The series stars a young girl named Dana who, after encountering a strange travel agency woman, is transported from her boring ordinary life to a fantastical tropical island vacation, under the watchful eye of cheerful lighthouse-robot Dromi.
In the first season, Dana is alone on the island except for Dromi and her dog Micu; however, the beginning of the second season sees Dana’s friend Mel winding up on the island himself. The third season turned Dar, another robotic lighthouse who had been a one-off antagonist in a second-season episode, into the show’s main villain (the series had previously had No Antagonist aside from occasional hungry animals), whose schemes to capture the kids would be foiled every episode.
Tropes in this series include:
- Alliterative Title: A few episodes have one, at least in the original Catalan- “Vull fur vacances” (“I Want a Vacation”), “Sota sospita” (“Under Suspicion”), and “Caçador caçat” (“Hunter Hunted”).
- Ascended Extra:
- Mel, in the first season, was Dana’s friend who only appeared in the first episode, In the second season, he found his way to the island and was a major character from then on.
- Dar appeared in a single episode in the second season, but was a major player in the third.
- Birthday Episode:
- “I’m Eight Years Old!” takes place on Dana’s eighth birthday (although how exactly this works when it’s confirmed that time spent on her magical vacation doesn’t carry over to the normal world is unknown), with Dromi treating her to a trip to the moon.
- “Tin Heart” takes place on Micu’s birthday, and the main plot features Dar scheming to ruin it (of course).
- Black Best Friend: Mel, who becomes a regular in the second season. He’s Black and Nerdy.
- Character in the Logo: A somewhat awkwardly-drawn Dromi serves as the “i” in the logo.
- Christmas Episode: “I Want My Mom…” takes place on Christmas (despite the rule that time spent on vacation doesn’t pass in the real world), and focuses on Mel missing his family and wanting to be home for the holidays.
- Cold Snap: “Dromi! You’re the Best” has Dromi bringing some winter weather to the island for Dana’s enjoyment.
- Creative Closing Credits: The end credits scroll next to illustrations of Dana and Micu, which depict them running around the island, encountering a house built into a giant seashell, and meeting a woman who greatly resembles series creator Pilarín Bayés.
- "Double, Double" Title: “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!” has a triple-triple-triple title.
- Ending Theme: The end credits are accompanied by an instrumental reprise of the Title Theme Tune.
- Fairy Tale Episode: “No Kiss” has the islanders reenacting the plot of “St. George and the Dragon”. The episode’s ending reveals that the whole thing was a play the kids were putting on.
- Giant Squid: In “Hug Me, I’m Scared”, Dromi transforms into a submarine and takes the kids under an isolated lagoon, where they encounter a giant octopus that’s become trapped and unable to get back to the sea. (It’s also very graspy with its tentacles, hence the title.)
- Glitch Episode: In “The Dark Side”, Dromi short-circuits and turns evil, with the kids having to find a way to restore the lighthouse ‘bot to normal.
- Great Big Book of Everything: Dromi gives Mel one, El tot de tot plegat (The Whole of It All) after he winds up on the island.
- Green Aesop: “Oil Tide” has a lesson about how dangerous oil spills are for the environment.
- Jungle Drums: The main percussion section of the theme song (and to a lesser extent the soundtrack in general) is composed of these.
- Location Title: The show is named after the magical island that Dana takes her vacation to.
- Losing Your Head: Dromi’s head gets knocked off in “What a Headache!” thanks to one of Dar’s traps; being a lighthouse robot, she’s not in danger of dying from it, but it’s still rather inconvenient. Oh, and the episode reveals that Dromi’s body can be manually piloted if her consciousness isn’t available to control it.
- Message in a Bottle: Dana finds one, which seemingly contains a message from another castaway, in “The Others”. To the surprise of absolutely no one watching, it’s actually one of Dar’s traps.
- Mind Over Matter: For some reason, Helenia has these powers, best shown off in “No, no and no!”
- One-Word Title: The episode “Dazzled” (“Enullernats”) has one.
- Questioning Title?: Two episodes have one- “Who’s There?” (“Qui hi ha?”) and “What If We Ring a Bell?” (“I si fem campana?”).
- Portal Pool: In the first episode, Dana, after picking up a brochure for the Lighthouse Island from the strange travel agency, splashes through a few puddles- only to plummet through the last one and find herself floating in the sea, near the island.
- Put on a Bus: Dar, despite the third season being set up to have him as the villain, vanishes after “Light of My Life”.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Dar, a villain in the second and third season, has pale red schlerae.
- Sapient House: Dromi the living, robotic lighthouse. A few other living lighthouses appear in “Sirens’ Song”, with one, Helenia, even going on to reappear a few times. A third, Dar, shows up as a villain in the third season.
- Shipshape Shipwreck: In the final episode, Dromi turns into a submarine and encounters a mostly-intact shipwreck- only for the mast to suddenly break and fall on her, damaging her systems and seemingly trapping her (and the kids) at the bottom of the sea.
- Shout-Out: One of the brochures in the magical travel agency reads “Distey”.
- Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: The source of the fire on the island in “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!” is Dana’s magnifying glass, which she accidentally left lying around.
- Space Episode:
- For Dana’s birthday (which takes place in the final episode of the first season), Dromi flies her to the moon.
- In “With a Heart in the Stars”, Dromi and Dana have to fly to Mars in search of rare minerals needed to repair Dar’s light.
- Telescoping Robot: Dromi, full stop; even ignoring her ability to turn into a submarine, a rocket ship, or a weird mix between an airplane and a helicopter, it’s not clear where her arms are even stored when she’s not using them.
- Time Travel Episode: “Time Was Time”, in which Dar’s latest device sends Dana and Mel back to the mesozoic era. Dar ends up stuck there himself by the episode’s end.
- Title Theme Tune: The show technically has one, although the title is only said once at the very end of the episode.
- Treasure Hunt Episode: In “This is Priceless”, Dana finds a treasure map and travels around the island in search of Pirate Booty. Contrary to expectations, she actually finds some… but then the cave it’s in starts flooding and the chest gets swept out to sea.
- Weather-Control Machine:
- Dromi demonstrates these capabilities in “Dromi! You’re the Best!”. Specifically, she makes it snow on the island by squeezing the snow out of a cloud.
- Dar builds one of these in “Bolt of Lightning”, which he uses to make a storm cloud follow Dana around. She has Dromi fly her to his island; when he tries to make the rain stop, the dial breaks off the machine, which is then struck by lightning, destroying it and causing the cloud to dissipate.
- White Gloves: For some reason, Dromi has these on the end of her robotic arms.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: An actual established rule of Dana’s magical vacation- no matter how long she spends on the island, whenever she goes back to her life, it will be only moments after she left. (However, the existence of the Christmas Episode and Dana’s Birthday Episode raises some questions…)
