Date of airing: February 18, 1995 (FOX Kids)
Maybe the episode title rhymes, but I was chuckling for a few seconds about the “armed” part of “Armed and Dangerous,” because I didn’t even get the literal meaning of it until after I started watching this episode, which ended up being a solid half hour of television. Four episodes into the show’s run and the writers might have developed a sense for the characters, and how to run the story without overburdening it with too many action sequences or too much animated Y7 bullcrap like shootouts with laser guns, as well as explosions that don’t leave any damage to anyone and everything. Spider-Man was in action for two scenes only (both times he went up against Doctor Octopus), and that means Peter Parker had the chance to shine as a character, which he did perfectly, especially when he was trying to argue with Doc Ock and get Felicia and J.Jonah Jameson out of the factory alive. Who would have thought that Peter tried to be a hero instead of his superhero alter ego Spider-Man? This needs to be a premise more often. It would help to cut back the flashy Y7 boom-boom imagery and keep the narrative calm and focused. Plus, I’m sure I won’t get an epileptic seizure seeing things explode all the time.
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| Felicia is no scream queen in this cartoon. |
In the meantime, I’m starting to get just a tad bit confused about Peter and Felicia’s relationship, especially since the woman is still supposed to be dating Flash Thompson (she even mentioned him during this episode), yet she went on a date with Peter here. Maybe the episode order I’m watching this is a little screwed, or maybe Felicia Hardy is just a bit polygamous and doesn’t mind having multiple men in her life, who in return also don’t mind their girlfriend has another guy as a sidepiece. Here I am, knowing that SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES is very conservative when it comes to violence and death, but here I also am, thinking about Felicia having men in every one of New York City’s boroughs. Seeing this in a Y7-rated TV show is weird, because the children’s audience was subjected to storytelling they didn’t even know was based on real-life sexual preferences. Did they realize that Flash and Felicia were fingering each other (she also mentioned Flash’s hands, and that pretty much means they went to third base), and Felicia was going out with Peter at the same time? I’m confused and slightly amused. Nice, that rhymes, too.
Doc Ock was a bit of a generic villain in this story, however. He might not have been properly utilized as a villain, because he was only after one thing (money to fund his research), but I loved that the action sequences weren’t overblown with lots of movement or explosions (again, thanks to Peter being involved, instead of Spider-Man), and the conflict between the superhero and the supervillain was kept in a rocket construction facility only (how convenient that New York City has one of those handy). Now, if only Felicia and J.Jonah had been more useful as characters who have just been taken hostage, then maybe this episode would have had something great in it, but at the end of the day, these 20 minutes were solid, but generic and written-by-numbers.
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| The power of the Sun in the palm of his hand. |
Well, there isn’t much else to say about this episode, except maybe the fact that the NYPD let Peter handle the money delivery without police back-up. The FBI did the same with J.Jonah, making them something of a dumb federal agency in this series. It’s almost like the police weren’t interested at all in getting back Felicia, let alone solving this kidnapping case, when they just let Peter handle the phone conversation with Doctor Octavius, like Peter was part of the FBI team investigating the kidnapping. Just a stray observation from my end. In the end, this is the best episode of the show so far, which means SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES could turn out to be a nice surprise in the long run. Now, if it only would be written a little better...
