#d-stabilized

First of all, I would like to mention my personal hot take regarding Danny and Sam's relationship in season 3, and that is that it was Danny's "She Fell First, He Fell Harder" arc.

It's easy to see where I'm coming from, right?

For most of the show, despite those moments of mutual ship tease, Sam is the one who'd been giving off the strongest romantic vibes. As I said, there are many instances where Danny's shown to be receptive to the idea of he and Sam being an item, but at the same time, the fact that he also spent seasons 1 and 2 crushing on Pàulina and Valerie could also be interpreted as his romantic feelings for Sam not being as "deep" (for lack of a better word) as hers were for him yet. So, yeah, between that and all the "clueless" jokes, it can be concluded Sam fell first while it took Danny a while to catch up.

(By the way, I'm not trying to ignore or reject Sam's crush on Gregor/Elliot and paint Danny as the only one who "kept his options open", so to speak. It's just that Sam's feelings for Gregor were both a one episode thing and superficial enough that she had no trouble moving on from him; as opposed to Danny's arcs with Paulina and especially Valerie).

And speaking of Gregor, he is the very catalyst for Danny going from a few bashful moments with Sam charged with romantic tension here and there to full on pining like he does in season 3. Because Gregor forced Danny to confront the fact that he could lose Sam at any moment if he didn't snap out of it and made a move, with the aftermath being all over season 3.

Because, let's face it, whether you ship it or not, it can't be denied that Danny was down horrendously bad for Sam all throughout the season. As I said, Amethyst Ocean is an example of the "She Fell First, He Fell Harder" trope that they had to speedrun because they were running out of time.

And that is precisely why I think there's this misconception that the Danny and Sam subplot ended up overtaking the show.

As we all know, season 3 was 13 episodes long as opposed to the usual 20. They didn't have as much time as before to pace their relationship out as they would have had with a bigger episode count. And that, combined with the fact that most Amethyst Ocean content came from the second half of the season since they had to pave the way for them becoming canon in Phantom Planet (sorry for bringing it up), thus giving us less time to breathe between episodes and making us feel like we were bombarded with content of them, is why I think people tend to accuse the ship of overtaking the season.

What we fail to take into account, however, is that Danny and Sam's relationship isn't the focus all that much.

Again, season 3 is only 13 episodes long. Now, let's see how many of those episodes actually focus on Danny and Sam, shall we?

The answer might surprise you.

For starters, the very first two episodes, Eye for an Eye and Infinite Realms, were focused entirely on Danny and Vlad's rivalry, with no focus on Sam beyond her usual role as his best friend and sidekick.

Episode 3 is Girls' Night Out which, as the name indicates, focused exclusively on the ladies of Team Phantom, specifically Sam and Jazz's relationship (forced as the conflict between them was), while the only Amethyst Ocean mention was Jack asking Danny about her.

Episode 4 is Torrent of Terror, where Danny is shown still fantasising over Paulina despite how long it's been since he supposedly got over her, while there is a single simulation showing him out on a picnic with Sam that's supposed to make him happy.

Then we have Forever Phantom, where Sam, Danny and Tucker spend all episode as far away from each other as possible because they have to find Amorpho and distract the Fentons long enough to keep Danny's secret safe.

It's not until Plant Sam is introduced in Urban Jungle, episode 6 out of 13, that the Amethyst Ocean content starts to really kick into gear. And even then, the focus isn't always on them. Despite everything, due to Plant! Sam being more of a puppet than an antagonist in her own right like Danny and Tucker were when they were brainwashed, the real point of the episode was Danny's cryokinesis.

(As evidenced by all the heavy promotion Phantom Freeze got back in the day).

Without getting into too much detail, Living Large focused on Danny's newly acquired narcissism thanks to his newfound fortune, while D-stabilized was all about Danny, Dani, and Val, with Sam and Tucker only getting a brief scene in the entire episode.

Even though I admit Math isn't really my strong suit and I could always miscount, that would mean that 7 out of 13 episodes have nothing to do with Amethyst Ocean.

And even then, 2 of those 6 remaining ones only have very subdued hints, like them growing flustered in Boxed Up Fury or the aforementioned picnic from Torrent of Terror.

Out of the 4 remaining episodes, I'd say the only one that might have not needed the focus in their relationship was Claw of the Wild, since the goal was to help their classmates and Wulf, which honestly deserved all the attention it could get since we'd been waiting for his return since season 1.

However, it should also be pointed out that, in context, the focus on them actually makes perfect sense. Because, what is the episode previous to that?

That's right, Frightmare.

I've seen comments about how the episode became all about Danny and Sam as soon as she woke up, but that's not entirely true, either.

The episode was established to be all about them since the very beginning, since it officially confirmed Sam is Danny's dream girl (both literally and figuratively).

In fact, that confirmation of his feelings from his subconscious is precisely what woke Danny up in the first place, because he still wasn't quite ready to admit his feelings for Sam to himself, most likely out of fear of ruining their friendship if Sam didn't feel the same way.

But Sam did feel the same way. And that is why this episode being about them is so important, because the dreamwalking gimmic and Danny finding out that Sam wants the same thing was what gave him, gave them, the push they needed to act on their feelings.

And that is actually why, even though it could have been executed better and Tucker deserved better than to be sidelined all season, it makes sense that Claw of the Wild would feature their romance. Because, while they didn't really admit their feelings until Phantom Planet, by that point both of them knew what they felt wasn't a one-sided crush, and the episode has them being more open about their feelings while still not making things official.

They acted more romantic because circumstances had changed, so wearing their hearts on their sleeve wasn't as risky anymore.

Summing up, while it is true the way the season was arranged made it seem like it was too much Amethyst Ocean content all at once, the truth is it was actually only about 6 episodes in the entire season, less than half of it, meaning that, no, Danny and Sam's romance didn't overtake the plot. In the end, it was all a matter of mishandled pacing due to having less episodes to work with.