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TMNT – “The Weird World of Wyrm” Review

by Zach Gasior
written by Zach Gasior

“You can call me Wyrm.” – Wyrm

 

On their way to the next stop, the turtles get in some training with the Fugitoid’s simulator, taking on Chris Bradford in all three of his forms. Their post-workout meal is interrupted, though, but a distress signal from a rocket cleaved in half. The boys head out to investigate, but there’s no one left alive. While the others debate what happened, Casey finds himself a hypercube – a device with 5th dimension access – being guarded by space zombies. The team fights its way back to the ship, but something is amiss with Casey Jones, who refuses to give up the cube even when Professor Honeycutt warns of its dangers.

While everyone else is preoccupied, Casey sneaks down to the professor’s vault and opens the cube, unleashing a 5th dimensional being known as Wyrm. Wyrm will grant the team three wishes, but two are quickly used (Casey wished for the space zombies, and Donatello wished Casey would be less dumb), leaving only one wish left. However, Wyrm trapped the team in a 5th dimensional prison of his own, and Professor Honeycutt reveals that if the diabolically mischievous creature grants all three wishes, he will be set free completely

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The turtles battle to keep Wyrm contained, but in the heat of the moment Raphael uses the final wish. However, his wish can’t even be used effectively, as he wishes for a weapon to destroy the creature, and the rules of the wishes state that the wishes can’t be used to harm the Wyrm. With that, the all-powerful being is free, and begins a destructive rampage on the universe. The only one that may be able to help is the now hyper-intelligent Casey Jones, but after running scenarios in his mind, Casey decides the only logical course of action is to join Wyrm.

Casey mercilessly fights the others in Wyrm’s illusory world, and then Wyrm grants his new friend one last wish to destroy his friends. However, Casey’s intelligence means easily outsmarting the creature, and the boy uses the wish to guarantee that they never found the cube, returning Wyrm to his eternal prison.

It’s been a while since there was a Casey-ish focused episode, and like all the episodes that are suppose to be more about a supporting character, that individual did not get terribly much in the way of development. Casey got to be the smart one who saved the day, but only through sheer accident, and certainly not extended through the episode. The wish to make him smarter was only utilized at the very end, after all. It’s a shame that it wasn’t utilized more, or that Wyrm wasn’t allowed to stay free for a while, with Casey actually joining him until some point down the road this season. However, solving these problems quickly and refusing to take a real risk seems to be the tone of the show for a while now, to its detriment.

It’s fairly obvious at this point that the battle with the Triceratons is going to take a back seat to one-off space adventures this season. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does present a couple of issues. First, the show runs the risk of being the same thing as last season in a different locale. (Yes, the point of individual episodes like this is to allow the average viewer to jump in anywhere without being too lost, but that doesn’t mean the story has to be sacrificed.) Something the first two seasons did really well was having each standalone episode still include something toward the main plot for the season. In the last season+ now, that seems to have been lost. It may sound like nitpicking, but for fans that have invested time and energy in the series, it should continue to pay dividends in terms of great storytelling and character development. The show has sacrificed both in the last year (possibly for any number of reasons, but certainly the continually dwindling viewership has to come into play). If it can pick that back up, then the show could become great again – and it seemed like that was the route being taken with the destruction of Earth. Overall, it was another so-so episode that didn’t really appear to add anything to the development of the plot or the characters (there wasn’t even a “space apples” line!)

 

Rating: 6/10

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TMNT – “The Moons of Thalos 3” Review

by Zach Gasior
written by Zach Gasior

“Numbers mean nothing. I do not fear you or your friends.” – Mona Lisa

After leaving their pit stop, the Fugitoid’s ship finds itself smack dab in the middle of the Triceraton fleet. It doesn’t take long for the ship to be shot down, crash-landing on an ice moon. To avoid freezing, the heroes must find a local supply of metal that can patch up the ship. However, they are not alone; the Triceratons had been chasing down two Salamandrian warriors, and the turtles’ ship caused the two amphibians to crash as well.

As the heroes make their way to the supply of metal, the Salamandrians attack. Though there is a brief moment where it seems like the two factions will work together, a misunderstanding causes the fighting to escalate – and the turtles to be buried under a mountain. Fortunately, the boys and their friends survive and continue their quest.

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Proceeding to their destination, Raphael wonders if they could work with the Salamandrians, especially the female, who he seems to have a crush on. Breaking off from the others, Raph finds the amphibians and tries to convince them to join forces. Talks are interrupted, though, when the girl sends Raph plunging down the mountain again, and both factions find themselves face-to-face with ice dragons. The beasts freeze both Donatello and the Salamandrian commander, but Raph manages to save the girl just in time, earning her respect – and possibly her affection. As a way to call her by a much easier-to-pronounce name, Raph suggests she take the moniker of Mona Lisa.

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With his new friends, Raph returns to his brothers and saves the whole gang (and Michelangelo dubs the male Salamandrian Sal Commander). Together, the team finds a Triceraton space mine that they can salvage to fix their ships. Of course, more ice dragons come charging in, but some quick thinking by Donnie saves them temporarily. However, oxygen runs out, and the Fugitoid must race against the clock to save them all from certain death. Successful in repairing all the ships and defrosting the group, Raph and Mona Lisa seal their newfound affection with a kiss, and the Salamandrians return to their own mission.

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The early episodes of this season seem like they will be used to introduce all the new characters previously revealed, which is a fine way of doing things. Lord Dregg is supposed to be the main villain, and with the Salamandrians as friends, the turtles can feel a little more comfortable out in space. However, there’s been some discrepancy in how many episodes were actually produced for season four, and if the number is only 20, then it doesn’t seem like there’s really time to waste them on doing nothing (and no, character introduction with no forward motion in the plot is not “something”). There’s a larger mission that is suppose to be completed, so it would be nice if every episode was in furtherance of that mission. That could be accomplished by gathering information, going to a world where the part is likely to be, or any number of other ways, and all of those could also be used for character introduction. There’s no need right now to use up entire episodes like this (though, these standalones have been more of a staple in the last season plus, and they’ve been mostly misses in terms of actually being worthwhile).

 

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to be said for this episode. It just sort of existed, and while it was great to see Raph have a crush (and on a species that could actually result in a real relationship, no less), there was nothing particularly special about it. The name Thalos 3 wasn’t even mentioned in the episode. (Also, it was a little bit bothersome that again the show went with the old trope of “we can’t ‘pronounce’ your name, so we’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist and give the one that works for us” when it came to the Salamandrians.) Hopefully the episodes to follow will start to pick up the story again and push the heroes toward that first piece of the black hole generator.

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TMNT – “Beyond the Known Universe” Review

by Zach Gasior
written by Zach Gasior

“I think we went back in time.” – Donatello

While the turtles and their friends mourn the loss of their home world, the Fugitoid wastes no time in setting a new plan in motion. With no explanation as to how, the robot sends the entire ship six months into the past, when Earth and all its inhabitants were still alive. However, unless the heroes travel the universe and prevent the Triceratons from assembling the pieces of the black hole generator, then the destruction will happen all over again.

As Professor Honeycutt blasts off to their first location, the ship suffers some damage, and so the robot scientist arms his new traveling companions with spacesuits and weapons that will allow them to use all their ninja skills in the void of the universe. The friends jump out into space and most (save Raphael) enjoy the zero gravity experience. However, the fun and games soon come to an end, as hundreds of asteroids come hurtling toward the ship. Professor Honeycutt manages to avoid the planetoids, but he still needs to repair the ship.

Setting down on an alien world, the turtles, April, and Casey head off to explore. Of course, each and every one of them gets into a different – yet equally unpleasant – kind of trouble. As they all run away from their pursuers, the group accidentally runs into Lord Dregg, ruler of all insect life in the universe. Breaking a precious vial of spice belonging to the insect lord, the turtles find themselves face-to-face with a powerful new enemy. They manage to escape back to the ship, but Dregg gives chase, and sends his insect minions to destroy the Fugitoid’s craft. Fortunately, the professor manages to jump into hyperspace just in time – only to find a new problem waiting: The Triceraton armada.

The new season has finally begun … and it’s already undoing everything that the season three finale accomplished. The Earth is back in one piece, there’s a new quest to complete, and, ultimately, the heroes will be successful, which means that, as predicted, everything and everyone will be alive and well by season’s end. That is truly unfortunate; as had been said several times over the course of season three, the show had become quite stale. Destroying the Earth, moving the adventures into space, and saying that Splinter was, in fact, dead finally shook things up in a way that could inject new energy and life into the series. But, it looks like that energy will only be given a season, and then it’ll be back to Earth to pick up right where they left off before the Triceratons arrived. Hopefully, that’s an incorrect assumption, and the destruction of Earth can’t be prevented. However, hope for that idea has already been cut a little bit.

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Overall, it was a good premiere, though. It was probably one of the stronger ones, since it actually did something new and different. Both of the last two season premieres did more of the same: Mutagen problems combined with stereotypical Halloween B-Movie tropes. So seeing something new and getting a sense of this TMNT universe expanding beyond the scope of Earth is exciting. (It was also pretty cool to see April’s spacesuit take on the form of the infamous yellow jumpsuit, and her blaster looks quite similar to a video camera.) The only real problem with this episode as a stand-alone adventure, though, was that plot fell into the usual space adventure problem of having the “heroes” be complete and utter jerks to those they meet (seriously, there’s no real blaming those other alien species for being upset when their things were being destroyed, seemingly without care or consideration), and making anything that’s not the heroes “bad” or “evil.” It was kind of a shame to see that the show took that route, instead of letting Lord Dregg be introduced as a truly evil being.

Hopefully as the season develops the energy and twists started in the season three finale will remain with the show. However, the likelihood of that has already dwindled, and there doesn’t seem like too much reason to be hoping for anything to change in the way the story already seems to be unfolding.

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