I liked the battle with Vigoroth and Pikachu, and Slaking vs. Grovyle, that was good, but I'm sorry, music was crap. The whole time I watched this, I was thinking the song "Yeah" from Usher as I watched this episode, trying to ignore the battle music background. Other than that, it was good, but not the best gym battle. It was nice to see the abilities like Static and Overgrow, that was cool. I liked the scene when MAx took the badge and started to cry. I wasn't that surprised how he'll react to his dad losing.
But also another funny thing that didn't make sense to me is, the scene when they tried to get Max to come out. When Ash said that the badge doesn't matter, and the battle was more important, I was ok. But then when Max gets out and gives the badge to Ash, he gets it and he gets all happy and does the badge pose! Wait a minute! Did Ash just said the badge didn't matter?
Also, was May lines redubbed from the Japanese version? In the jap one, was she rooting for Ash or something, but Brock stopped her saying not to pick sides. Then in the English version she said to Ash to subsitute a Pokemon, but Brock said that will be bad. I'm confused...........
Other then that, battle was cool, but the was music lame. In my rating, it gets 8.75 from 10 for the battle! 1 out of 10 for the music!