Daria (TV Series) Monster (1998) User Reviews

A heartwarming episode

[Rectangular_businessman · 9/10 · 1 February 2013]

I think that this was a pretty good and underrated "Daria" episode. personally, I liked this chapter a lot, since this is where one of the first instances in the whole series when Quinn start to show some signs of character development (Notice how in the first episodes she is mostly an antagonistic character with a complete shallow and selfish behavior) I also enjoyed it because it showed that, despite everything, and very deep inside, Daria cares about Quinn: Even when at first her intention was to make a whole movie mocking Quinn's shallowness, at the end of the episode, Daria decides to edit the movie in order to portray her sister under a more positive light. It is true that at the end of the episode, both Daria and Jane are annoyed by the results of this, but it was a nice moment anyway.

An episode about home movies

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 29 November 2012]

When Mr O'Neill gives Daria and Jane a lift back from the cinema Daria accidentally gives him an idea for a class assignment. For their assignment to class must pair up and make a movie; Daria and Jane decide to film a day in the life of Quinn Morgandorffer, just knowing she will say something vacuous which will turn her into an object of ridicule... inevitably she does but in the end Daria can't bring herself to humiliate her sister. Meanwhile Jake has had a pile of old 8mm movies of his childhood transferred to tape so he can watch them again but rather than reliving the happy times he is just reminded of the trauma of his childhood.

While not quite as good as the previous episodes this season this is still pretty good and features a few laugh out loud moments; I particularly liked Daria's nightmare where she acted like Quinn and the fashion club members all looked like Jane. The fact that Quinn would be shallow was a given but it was still amusing and there was a certain tragic inevitability about the contents of Jake's childhood movies.

Not great but worth seeing.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 6 March 2011]

Daria's class has an assignment to make student films (where did they get the money to get the video recorders?!). She and Jane decide to make a documentary film that makes fun of Quinn and her pervasive shallowness. But it was simply too easy--and after a while Daria and Jane felt bad for Quinn. That's because her own words really, really made her look awfully shallow and stupid. So, they decide to soften the film a bit. Little did they realize that this would produce a video that the other kids love--and made Quinn and instant star. So, the old expression 'no good deed goes unpunished' seems to be proved once again.

This is a pretty good episode but not a great one. Well worth seeing but compared to the fantastic other episodes of season two, it is a bit of a letdown--but it's still worth seeing.

By the way, Daria and Jane refer to a movie called "The Last Meal". Sadly, this Russian movie does not appear to exist--at least according to IMDb.

Quinn Morgendorfer shows her true colors.

[gstockley · 9/10 · 7 July 2016]

Daria is given an assignment to make a short film for English class. She chooses her sister, Quinn, as the main subject. She borrows a camcorder from her father and, with the assistance of her friend Jane, follow Quinn around during her daily routine. Daria's intention behind this assignment was to expose Quinn's superficial and ignorant ways, deeming her the subject of disparagement. However, during the final edit of the film, Daria's conscience gets the better of her. She unwillingly manifests that Quinn has a good side for expressing her concern about social issues in the narrative, such as the environment. Quinn gets blind praise for this by her peers, much to Daria's chagrin. Meanwhile, Jake is stewing over his dysfunctional childhood from watching home movies of himself as a child sustaining injuries after falling off his bicycle, over and over again.

I wish that Quinn Morgendorfer's shallow nature was brought to the light of day. People like that don't deserve to have any social status whatsoever.