Daria, Seasons 3, 4 and 5
May. 14th, 2013 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckro“Taking candy from babies…literally! Sticky fingers and stinky diapers, tonight on Sick, Sad World.”
I had watched most of Season 1 of Daria a few years ago, and seasons 2 and 3 slowly over the course of several years. As watching 22-minute cartoons that don’t require extensive focus became a very useful distraction recently, I burned through the rest of the series in the past few months. (I’ve been watching a set of TV rips the internet was kind enough to provide for me. I’ve seen a couple of episodes from the DVD collection that was released, and the picture quality is much better, but the 90s incidental music—which really makes the show in a lot of ways—needed to be stripped out of that version because of rights issues.)
Daria is a sitcom in cartoon form. While there is an overall plot and characters develop, it’s a very gradual process. Most of the time, you can watch any episode from any season and, as long as you have a vague knowledge of the characters (or the stereotypes they represent), you can follow without any problems.
Season 4’s big shake-up was the introduction of Tom as Jane’s boyfriend at the end of Season 3, and several episodes revolve around his interactions with Daria, and Daria and Jane’s tension over it. All told, though, it’s not that strong of a season, as everything else is pretty much “more of the same” from the first few seasons. Though the first movie “Is It Fall Yet?” is officially the last episode of Season 4, it actually starts the real development that drives Season 5.
By Season 5, they’re actively trying to overturn the series’ running gags and provide emotional payoffs people probably wanted from early on. Quinn grows as a person. So does Daria. Some of the early-season caricature characters get fleshed out, just because they have to be.
Daria gets a steady boyfriend and their relationship is shown being both good and bad. (And sex is finally brought up as an issue.) Quinn shows her intelligence—which, in retrospect, it isn’t surprising she has. (All of the Morgendorfers are smart, they’re just hobbled by their self-involvement and limited focus.) The fashion club is broken up into its component parts repeatedly, which means we get to see each of them explored more as individual characters than as a gestalt of running gags. Also, Sandy gets some much-needed comeuppance for four seasons of cruel bitchiness. Upchuck actually succeeds at something. Mack and Jodie get actual plotlines. They finally get around to letting the characters grow up a bit, using the fifth season and senior year as the vehicle for it.
In the series finale, Daria receives an award for academic achievements in the face of overwhelming misanthropy. That could probably describe her role in this series in a nutshell. Daria is an outcast, but by the end of the series, it’s clear to her (and the writers) that it’s entirely by her own choice. People seek her out and want to be her friends, and she’s perfectly capable to playing the social games. She doesn’t because she doesn’t want to.
In my headcanon, since Daria would be heading off to college three years after I did, she’d have plenty of chances to get deeply involved in internet disasters (flamewars, fandoms, romance, etc.); probably make a small circle of friends in college that who either be insanely chill about everything, or periodically explode in angst; and graduate into an attempt at a career in publishing just as the industry imploded. Her general attitude about life in general probably wouldn’t change, though: The problem was never the people of Lawndale, the problem was people. And there are stupid people everywhere you go.
(Also, as a totally random thing: It doesn’t look like Tracy Grandstaff, Daria’s voice actress, has done much of anything in the last decade. I find that a little upsetting.)
Overall: It’s a fun show, and I’m glad I finally watched all of it. I suspect I’ll revisit it periodically. If you do watch it, don’t try to marathon the whole thing—you’ll appreciate it more in smaller bites.
I had watched most of Season 1 of Daria a few years ago, and seasons 2 and 3 slowly over the course of several years. As watching 22-minute cartoons that don’t require extensive focus became a very useful distraction recently, I burned through the rest of the series in the past few months. (I’ve been watching a set of TV rips the internet was kind enough to provide for me. I’ve seen a couple of episodes from the DVD collection that was released, and the picture quality is much better, but the 90s incidental music—which really makes the show in a lot of ways—needed to be stripped out of that version because of rights issues.)
Daria is a sitcom in cartoon form. While there is an overall plot and characters develop, it’s a very gradual process. Most of the time, you can watch any episode from any season and, as long as you have a vague knowledge of the characters (or the stereotypes they represent), you can follow without any problems.
Season 4’s big shake-up was the introduction of Tom as Jane’s boyfriend at the end of Season 3, and several episodes revolve around his interactions with Daria, and Daria and Jane’s tension over it. All told, though, it’s not that strong of a season, as everything else is pretty much “more of the same” from the first few seasons. Though the first movie “Is It Fall Yet?” is officially the last episode of Season 4, it actually starts the real development that drives Season 5.
By Season 5, they’re actively trying to overturn the series’ running gags and provide emotional payoffs people probably wanted from early on. Quinn grows as a person. So does Daria. Some of the early-season caricature characters get fleshed out, just because they have to be.
Daria gets a steady boyfriend and their relationship is shown being both good and bad. (And sex is finally brought up as an issue.) Quinn shows her intelligence—which, in retrospect, it isn’t surprising she has. (All of the Morgendorfers are smart, they’re just hobbled by their self-involvement and limited focus.) The fashion club is broken up into its component parts repeatedly, which means we get to see each of them explored more as individual characters than as a gestalt of running gags. Also, Sandy gets some much-needed comeuppance for four seasons of cruel bitchiness. Upchuck actually succeeds at something. Mack and Jodie get actual plotlines. They finally get around to letting the characters grow up a bit, using the fifth season and senior year as the vehicle for it.
In the series finale, Daria receives an award for academic achievements in the face of overwhelming misanthropy. That could probably describe her role in this series in a nutshell. Daria is an outcast, but by the end of the series, it’s clear to her (and the writers) that it’s entirely by her own choice. People seek her out and want to be her friends, and she’s perfectly capable to playing the social games. She doesn’t because she doesn’t want to.
In my headcanon, since Daria would be heading off to college three years after I did, she’d have plenty of chances to get deeply involved in internet disasters (flamewars, fandoms, romance, etc.); probably make a small circle of friends in college that who either be insanely chill about everything, or periodically explode in angst; and graduate into an attempt at a career in publishing just as the industry imploded. Her general attitude about life in general probably wouldn’t change, though: The problem was never the people of Lawndale, the problem was people. And there are stupid people everywhere you go.
(Also, as a totally random thing: It doesn’t look like Tracy Grandstaff, Daria’s voice actress, has done much of anything in the last decade. I find that a little upsetting.)
Overall: It’s a fun show, and I’m glad I finally watched all of it. I suspect I’ll revisit it periodically. If you do watch it, don’t try to marathon the whole thing—you’ll appreciate it more in smaller bites.
