. IMO the show had me interested from the moment I saw Shareena do Hamlet's soliloquy (which was one of my very first glimpses of the show). Well, as the twins might say: "Beneficial circumstances arise from events that conclude in an orderly manner" ("All's well that ends well").

The Other Eps
You might wonder why I haven't got summaries for all of the eps... That's because I haven't seen some of the eps:
"Shareena Takes the Cake": something else interesting was on.
"What Did You Se'ance?": Deliberately "boycotted" the ep, as I thought it was going to be the "Golden Brain" ep.
"The Contest": was on vacation.
"Too Good to be Truant": chose to skip it (no pun intended), though I did catch a bit towards the end where the group was discussing what went wrong with a campaign of some sort they were doing and Orangejella said (after the other twin had said that they were going to redo their campaign the same way the principal ran the school): "Lemonjella, we're already so much trouble... We don't want to add perjury to the list!" (well, it was something like that). Funny.
The rest: just plain "didn't see 'em" excuse.

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