DuckTales On Disney XD – Once And For All

Now that DuckTales has told us this is going to be the end, both Ella and myself had some thought on how we thought the series went, what we would wish for, and how we might take a look at any new spin-off series.

Ella: DuckTales Concludes With Third Season

‘Life is like a hurricane’ is a statement that has always been a great testament of what DuckTales is. And this past week it has proven to be that off screen from the fandom.

Since the third season began, the series has seemingly started to slowly address loose ends and cap plot points; Lena coming to terms with her ‘aunt’ and gaining control of her magic, Boyd getting some resolve as we explored Gryo’s past and also setting up the biggest and most trying danger the series has seen to date- FOWL. Including myself some fans have remarked how the season felt a bit conclusive.

But those thoughts were relatively dismissed quickly, that is until as the year passed and the series progressed fans still stood in limbo for confirmation of the series being greenlit for a fourth season. That is until fans this week took to social media using the hashtag #RenewDuckTales2017 and calling out DisneyXD, the home of the series, in hopes of getting news of another saga or the network’s attention. At one point this had gained trending traction- and sadly even more rumors and drama began stating that the series has been canceled.

It has been a LONG time since I saw this much drama – so I am going to avoid the details and refrain from calling out any names. Because frankly it simply does not matter. What does matter in this instance is just how the fan base collectively stood and used their voice to try and reach the ears of those involved. It is yet again a lesson of just how powerful fans united can be and even why I love this fandom.

Everyone here at BSCKids loves DuckTales, especially myself, deeply. Like other fans I took to Twitter and called out for the series to continue. Yes, all things do end and need to. And to be far there are some series that are still ongoing that should have ended long ago. One day DuckTales would end- we knew this, but my personal resolve was that when the series ended I wanted it to be on the terms of the creative team Frank Angones and Matt Youngberg’s call. If it did then I would accept such a fate without complaints- just a lot of tears.

On December 2nd Frank and Matt both issued a statement in regards to the news and at that time confirmed that the series was in fact ending with the current season. I do highly encourage everyone to read the message below as it is truly a heartfelt statement that continues to show just how much they love this series as each and every one of us. In addition to both their responses, tweets also sent by members of the crew also capture the same tone as we see the love and passion for this series echoed.

How or why Disney themselves made the call to leave this series with a third and final season remains to be seen and we can speculate on end. There is no way for us to know, but just for us to accept that this is it. Details aside, I am grateful that the team was informed that this would be the final season over a year ago as it allowed them to be able to tell the stories they wanted to tell and give us an ending they wanted to give.

Even though I have already said a lot, there is still a lot left to say; so in our true DuckTales spirit over here, Damon and I both have a lot to say.

Damon: I am still a bit torn about this announcement and Ella has laid out exactly what has been said from the team working on the show. The DuckTales reboot has not been as high on my list in regard to the current Disney animation shows and while I do enjoy it, it is ok by me that is going. It had the problem of having too many character and was going all over the place in terms of story, so the fact that it will all wind down with a proper ending rather than just being cut off makes me feel much better.

Now my opinion is that with a Darkwing Duck coming to Disney + this may have been something that was planned that we didn’t know about, but it makes sense to allow Launchpad to be on the Darkwing show. In the previous iteration of Disney Afternoon DuckTales and Darkwing Duck were not in the same universe so it was fine. Plus I really did enjoy the new introduction of Darkwing and the new take on Gosalyn. What this also means is that it will be possible to bring back the characters of DuckTales if they want to as guests on Darkwing Duck.

Now all that being said, let us get back to DuckTales and where we are going with F.O.W.L. and the overall story, after the Moon episodes this is a way better arc and it feels like it has a real overall story that can be concluded. Just wish we could have had a little more time with it, it does feel a bit rushed to me. Looking forward to seeing how these last episodes turn out and can we get a darn Gummi Bears reboot already? You set the stage in DuckTales.

Ella: As many of you who do follow along know Damon and I have talked extensively back and forth about the series. And honestly it has been a lot of fun, because you can clearly see just how both of our thought processes and opinions echo one another and sometimes go into different directions.

Even though I wanted to keep things very strictly fact based, you can definitely see some of my bias popping up as I was recounting for everything here.

As tiring as it might be, and if you know me, read my works here or follow my social media accounts then you know just how much pure love and passion I have for the series. So this news naturally drew a very big emotional response. DuckTales -and to be honest the entire Disney Afternoon- are very personal series to me and thus (to make this short) do mean a lot to me. I will spare everyone from details because I do want to stay on point. Yet to be completely transparent and genuine with what my honest feelings about this are I did completely and totally start to cry. And even writing this I am in tears.

In a way there had been points in the narrative, especially now looking back at the start of the season, there were hints that things would be conclusive. But naturally no one was really minding that so no one drew attention to it. Someone on Instagram actually took note of a clip from ‘Quack Pack’ that had the characters asking how long them being in a series would last. And the Gene retorted that it would be three seasons, a spin-off…etc. Now looking back at that now it was really genius and maybe slightly evil.

I am aware that all series must come to a close, but like I said before I am a firm believer in allowing the creative team/minds to get to make the call of when they have naturally reached their end. Yet I do feel like there is so much more that can be done with these characters, and this inane, wonderful world we love. Regardless I am willing to accept this without protest and disheartenment because at least we know that the final story they wanted to tell will be told.

Just the fact alone we got this series is massive, so grateful for what we have gotten because of this. So, so much respect and admiration for Frank, Matt and all on this crew.

I do hope we can still see some of what they created continue in other series. Naturally I have a lot of thoughts on the looming Disney+ Darkwing series. But I kind of want to hold off on really diving in and dissecting them until we have more to go off. One of the things I tweeted during this hurricane was just how interesting things are with DuckTales and the new Darkwing series because of Launchpad. They already addressed how he would be part of both series narratives in ‘Let’s Get Dangerous’, so we will always be kind of reminded that even if we do not know what the Duck family is doing we know they are nearby. That they are living and how Launchpad will likely talk about them from time to time and maybe even appear as well. We seen a good friendship between Gosalyn and Dewey that can still be played up.

Back on DuckTales I do hope we get what I can only really describe as a ‘PreCure ending epilogue’. I do realize that the reference might not be commonplace, but essentially ending the series with the last few moments showing us our main cast in the future and the lives they lead. We might not see just how they get to where they are, but we can understand how the journey we watched got them them and reminded of the fact that they continued to live.

Damon: Ella is always really good at picking up some of the things from the show that might have foreshadowed this ending of the series. The Disney Afternoon was a big deal to me as well and I am hopeful that these little glimpses that we got in DuckTales mean spinoffs rather than just a glimpse of what could have been.

And I don’t know about how I feel about doing a jump forward with the DuckTales crew if we are getting a Darkwing spin off, it might just ruin some suspense, so I am ok with an ending even if we didn’t get as many of the classic DuckTales villains as I wanted. The good thing about these characters though is that they exist is many graphic novels so get your reading on. As Ella said let us hope to see the occasional DuckTales character in Darkwing Duck now that they share the same universe.