11-09-00

Hail,

"Murder She Snored" is exactly the sort of thing I don't like to see. While I did say that doing the "it was all a dream" ending on "Depth Takes a Holiday" would have improved it, that only means it would have gone from really bad to pretty bad. Any episode that is mostly a dream is going to have an almost impossible time of getting out of the bad category, and this one doesn't come close to getting out.

Aside from that, this thing was so packed full of TV references as to be silly. Now, I personally really do enjoy when they make references to other works, but focusing so much on TV references makes this appear like every other TV show out there that uses irony (which is just about everything made in the last twenty years). Add to this some tossed in shipper fanservice and the mix comes out about as you'd expect. Poorly.

The only interesting bit from this episode is the possible conclusions we can draw from the way Daria sees herself in her dreams. With her classmates and teachers it doesn't really work, as Jane gets lumped in the same group. Unless Daria is still upset over "Jane's Addition" she shouldn't be seeing Jane on the same level as Brittany and Ms. Barch. Still, the idea that she's taking a beating for her classmate's actions is probably well founded.
How she sees her parents is also pretty mixed. Although we've had several episodes where she shows some sort of fondness for them, in this instance she sees them first as totally neglectful and secondly as killing her for something she didn't do, and something that they could have actually helped defend her from. This message is far closer to her season one appearances, so that's fine, but it just makes this episode seem even more out of place this season.

If this episode had given us that depiction of Daria's relationships with, well, everyone else but had done so in a way that didn't involve an extended dream sequence, it would actually have been pretty good. Peggy has been one of the more prolific of the writers, with six episodes to her credit to this point (second only to Glenn in number). Unfortunately, her quality has been all over the place, and this one isn't helping.

Wraith