Recap

“I’m the only one left who remembers the Infinite Dandys. You see, I know the truth. I remember all that happened, and I’m not going to forget. Worlds lived, worlds died. Nothing will ever be the same.”

Zigg’s Thoughts

Among all the hype and excitement of new shows coming on the scene, it would have been easy for the return of Space Dandy to be swept under the carpet somewhat. That was until the creative team unleashed this blisteringly funny episode, blowing away every debuting show and reminding us that when it’s on song there’s nothing fresher, more creative or more downright hilarious than this show.

Like we’ve seen before, Space Dandy takes a clever (but not necessarily super original) idea and breathes new life into it through superior artistry and excellent comic timing, This go round it’s the classic parallel universe story, as seen in sci-fi the world over. What really makes this episode sing though is the terrific variety and absurdity of the parallel worlds our gang travel to. Sure, we kick off with the pretty standard ‘world where everyone is way better than they usually are’ but from there there’s seemingly little rhyme or reason to the places we end up, with some delightfully kooky options. The references to other anime (Gundam, Attack On Titan, Space Adventure Cobra) are witty and wisely limited to one-and-done jokes and the other worlds show a great breadth of imagination. The complete art style shifts are what makes the entire thing really work – from pop-art to flat cartoon to 70’s pastiche, Space Dandy has arguably never looked better.

One thing that remains from the show’s previous run is it’s fairly defined two act structure. So while part 1 is all universe-hopping mayhem, part 2 settles down a little into a fish-out-of-water scenario with all the various crews crammed into the ‘Prime’ universe. This second part isn’t as breakneck funny as part 1, but there’s still some major laughs to be had and once we get the introduction of chronically depressed Dandy the entire thing snowballs in an unstoppable rush of hilarity. By the time we reached the ‘opening credits’ I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Welcome back boys, we’ve missed you.

Random Observations

• It’s one of the most simple jokes in the episode, but I loved Dandy being unable to spell his own name correctly.
• Blue Hair Dandy gives me serious Ace Rimmer flashbacks.
• The very brief appearance of parallel Dr Gel and Bea is priceless in its total absurdity.
• Full credit for that between the legs shot at parallel Boobies.
• In case you had any doubt, yes, Be@rbrick Dandy is a real thing