As seems fairly typical, the episode opens with disastar for Zim. Him and GIR are screaming as they fly semi-out of control in a damaged voot cruiser. The house opens up for them, and they land without crashing. Zim tells the computer to take the cruiser to the repair bay, and as the house closes, he sees somebody in the neighboring house looking at him through the window. He screams, and as soon as the cruiser is down to the house's main (ground) level, he hops off. He rallies GIR to go check up on things, making sure GIR isn't distracted by the Scary Monkey Show. Next we see them in the attic again, with Zim using his awesome viewer helmet to spy on the little baby looking at him through his house's window. GIR pops up and yells "HI BABY!", and Zim wrestles him to the ground, and we see that the baby is breathing heavily onto the window. Next, we're outside, seeing Zim in a cool scene where his trenchcoat is being blown by the wind. He walks up to the house and rings the doorbell, and the door is answered by a woman. Zim tells her he's the neighborhood baby inspector, and has to speak with the baby (who we find is named Noogums) alone. Zim enters the room, which is decked out like any normal baby's room, and proceeds to begin trying to interrogate Noogums. We hear a long slow sound, as if gas is escaping somewhere... The next thing you know, Zim is staggering around the room screaming about a terrible smell, and how it must be the baby's defense mechanism. He crawls out of the room, and we find ourselves in Zim's voot cruiser repair bay. Zim, obviously still feeling the effects of Noogums' little bit of chemical warfare, talks to GIR about how he had both overestimated and underestimated the baby. GIR, who has been playing with the power amplifier, comes too close to Zim, paralyzing Zim with his "deadly waves of stupidness." Zim's PAK revives him, and the doorbell rings. Zim panics, and takes the fastest way upstairs as he yammers about how the security system should have warned him of the intrusion. When Zim gets upstairs and answers the door, nobody is there. He begins to tell the computer to run a diagnostic, but he turns and sees an army of seventeen babies standing in the living room (where had they been hiding...?). He begins to tell them to shoo, until Noogums orders them to seize Zim. They tie Zim up sitting on a chair, and fully un-disguise him.
Zim has a bit of difficulty coming to grip with the fact that they are in fact not babies ("I knew it! Earth babies come from space!"), but luckily, Schnooky gives him a detailed rundown of their doomed scouting mission in an Earth hospital. To make a long story short, they're almost discovered, and Private Fooby requests an evac via teleporter, but gives the coordinates of some human babies, rather than the scouting party; the aliens (who look exactly like human babies...) are forced to take the place of the teleported babies, and the mothership by now is too far away to contact. They demand Zim's ship (who refuses, because it's his), and Zim makes a daring escape by knocking the aliens flanking him to the side by hopping with the chair. He orders the computer to take him to Storage Room #2, and the couch lifts up. Zim hops down with the chair, and the chair breaks apart on impact with the ground, freeing Zim of the ropes he was bound with. The aliens brace the cough with a big pig thing, and Zim runs into an elevator, telling the computer to take him to the voot cruiser repair bay. The aliens hop onto the top of the elevator, and start pounding on it. Zim makes excellent use of his spider legs as cutter beams, blowing a large hole in the elevator and climbing out the side of it. We see the aliens go down with the elevator, and Zim runs to a little tube, and some extensions come out of his PAK and form a force bubble around him, allowing him to slide right down the tube. He gets to the bottom and crashes right onto the voot cruiser, and tells GIR he's taking the cruiser to keep it away from the babies (yes, he calls them babies). However, the ship is still broken, and traps Zim with some auto-security (I... think...) stuff. The babies (we'll go with babies now) are pounding at the door to the entrance of the repair bay, so Zim orders GIR to do something. GIR promptly starts playing with the power amplifier. The babies eat through the door with acid, and Schnooky says that now, they're going to destroy his base as well as take his ship. They then all merge to form Giganto-Baby (... WOW...). They start ripping up huge power cables (causing a neat wind/dust cloud explosion effect... Ownage.), and advancing. Zim drops a repair thing on them by jumping down on them semi-Tarzan style, but it doesn't do much damage. He then thinks of the amplifier... He hooks up GIR with all of the cables, and drops him right in front of Giganto-Baby. He then turns up the power to full, as he cringes right by the amplifier. A gigantic explosion of stupidness occurs, and when all is said and done, all the babies are lying on the ground crying like normal babies, and GIR is upset that he didn't explode. The episode ends with Zim launching a drooling Schnooky into his crib. And might I say that... WOW that had to have hurt.
Humor: 6
I think this episode is funny; it was above average in the humor department. "But Dib's seen us before. And he knows where we live." "Heh heh heh... Dib... No, this is different. This is serious." "AH! Doo doo doo..." "GIR!" "Oh yeah... AH!" That's a good exchange. Also, I loves the chicken and the mayo, with the predictably but still well-timed "BUCKAW!" just as the camera pans away from GIR. Zim's whole baby inspector routine was amusing as well, and the bit with Noogums/Schnooky preferring one baby name to another (apparently he doesn't think of Schnooky as a wuss name). And the gas attack was good. Heck, I could go on forever. No knock your socks off humor, but a lot of good humor.
Plot: 4
Painfully contrived. Aliens that look just like human babies, have baby names, and form a big thing called "Giganto-Baby" which is complete with its own diaper. That scores points in the humor department, but it hurts the plot department. That's not to say that the episode isn't well-written. Still, painfully contrived plot idea. Which is bad when the show's plot revolves around a retarded genius alien being foiled by a crazy alien-obsessed elementary school kid.
Zimmyness: 8
GIR is brilliant here, and the only times we ever see humans definitely paint them in a heavily sarcastic light. Zim has some excellent Zimmy lines here as well; they're just not the kinds you quote in normal conversations to freak people out.
Overall: 6
This is a very nice episode. Don't look at the score being a perfect average and thing that I took off points for how contrived the concept was; it's just a coincidence. Of all the scenes in the episode, I think the coolest is the shot just after Giganto-Baby has ripped out the first cable, and the explosion blows behind G-B. It just looks awesome.
Humor: 4
Not a terribly un-funny episode, but definitely not an episode meant for us to laugh at. Bloaty's Pizza Hog almost got a 3 here, before I thought of how much I love GIR's "None may pass! You are an intruder!" quote, and Gaz's "But he's so bad at it." However, the entire episode is far too dark to be really funny, and Bloaty is just plain disturbing.
Plot: 4
Ah, the reason that this score will eventually be broken up into Writing and Concept... This episode is fairly well written, but its concept drags it down into the low 4 range just for the things that leave you scratching your head and going "why?" Membrane's tight schedule seemed dumb to me (though I believe it was meant to be funny), and the entire episode just seemed to be weird.
Zimmyness: 7
Quite up there for the world of Zim. I myself always preferred the darker, more serious episodes of Zim (not to say that I'm not a fan of Zimmy humor!), so this score may be a bit biased. It just seems that nighttime, darkness of atmosphere, and a somewhat serious chain of events (as opposed to, say, Zim Eats Waffles) make Zimmier Zim episodes than the totally random ones (Battle Dib comes to mind...).
Overall: 4
I'm not saying it's a bad episode. It has some pretty graphics (Zim was definitely a great looking show, and episodes like Bloaty's Pizza Hog never disappointed), some good moments, and a reasonably solid script. It just leaves you (or me) wanting a bit better.
Humor: 6
Door to Door is a funny episode; there's no question about that. Poop Dawg (in both gangsta form and spectre form) is a hilarious addition to the Invader Zim world, and the ending is about as funny as you can get (I don't know about you, but I just love that scene. "Curse you Poop Dawg! Curse youuuuuuuuuu!"). There's really nothing in this episode that isn't funny; it's just not all top-notch stuff. Still, it's plenty to earn the episode a very respectable 6 for humor. Ah... That bit with the Spooky Chihuahua was great...
Plot: 5
Although my first instinct would be to blast Door to Door for the concept, it's not that bad when you think about it. Everything in Invader Zim is taken to the extreme, including school fundraisers. In fact, it gets bonus points (not really, but it should...) just for making fun of school fundraisers. Anyway, everything seems "logical" (in a Zim sort of way, anyway), and Zim's vision of Poop Dawg taunting him was great. It doesn't get an above-average score though, because of just how the episode went (I didn't like Zim's conversation with the old lady, for one. Also, the scene where Zim first uses "Irken persuasion" could have been better).
Zimmyness: 6
This is a good and Zimmy episode. GIR gets some great lines here ("Why is his head so big? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy is his head so big?" especially), and Poop Dawg seemed like the perfect character to throw into the world of Zim. Ms.Bitters was also great in this episode ("Your parents will all receive phone calls instructing them to love you less now.").
Overall: 5
This is a nice Zim episode. Certainly not one of the greats, but it's an episode I liked. One of the more original concepts in the series (okay, the whole series is original, but you know what I mean), and it was just a "fun" episode that had some memorable parts.
Humor: 5
This was a funny episode, just not an exceptionally funny episode. Slab Rankle was another good character (did you notice his little smilie face eye? Well, it's not smiling, but it's a smilie...) to put into the Zim world. Invader Zim is full of people who take themselves too seriously (I mean, really, everybody does). "Thank you Mr.President!" Still, the episode wasn't hilarious. It was still plenty funny though. "Why? So you can keep it for weeks and weeks and not return it? What about all the other people who want to watch it? Did you ever think about them? Huh? Huh?"
Plot: 4
Okay, FBI Warning of Doom does suffer from a very "huh?" sort of concept. The writing also doesn't really help it out much (Slab Rankle's lines were great, but Zim's weren't too good, and though his monologue in the holding area was good, it didn't impress me). Still, I leave the score at a 4 because the plot wasn't too bad, given the way Invader Zim usually is: Funny.
Zimmyness: 3
I don't know... Without much GIR and completely without Dib, the episode just seems to have a gap that's very hard to fill. Also, given the unusual premise of the episode, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that the episode isn't too Zimmy. Slab Rankle is probably the zimmiest thing in the episode. Crazy, huh?
Overall: 5
Again, this is an episode I like. I especially love the scene where Slab Rankle activates the defenses and Zim is rushing towards the Video Outhouse, and the entire episode is quite fun to watch.
Humor: 4
Bolognius Maximus may have a fair amount of smiles, but its main focus is certainly on creepiness and zimmyness rather than humor. Since it got a 4 for humor, it's obviously not an un-funny episode; there just wasn't a large amount of humor in it.
Plot: 9
Oh yes. Very good plot, and very well-written. The episode starts out very well, and quickly and easily flows into the main action. Also, the concept is very good, and is just so well executed. I really can't fault this episode much for anything except the ending (I mean, what the heck?).
Zimmyness: 9
It has all the elements of a good Zim episode: It's dark, has some humor, and is well made. There isn't too much of this episode that feels off; it's very focused on Zim and Dib, and has a wonderful dark feel during large parts of it.
Overall: 9
A fantastic episode. I love everything about the writing except for the ending, it has a respectable display of humor, and it just "feels" like a good episode. You gotta love Zim cackling at Dib as Dib flees the school, and everybody staring at Zim; that was great. *gives thumbs up for the episode*
Humor: 2
Like Bolognius Maximus, Game Slave 2 is not centered around humor. However, GS2 has even less of it. Though there are a few things that make me smirk, GS2 has absolutely nothing to make me want to laugh out loud.
Plot: 10
Great concept, excellent writing, and flawless execution. There isn't much else to say here. The beggining is perfect for this episode, and the middle and end are both done incredibly well as well.
Zimmyness: 7
For an episode completely devoid of Zim and GIR, and with only a small bit of Dib, you'd think this episode would be very lacking in the Zimmyness department. You'd also be wrong. This episode has an excellent zimmy atmosphere, and is all around awesome when it comes to how it "feels."
Overall: 10
I love this episode. In fact, right now, I'm giving it the "Best Intro Ever" award. The intro is so beautiful (top notch art/animation there guys!), so cool (oh yeah), and so different (uniqueness is a virtue). Other than the intro, the rest of the episode is great too. The ending scene with Iggins is probably the best ending this episode could have been given.