User blog:AustinDR/Review: Vantastic Voyage

I call this episode "Homespun 2.0" for reasons I will get into shortly. After Vanzilla continually broke down, the Loud kids slyly convince their father to buy a new one. However, once they succeed at their plan, Lynn Sr. ends up doting on the van, happily dubbing it "Veronica." This leads to Lynn Sr. loving his van more than his family, and he doesn't even allow his wife to drive it. So now, the kids aim to convince him to get rid of the new van.

Now, I didn't find the episode terrible, but I didn't like it either. I mostly didn't like how much of a jerk Lynn Sr. was getting about his new van. I mean, he refuses to let his children ride in it, thus making them resort to having to walk to school or elsewhere, he doesn't allow his own wife to drive the car, as he seemingly views the van as his soulmate, his "friends" encourage him to abandon his family for the van's sake, etc. Sure, he realized that he was being a jerk, but it came off as jarring that he would be this insensitive towards his family, especially because yesterday's episode established that he values the safety of his family. There are some laughs here and there to lighten the mood, but they're not memorable.

Additionally, as I've said, I refer to this episode as "Homespun 2.0" because of a few similarities between the episodes. The vanzilla begins to break down, much like how the house was falling apart in the former episode, the kids want their parents (or in this case, their father) to consider buying a replacement, among others. Of course they have enough differences to stand out from each other, but for the most part, they have nearly the same setup. Other than that, this was an otherwise average episode that I felt was slightly mean-spirited for me to really enjoy.

Final score: 3 stars out of 5