HOME | DD

Description

Alright, so today I’m doing something that I never thought I’d want to do: review an episode of Phineas and Ferb. Normally I don’t do this kind of formal review, but this episode was considered so special, not just to myself, but to most of the fanbase as well as the Phineas and Ferb crew, that I felt compelled to write out my thoughts. Not to mention I simply have a lot to say regarding the dynamic between Isabella and Phineas.

Now I’ll be the first to admit: the hardest part about writing this review was looking at this from a completely impartial and unbiased point of view. Admittedly I found it very difficult to do, but I assure you that you will look at this review as informative and mostly impartial. I’m not writing this as a psycho fan that will spout off nonsense that makes me look silly.

Without further ado, let’s get started: my official review of Phineas and Ferb – Act Your Age

In-Depth Recap

There have been a lot of opinions about this episode, from how it was made to how it was handled by Disney to the leaks to the actual episode itself. Well, I’ll make sure to touch up on all of that in this review. But first, I’ll cover the episode itself.

This episode is not like any other episode of the series. Not only are we dealing with an episode set entirely ten years in the future, but for the first time, we are getting an extended look at the relationship between Isabella and Phineas, a relationship that has developed its own fan base. In a word; almost a cult.

This was going to be the episode where we finally got a real, in-depth look at the relationship that formed between those two. We expected to see the culmination of their building love in a dramatic and emotional episode.

Sadly, in this reviewer’s opinion, that didn’t happen. I’ll explain why, as there were several scenes that bothered me, not so much as how they were executed compared to the rest of the series, but how they were executed compared to what was expected.

The Episode Itself

Here I’ll analysis each plot and dissect what I thought worked and didn’t work. I’ll start with the main plot (or at least the part of the episode I thought was or should have been the main plot) then I will go into the B plot and C plot. I’ll say a few tidbits about each plot but I won’t go into my biggest thoughts until the end.

Introduction

The episode starts off with a live-action shot of Dan and Swampy talking about how fans send them fan letters. They read a couple of them, the first being if Perry will ever get a girlfriend, and the second being if we’ll ever see Phineas and Ferb as teenagers. Swampy answers yes, and the episode begins.

The A Plot

The Beginning

A teenage Phineas and Ferb are talking in the room about what colleges to go to. Phineas is torn between a few colleges. They introduce a booth filled with tons of college applications for him to choose from, in homage to the famous “Cash grab” tube from the old days. Ultimately Phineas decides to “go with his gut” while deciding between two colleges. Buford and Baljeet walk in, with a joke about Baljeet’s voice still being high. He talks about having graduated and becoming a professor and how he could become Buford’s teacher. Phineas says he still hasn’t decided on a college.

The Reveal

Later on, we see the boys, as well as Buford and Baljeet, talking in the kitchen about their various plans for school. It’s brought up that Isabella is leaving, and after Baljeet makes an off-hand comment about the disappointment that he and Isabella “never got together”, that’s where the bombshell hits. Phineas eventually leaves to go for a walk.

The Confrontation

In between that scene and the end scene between them, we get a little bit of this-and-that with Phineas trying to find Isabella before it’s too late. This is one of the more lackluster parts of their plot. Here, we see Phineas run into Nana Shapiro, and after she encourages him to confess to Isabella, he runs off. Later on, during the beginning of the duet, he runs into Isabella’s mother, and after she also points out her long standing crush on him, he runs off frustrated.

The Duet

As Isabella is saying goodbye to her mother and leaving for college, a picture of Phineas falls out of her pocket. As she looks at it, she begins singing about their relationship and “What Might Have Been.” After Phineas talks to her mother, he joins in the song as well, and we see a montage of clips from past Phinabella-centric episodes, and we see shots of what could’ve been had they not waited so long.

The Confession

Near the end of the episode just as Phineas is about to give up finding her, he discovers she is sitting on his front porch. He takes a seat next to her, and they start talking. The subject of Phineas’s earlier conversation with Baljeet comes up, and when Isabella claims she thought she was being “so obvious” he apologizes, saying he was “completely clueless.” When they loathe about not having any time left before school starts, Phineas announces he’ll join her at Tri-State State. At that point the rest of their friends suddenly circle around them and applaud at their newfound relationship before Isabella takes off for college early.

At the end, Phineas hitches a ride with Ferb and – Vanessa!? – yes Vanessa (also something I want to address) and catches up to Isabella, passionately kissing her while Ferb and Vanessa drive off. The scene goes back to Dan and Swampy, and Swampy begins crying hysterically, and Dan eventually just walks off awkwardly, ending the episode.

The B Plot

The B Plot of this episode was the Doofenshmirtz plot. So after Perry is called in by OWCA while seemingly being on vacation, he discovers that Doofenshmirtz has given up on evil and has built an –inator into a tiny chain with the intent of actually giving himself a full-blown mid-life crisis. After the song “Mid-Life Crisis” plays, Doofenshmirtz and Perry set out for an adventure.

These adventures consist of jet-skiing, with a now black-haired Doofenshmirtz, driving and crashing a sports car, and sky-diving. But after the sky-diving incident, Doofenshmirtz decides that he wants to return to his normal, boring life. He ditches his chain with his –inator in it, and it lands on Lawrence’s neck. It activates, and he rushes inside spewing out nonsense about wanting to have his own mid-life crisis.

The C Plot

The C Plot consisted of the friends of Isabella and Phineas banning together to get them together before Isabella leaves for school. This starts out in the Nosh Olé Mexican-Jewish Café, where the Fireside Girls, minus Isabella, are giving advice to Ginger about how to handle a date with Baljeet. Isabella enters the scene and serves them food, and talks about how she’s leaving for school that day. When she leaves, the girls reminisce on Phineas and how he and Isabella never got together. Adyson brings up how Isabella is “too busy” to manipulate the situation and get Phineas to go out with her, so they all plot to team up with the boys and prepare a romantic date for them.

So they begin setting up the romantic date in the backyard, consisting of a candle-lit dinner, music, and decorations all design to force thoughts of love. They even conspire to have Buford dress as Cupid a la “That Sinking Feeling” to sweeten the mood. But while they are all distracted, they miss out on the fact that a dumpster (crashed into earlier by Doofenshmirtz in his sports car and sent a wheeling) swoops in and knocks away all of the decorations, the music, and the dinner. They point out how it’s now exactly like when they were kids.

At the end, when Phineas decides to go to Isabella’s school, the kids gather around and applaud them for their newfound relationship.

In-Depth Analysis

So now that I have gone over each of the plots stories, I’m going to take some time to discuss what I think worked and didn’t work for each plot.

A Plot

Considering the overwhelming hype for this episode was so heavily because of the dynamic between Isabella and Phineas, I’m giving this area the most weight and the most scrutiny. In all honesty, I was underwhelmed and disappointed. The plot of the episode isn’t that terrible. Rather, the criticism I’m giving falls to its execution of lines and scenes weighed against reasonable expectations.

Basically, I was disappointed with what I considered how little drama and emotion I felt was put into the lines. The reveal scene and confession scene in particular I felt were too casual.

The reveal scene in particular bothered me for a lot of reasons. The first, Baljeet’s line “We are guys. We do not talk about feelings.” Yet in two instances, both Buford – in “Buford Confidential” – and Baljeet – in “That Sinking Feeling” – had instances where they had girl issues that they were willing to, at least in part, share with the group. So this line, to me, came off as very hypocritical on Baljeet’s part. Although the line isn’t awful on a stand alone point, within the context of the rest of the series and the current situation, it didn’t come off very well to me.

The second reason it bothered me was the casual nature in which it was handled. From the way Phineas reacted to finding out about the crush to the way Baljeet casually passed it off to the off hand comments about them not talking about feelings, and the whole scene bothered me. Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I expected a scene with a lot more drama. After all, we are talking about an episode that happens ten years in the future with absolutely no progress on Phineas and Isabella’s relationship (which is yet another thing I will address later on). You would think that after all that, we’d get at least a shocked expression from Phineas or a quiver of guilt, or at least some motivation from the guys to inspire him to chase after her. We got none of that.

Consider that this episode takes place ten years after the summer in which the series happens in. It’s not unreasonable to have expected that there would’ve been a hint of anger or pain from Isabella or a hint of guilt from Phineas. We didn’t see any of that at all in either of those scenes. Sure, we got some in the duet, and it was very emotional, but those two other scenes were the crux that made the song possible.

One could argue that the show wanted to stick to its formula and not have the characters veer too much off from what they were already established as. That’s a perfectly fair argument, but I can argue the other side as well. This episode is not like any other episode because of its time period and because of its focus. Given those factors it would also have been perfectly fair to have seen them try something different, give the characters different emotions to work with. All the more, it would’ve added additional drama and emotion to this episode.

And if you want to go even further, one could argue that – since this episode takes place long after the series, and what happens here will have no bearing on the present day version of the kids (at least that is the current assumption) – you could go full-force on the sappy emotions on the characters and not have it affect the integrity of the remainder of the series.

Then there was the confrontation scene. It’s not that this part of the episode is bad. Rather, I feel it really lacks substance. Basically we get a couple of minutes of Phineas “running around” try to find Isabella, but nothing beyond that. It’s hardly the most important aspect of this plot of the episode, but it was nonetheless underwhelming. There was really nothing there. This part either needed additional scenes or to be cut out entirely in my honest opinion.

The duet, however, was one of the biggest highlights the episode provides. It was an emotional culmination of their whole relationship: ten plus years worth of memories and frustration into a three minute song. Honestly, it tugged at my heart strings. It only further elevated the frustration of the inner shipper in me that Phineas could not see the signs sooner, and that Isabella did not simply suck it up and tell him straight forward.

We see plenty of moments from their relationship in the series, such as the romantic cruise and the building of the roller coaster in “Rollercoaster The Musical.” It is a sad rendition of the state of their relationship, but also a very well done and emotional rendition as well.

My only complaint about it is that, for the most part, we only see highlights of episodes past – when they were kids - and from their current age. In fact there are only a few snippets of footage rendering them as anything other than kids or teenagers/adults. I would’ve liked to see more of those other ages as well, as I felt it would’ve given the song even deeper meaning. But even then, it’s only a minor complaint in an otherwise well done song and music video.

The confession scene is the final part that culminates this entire build up. My complaint with this – like I have complained about most of the rest of this plot – was the lack of drama. The scene was conducted in a calm and rational fashion, but even worse so, it didn’t feel like in this reviewer’s opinion that there was really any emotion put into these lines. It felt more like a casual conversation between friends than it did a dramatic culmination.

The biggest driving point this episode had for it was the emotion that was expected to be poured into this relationship as we see ten years of frustration boil over. The duet was great. Great message, lots of emotion, but the problem is I feel like the episode tries to use the song to carry all of the drama and emotion and that just didn’t work for me. In all honesty, with all the excitement there was about the Isabella and Phineas plot for this episode, with all the remarks about the episode having made the crew cry, I was a little disappointed. Granted, it wasn’t a bad plot at all. It was good, and it accomplished its endgame. But the journey to the endgame was a little lackluster.

B Plot

The Doofenshmirtz plot was by far the best part of this episode. The song they had about mid-life crises was hysterical, and the continually growing dynamic between Perry and Doofenshmirtz was great to see. It was nice knowing that even after ten years of fighting they’ve still stayed great friends. It was a really interesting and funny take. But a word of the wise: Doofenshmirtz with black hair is a big N-O.

I really liked how, even brief, we got a glimpse of OWCA as a whole in the future, and it was hilarious seeing that Irving had a job there and Carl with a mustache. They even do a great homage to Monogram by having Carl spit out his usual “Great googly moogly!”

Only thing I’ll say even remotely negative is this plot doesn’t feel like one that had to be reserved for a future-based episode. As “Quietest Day Ever” pointed out, Doofenshmirtz is 47 years old, perfectly old enough to have a Mid-Life Crisis then as well. But that’s just a very minor thing in an otherwise excellent plot.

C Plot

And now we’ve arrived at my least favorite part of the episode. This plot sees the friends team up to get Isabella and Phineas together. They put on a modest romantic candle-lit dinner for them in the backyard, which is ultimately rendered moot when a dumpster – hit by Doofenshmirtz earlier in the episode - comes rolling in knocking the dinner away.

What bugs me about this is that when you take everything about this episode into consideration, when you consider what the series has done well, this part of the story is completely pointless. Not only does it literally add nothing to the A Plot – which also makes the scene where they gather around applauding their relationship even more uncomfortable – but it also doesn’t do justice to the elements that have made the show so successful and charming. This episode attempts to pay homage to those elements, with the dinner being whisked away, and while I respect that they tried to do that, to me, it just felt very out of place.

Sure, we get a little insight into Ginger’s jealousy of Baljeet’s relationship with Mishti – which I thought was actually a clever callback – but that’s about it.

My problem was more so the execution than the plot itself. For me, the way they brought about the “Mysterious Force wipes away the Big Idea” did not mesh with the plot well. Had they done it in a way where, say this is happening as Isabella and Phineas are talking on the front stoop, and then the dumpster comes in and wipes away the idea, and they hear it and go to investigate, and the gang attempts to explain what had happened with no evidence whatsoever, that would’ve been a very nice callback to Candace’s old shtick from the series while also making the plot actually relevant to the main story.

Unfortunately, the way it’s laid out in the episode, it just feels like it’s there but without adding anything, and ultimately that feeling was why this plot didn’t work for me well.

Also, perhaps I’m the only one that saw it but when they showed Isabella for the first time in the restaurant, I felt like they were portraying her as a sort of “busybody” that doesn't have time for relationships and such, rather than a girl that went through a long and epic heartbreak and is trying to move on. The shtick didn’t come off well to me, but I attribute it more to the lack of back story than anything else. Had they described it as “Isabella feeling so depressed over her failed attempts to get Phineas to notice her that she takes up a lot of extra-curricular activities to numb the pain” then maybe it would’ve worked. But we don’t get any of that at all.

Miscellaneous

Just some random tidbits and thoughts I want to get out. On either the episode or the show itself

First, the character models for the teenaged versions of the kids are fantastic. Regardless of my opinion about this episode having to happen in the future, Ashley Simpson did a phenomenal job with the character models, and Dan and Swampy should be commended for giving her this chance. It really is a great story and the character models turned out well. Although one little issue for me: why are Doofenshmirtz, Perry, Linda, Lawrence, Nana Shapiro, and Vivian the only characters that kept their character model designs from the rest of the series? (I don’t count Doofenshmirtz because the only thing that changed was his hair color)

Second, the insinuation that Phineas did not have a thing for Isabella until high school. This is where things get tricky, and this is why the lack of back story in the episode does hurt it. In the series, we’ve seen plenty of moments where Phineas shows, at the very least, he does care for Isabella a lot. You could even argue he likes her as more than a friend. Meapless in Seattle is one of the biggest examples, where, even though he uses scientific terms, he does reveal he thinks Isabella is really cute. That’s a pretty big admission, even if Isabella didn’t take it as such. Night of the Living Pharmacist is another glaring example, where not only does he openly worry about her safety, but he also sacrifices himself to the Mindless Repulsive Pharmacists. Also at the end of the episode he is still seen wearing the Emotional Bravery patch – an item that may I add has yet to be addressed.

And when you go even further, Isabella’s belief that Phineas doesn’t notice her signs goes both ways, as both of these examples (as well as several smaller ones in the series) weren’t fully received by Isabella as well. So the idea that Phineas simply didn’t feel anything for her until high school is very misconstrued and simply untrue. He may not have realized that he felt something for her – and perhaps that’s what they were going for – but that’s not how I interpreted it.

Thirdly, the promotions for the episode left a lot to be desired for me. This episode was first teased back in December of 2012, when crew member Rob Hughes posted a pic of Dan and Swampy working on the “Phinabella song” as he called it. As time passed we got more bits of information about the episode, until Dan and Swampy held a Platypus Day Spreechat revealing an “emotional Phineas/Isabella episode with a duet” that they both admitted made them cry. Hughes at one point said that Disney was “planning a big promotion” for the episode, but then it aired overseas in both New Zealand and Russia, causing all sorts of frustration within the fanbase and the crew. Dan even went as far as tweeting out when it aired in Russia that they all wanted it to air in the U.S. before anywhere else.

And when time finally came around to start airing promos, the fanbase was expecting some huge celebration and promotion of the episode. Instead, what did we get? Three sneak peak clips of what basically amounted to the crux of the Phinabella plot, as well as one lousy teaser. ONE. That was the “big promotion” Rob Hughes alluded to way back? I sincerely doubt it. It’s also important to note here that during this waiting period Disney underwent a sort of “transition” where they ousted all of the cartoons save for the Mickey Mouse shorts to its sister channel, Disney XD. The reasons are still unknown, though it’s widely believed it’s because of the lackluster ratings the cartoons started getting, although it wasn’t just a Disney thing as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon suffered through a similar trend.

The point I’m establishing is I think the marketing for this episode also hurt it. It was widely expected that the trailer, like the episode, would focus on the emotion. Instead, in typical Disney XD fashion, it was played out as lively and upbeat. That’s honestly not what I expected for this, and I was actually pretty disappointed. But that’s on Disney, not Dan or Swampy.

Fourthly, why air the episode here, in this spot, with some episodes still to come this season? I can understand the argument that since the episode happens in the future and the rest happen in the present, there really isn’t any harm done to the relationship in the present. But from a fan’s perspective, since we know that nothing’s going to happen until the future, playing with the relationship any further can feel a bit diluted in that sense of “what’s the point? Why tease us any further when we know it’s not going to happen?” Now I’m sure that whatever is left in the season, there are going to be nice moments between them, but that doesn’t make the argument any less valid. The reality is that Act Your Age – although not the actual series finale – did have that sort of feel to it. Theoretically this episode could have been aired after all the other episodes and nothing would have been changed. Of course the only caveat is that if there is another season after this, then there may be some logistical problems, but since we don’t know what the future holds for the series, this debate can be saved for when we do know.

Fifthly: the tone of the episode. I touched on this earlier, but I want to go more in-depth here. I’ve read several opinions online about how the episode wasn’t like a soap opera even though it could have been, and how the episode did a good job of keeping everyone mostly in character. That’s a very valid argument, and I do agree with the point that changing the tone of an episode could hurt the show. But I’m going to argue the other side. Since the episode takes place in the future, and – assuming there isn’t some crazy twist that either undoes this episode or shows it is non-canon – it is the only such episode to happen in the future according to Swampy, why not go all out on the emotion? Why not just let out ten years of frustration from a heart-broken girl and an obviously confused boy?

Since this episode – at least as it stands – will have no effect on the rest of the series, and it is inherently different from the other episodes, I really don’t see what the harm would’ve been had they decided to up the ante on the emotion. Sure, you don’t want to turn it into a soap opera, but I wouldn’t have opposed things like a confrontation between them or maybe some frustration on Phineas’s part for feeling like his friends kept a secret from him. That’s essentially what happened here: his friends kept a secret from him about one of his best friends. He would’ve had a legitimate gripe. And while the fact that they didn’t do that doesn’t hurt the episode any more than my other points, I don’t think having done that would have hurt it either.

One final note: where the hell are Monty and Stacy? Vanessa and Monty’s relationship was a big part of the second half of the third season and most of the fourth season, yet this episode pairs Ferb with Vanessa at the end. I don’t necessarily oppose that pairing in on its own, but the lack of explanation for what happens to him – he is Major Monogram’s son after all – is really perplexing. And Stacy doesn’t even get a mention at all. It would be nice to know what became of her. Yes, “Quantum Boogaloo” has her as the Ambassador or Uruguay, but that episode featured events twenty years into the future, not ten, so it’s not a great excuse to use for her absence, as Quantum Boogaloo never established exactly when Stacy became that. And on another note, the paradox at the very end of that episode virtually undid the entire episode anyway.

Verdict

This was easily one of the most hyped up – and will be one of the most scrutinized – episodes of the series for sure. But this episode is worth a real good look at it before forming an opinion. A lot of hard work and heart went into this episode and every single person, including Ashley Simpson, deserves a lot of praise for this episode.

As for myself, I consider this episode to be a good episode, but not a great episode. Unfortunately, the intense hype for this episode as well as the implications that came into I were factored into this decision, but I reviewed this like a regular fan of the show, not a crazy shipper only focused on the relationship.

There are a lot of good things going for this episode, such as the great character designs, the hilarious Doofenshmirtz plot, and a glimpse of nearly every character a decade after the summer that the series takes place in. The songs are also a huge positive, as the duet featured the rawest emotion of any Phineas and Ferb song to date, and “Mid-Life Crisis” was a classic Doofenshmirtz song and among the best of the season.

But there are also a lot of issues from this episode. The episode attempted to pay homage to its own elements that made it so successful, and I felt they really didn’t work. The raw emotion from the episode was contained mostly within the song, leaving not enough for the other big moments from the A Plot. The C Plot could’ve been executed a lot better, as its execution along with its components basically made it irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. Lastly, the pacing just felt very rushed and all over the place. This is a special that could’ve really used an hour. With it, we could’ve had a much more cohesive tale where we get in-depth looks at all the characters’ lives while also being able to tell a much deeper story about the struggles Isabella went through over the decade that Phineas didn’t notice her, as well as showing more of how Phineas took Isabella crushing on him. While I loved how raw the song was in capturing that, I also felt it wasn’t enough, and that the emotion should’ve been spread out more through the episode.

Ultimately, this is an episode that had a ton of potential and had a lot of good things going for it, but at the end of the day fell short of what it might’ve been. I felt there was too much that could’ve been done better for me to consider this a truly great episode, and it is a shame because there’s obviously a lot of love for this episode, and rightly so. And the back story with Ashley Simpson getting to live out her dream and create these aged characters is really inspiring and wonderful.

Give this episode a good, long look. Even if you aren’t a Phinabella fan, there is a lot here that you will like. It wasn’t the episode that shippers expected it to be, and it was never going to be. But it’s still a nice viewing and chances are you will shed a tear at some point.