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Interactions (The Spectacular Spider-Man)

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This article is about the The Spectacular Spider-Man episode. For Interaction (disambiguation), see Interactions (The Spectacular Spider-Man) (disambiguation).
"Interactions (The Spectacular Spider-Man)"

"Interactions" is the second episode of the animated television series The Spectacular Spider-Man, which is based on the comic book character Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. In the episode, Spider-Man faces the supervillain Electro, whose body was corrupted with electricity after a freak lab accident.

"Interactions" was written by Kevin Hopps and directed by Troy Adomitis. Victor Cook, supervising director and one of The Spectacular Spider-Man's producers designed Electro's suit, implementing his original comic appearance into its style but removed the star shaped mask. The color green was the basis of it as a symbolic reference to all negative aspects of Spider-Man's lifestyle. Crispin Freeman provided his voice and tried to give a unique style to it.

"Interactions" originally aired March 3, 2008, on the Kids WB! block for The CW network, following the first episode, "Survival of the Fittest." It received a 1.4/4 nielsen rating which was higher then that of the pilot. The episode received mixed reviews, with IGN commenting that "While not as strong as the pilot, the episode had some notable moments."[3]

Plot summary

Peter, Gwen, and Eddie are being shown genetically altered eels that are potentially a clean energy source by Dr. Connors in his laboratory. After Gwen and Peter leave, Max Dillon works on upgrading the electrical filters until he falls into the tank and is sent to the hospital, quarantined because he is giving off strong electric fields. The doctor explains that although he is stable, he must wear a special suit to contain the large amounts of bioelectricity he is emitting, which makes him angry.

Peter, meanwhile, gets assigned to tutor a popular girl named Liz Allan. When he tries to teach her science at a cafe, Max comes in and accidentally short circuits all the power in anger. He leaves and Peter, believing him to be dangerous, pursues him as Spider-Man, taking pictures and removing his protective mask, which enrages him and he begins to attack Spider-Man. Max escapes as Peter is distracted with a phone call from Aunt May.

The following day, Peter discovers that his pictures did not come out correctly and that the man he fought was Max. At night, when he goes to the lab to try and tutor Liz once more, he, Dr. Connor, Eddie, and Gwen attempt to figure out how to contain Max, who, in the meanwhile, is attacked by the police and decides to get help from the lab. When he does, he becomes aggressive and threatens Dr. Connor's wife, Martha. Eddie distracts him long enough so Peter can get the girls to safety and come back as Spider-Man. Max, declaring himself "Electro," begins to fight with Spider-Man which escalates to the outside, where it is raining. Outside, the two begin to fight alongside and on a radio tower, where Spider-Man spots a nearby pool. He knocks Electro into it, which causes him to short circuit into unconsciousness.

At school the next day, Peter talks to to Liz in the hall, explaining he is terrible at tutoring, which she claims is false until the other popular students walk by. She quickly acts rude and walks away. In the lab, Dr. Connors picks up a vial of lizard DNA that Electro electrified earlier and walks off with his wife.

Production

Crispin Freeman voiced Electro. Freeman wanted to incorporate the psychological effect on the character's sanity when coming up with a unique voice style.[4]

"Interactions" was written by Kevin Hopps and directed by Troy Adomitis.[5] Hopps had previously written for shows such as Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Justice League, and Darkwing Duck, and re-read every available comic book that featured Electro for preference. Hopps "like[s] the humanity" of the character and thinks, "Here's a person who didn't ask to be a villain, but found himself thrust into that role."[6]

Victor Cook, a producer and developer for The Spectacular Spider-Man, kept the "classic silhouette" from the original comics for Electro's suit, but removed his star-shaped mask. Cook inserted the color green from his original design as "In the 1960’s it seems like the majority of Spider-man’s rogues gallery had green as part of their costumes." Cook went further and used green to symbolize the negative aspects that occur in Peter's life, while positive settings and occurrences, such as his biology class, are different colors such as yellow.[1]

The radio tower scene initially called for Electro to climb the tower until he reached the top. Throughout the storyboarding and directing process, the crew could not grasp the concept of it and felt it to be "clunky." According to Cook, they thought "He's gonna [sic] climb the whole tower? It just seems kind of weird." In order to fix it, they reformatted the scene to have Electro gradually propel himself up with several electrical blasts.[7]

Voice actor Crispin Freeman provided the voice of Electro in the episode. Freeman wanted to give a unique style into the character and incorporated the psychological strain on the character's sanity into his voice – "It never occurred to me before how that would have an effect on his character – to be dealing with that curse and blessing. And when you think about it, that's also Peter Parker's core issue."[4]

"Interactions" follows the title scheme Greg Weisman, the other developer of the series, proposed that goes by the theme "The Education of Peter Parker." For the title of the episode and the early arc of season one in general, the scheme is biology.[8] It originally aired on March 8, 2008, on the Kids WB! block for The CW Network, following the premiere of the show's pilot, "Survival of the Fittest."[9] When Disney XD premiered the series on March 23, 2009, after "Survival of the Fittest" and before "Natural Selection," and had a TV-Y7-FV rating.[10][11]

Reception

"Interactions" garnered a Nielsen rating of 1.4/4, which is considered high for American television and was the top rating for the 10:30 a.m. timeslot for the entire 2007-2008 season on the network. It was higher than the previous episode's rating of 1.2/3 (the highest of the 10:00 a.m. timeslot for the same season) and was a 75% increase for kids 2-11 and a 200% increase in Kids 2-5. "Interactions" was the highest of the season in kids and boys 9-14.[9]

The episode received mixed reviews from television critics. Eric Goldman of IGN felt that episode "wasn't as strong as the pilot" and gave it a rating of 7.4 ("Decent"). Goldman wrote that although Electro's costume was redesigned, it had "some nice visual nods to the Electro many of us grew up with," and similarly stated his surprise at the confusing ethnicity for Liz Allen. He criticized the scene where Peter was trying to talk to Aunt May on the phone at the same time as he is fighting Electro, stating it had "been done before in other shows, but here it was just a bit too much" and said to himself "Come on, Aunt May isn't freaking out hearing THAT [sic]?" Although feeling the episode was lacking, Goldman did find it had notable moments, including humorous scenes and the introduction of Dr. Conner's limb regeneration experiments.[3]

Merlin Missy of Firefox News gave "Interactions" five stars, calling it "a nice second [episode]." Missy praised Alanna Ubach's performance as Liz, the relationship between Peter and Aunt May, and the action sequences, which she commented where "visually impressive, though my kid tried to hide under my shirt whenever Electro flashed his powers." Negatively, though, Missy felt Electro's costume was "cartoonish" and said it reminded her of the Doctor Who serial "The Empty Child." Missy wrote that she "saw the ending coming a mile away, but when you're dealing with electricity-powered supervillains, there are usually a very limited number of ways you're going to take them down."[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Elliot, Sean (2008-04-11). "Spectacular Spider-Man Producer Victor Cook Unmasks Spider Secrets - Part 2". iF Magazine. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
  2. ^ "Interactions". Marvel.com. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
  3. ^ a b Goldman, Eric (2008-04-16). "Interactions Review". IGN. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
  4. ^ a b Worley, Robert M. (2008-03-06). "Crispin Freeman charges up 'Spider-Man' as Electro". Mania.com. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
  5. ^ a b Milly, Merlin (2008-03-08). "Review: Spectacular Spider-Man "Interactions"". Firefox News. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  6. ^ ""Spectacular Spider-Man" writer, Kevin Hopps, discusses writing the Green Goblin". Comic Book Resources. 2008-05-07. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  7. ^ Goldman, Eric (2009-07-29). "Making The Spectacular Spider-Man Swing". IGN. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
  8. ^ Weisman, Greg (2008-08-11). "Ask Greg". Gargoyles: A Station Eight Fan Web Site. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  9. ^ a b Salon, Sam (2008-03-13). ""The Spectacular Spider Man" Premiere Swings to Strong Nielsen Ratings". Slice of SciFi. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
  10. ^ Goldman, Eric (2009-01-26). "Spider-Man's Spectacular TV Return". IGN. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
  11. ^ Lemus, Adriana (2009-02-26). ""The Spectacular Spider-Man" to premiere on Disney XD Monday, March 23". Disney XD Medianet. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
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