#turtlethon

With the success of the show assured around season four, we finally begin to see a willingness to explore who the Turtles are beyond those base traits conveyed in the theme song. I’d argue that in this incarnation of the series, Leonardo is the member of the group whose personality adheres closest to what the team were when originally conceived for the Mirage comic: he’s a ninja first and foremost, even memorably declaring his intent to finish off Shredder in the first season. Season three’s “Take Me to Your Leader” explores how the burden of leadership weighs upon him but it’s the following year where he’s fully rounded out, the pros and cons of his overbearing strictness explored in “Leonardo Lightens Up”, while his competitive nature turns compulsive in “Leonardo Versus Tempestra”. More than anything, his role is to serve as an anchor, ensuring TMNT stays somewhere in the neighbourhood of being an action-adventure cartoon and doesn’t float off into complete tomfoolery. 

Raphael is the inverse of Leonardo, encompassing everything that makes the Fred Wolf TMNT what it is – for better or worse. He’s the goofball, the one typically given the task of breaking the fourth wall, and if anything is actively pushing against what Leo is here to achieve. With his incessant zingers, Raph is the embodiment of everything that purists who resent the show for not being a faithful recreation of the Mirage comic dislike about it, a situation exacerbated by the fact that the 1987 cartoon version of the character is such an outlier, eschewing the angry, brooding depiction of him seen almost everywhere else. This idea that there’s something inauthentic about Fred Wolf Raph is so pervasive that modern media and merchandise based around the MWS show often skews towards making him “the angry one” instead of the wise guy. It’s an unfortunate bit of revisionist history that loses sight of the fact that 1987 Raph is wildly popular, perhaps now more than ever. The fans who like him really like his witty retorts, outings such as his memorable romance with Mona Lisa, and the entertaining performances from Rob Paulsen that brought him to life. His value is in keeping things light, and in doing so he differentiates TMNT from the earnest action cartoons that preceded it. 

Okay, but if Raph is the fun one, where does that leave Michaelangelo? I’d argue that his depiction as the team’s “party dude” is merely window-dressing, a means to convey what makes him marketable but which doesn’t really get at what makes him tick, in part because as alluded to above, in the early days of the show none of this stuff had been thought out. Anyone watching seasons one, two and much of season three would be forgiven for seeing him as one-dimensional, the cowabunga guy. Pizza, pizza, pizza. Dude, dude, dude. These aspects of him can be... grating, to be certain, when watching the series as an adult. Eventually we start to occasionally see beyond this. There’s a sense that Mikey is the youngest member of the team, even if there’s nothing in the show itself directly confirming this: by extension he’s the most innocent, sensitive, and personable member of the group, the one who’d be most likely to befriend you and invite you into the Lair if you were to encounter him, rather than viewing you as a threat. Michaelangelo is both the most “human” Turtle and the one who displays the greatest longing to live as a human, something seen in episodes such as season three’s “The Gang’s All Here” and the following year’s “Poor Little Rich Turtle”. When it comes down to it, Mikey’s character is easy-going but more importantly, he’s kind. There’s an irony in him being the one whose weapons had to be excised from the show entirely, though if anything I think that only gave him a little renegade appeal over and above even the other Turtles. 

Donatello has always been my favourite Turtle, and not just for aesthetic reasons as “the purple one”: coming in from Ghostbusters as many of us did back in the day, I think it’s natural that if you were on Team Egon, you were likely to be Team Donnie, too. He's the most creative Turtle and arguably the most introspective, two qualities that also make me gravitate towards him. Putting my biases aside, he’s by far the most necessary member of the team for the series to work: his intelligence and ingenuity seem to almost always play into the climax of any episode as the Turtles scramble to stop whatever enormous threat is facing the city, and without him it’s inarguable that Leo, Mikey and Raph would have been majorly screwed countless times over the course of the show’s run. Around the mid-point of the series his accomplishments seem to go to his head, and his abilities make him vastly overpowered relative to the other Turtles. Despite this, Donnie remains the big purple cog that keeps TMNT ticking. 

The show upholds its four main characters above everything, even in situations where this becomes detrimental, and this goes hand in hand with a focus on immediacy: what anyone else is doing isn’t a concern unless it will impact the Turtles somehow, and nothing that’s happened to anyone in the past matters unless if affects the team in the present moment.  There’s an unspoken anxiety at work in TMNT that runs throughout the series, apparent even at its height: a fear that if the Turtles aren’t front and centre, chasing the macguffin of the day, then young viewers will grow bored and switch off. 

These considerations are apparent in the series from the outset, affecting even the origin of the Turtles themselves, who in this continuity go from pet turtles to their established forms in the space of seconds: they’re not allowed to grow into their teenage selves over the course of years for the same reason that only the most barebones information is conveyed to us about the Hamato Yoshi / Oroku Saki feud that led to their creation. This show isn’t about getting caught up in the details, it’s about the Turtles existing in the present moment. 

Yoshi and Saki’s ongoing rivalry is one of the most fascinating aspects of the entire series, and yet one barely explored because the show only cares about the elements of it directly relevant to the Turtles. At some unspecified point in the past Saki framed Yoshi and took control of the Foot Clan because... he was just naturally power-hungry and evil, I guess (later we learned that his mother was also villainous, so there might be something to that). There’s a huge chunk of the timeline which takes place after this of which we know little, covering Yoshi presumably stowing away on a boat and beginning a new life as a penniless refugee living in the sewers of New York. By all rights the story should end here, with Saki having vanquished his enemy and now ruling over his own turf as the head of a criminal organisation in Japan, but his inability to let go keeps things rolling: at some point he follows Yoshi to America, sets up an elaborate network to spy on him, and in a botched attempt to kill his enemy inadvertently mutates the four heroes who will ultimately be his undoing: Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael. 

Oh, and along the way Saki happened to run into a disembodied alien warlord brain from Dimension X who had himself been on Earth for an unspecified amount of time, the two bad guys forming an alliance to achieve world domination. None of these events unfold on-screen as the Turtles weren’t involved: instead, Shredder and Krang arrive fully formed, how they met and the circumstances that led to them working together are deemed unimportant. Similarly, Splinter is a wise old man whose exact age is unclear, capable of applying mystical ninja abilities that vary depending on what the plot of the day requires. 

Given how scant the details of Splinter and Shredder’s feud were, it should perhaps come as no surprise that in the end, it was never resolved in any satisfactory fashion. By the end of the series Shredder and Krang were banished to another dimension by the Turtles for the umpteenth time, but the power struggle between Splinter and Shreds over the leadership of the Foot Clan that kicked all of this off doesn’t receive any closure; to make matters worse the final three appearances of Shredder and Krang tease the idea of them becoming... well maybe not good guys, but at the very least neutral figures having been overshadowed in the evil stakes by Dregg. I think by season ten, the viewers would have been ready for that: to have Shredder and Krang perform a heroic act to stop Dregg that definitively concludes their run on the show as villains, then let them ride off into the sunset. If we’re to assume there were plans for a twelfth season, there’s no reason that Karai or another villain new to the series couldn’t take their place. 

I’m going to skip over writing about Bebop and Rocksteady here as this post is long enough as it is, and I covered their contribution to the series in the entry for “Turtle Trek”. The only thing I would add is that if anyone was truly deserving of that elusive redemption arc and/or a happy ending, it was them: this is one of the areas where the Archie TMNT comic got it right, the idea of them living peacefully on the animal-friendly Eden Worlds providing an opportunity to for the duo to move on. 

April is perhaps the most important character in the show other than the Turtles: there are plenty of episodes in the first seven years of TMNT that don’t feature Splinter, Shredder or Krang but none prior to “The Legend of Koji” that don’t incorporate her into the adventure in some capacity. She's interesting to view through a feminist lens: for a character who first appeared on TV in 1987 in a cartoon primarily marketed towards boys, not only is she integral to the proceedings but from the outset she’s her own person, a (somewhat) established career woman who just happens to cross paths with the Turtles and strike up a friendship with them. Because of that need to keep the focus on the green teens we never get to see her grow much beyond this – she likes the Turtles, she likes getting to cover anything that will make for a Great Story™, but that’s as far as it goes. There are a few rare occasions where the show will toy with having a male guest character serve as a potential love interest for her, but it’s not central to what she’s about. First and foremost, April cares about journalism and about sticking up for her friends, the Turtles, and for a cartoon from 35 years ago it’s kind of refreshing that’s she’s allowed to maintain that focus. 

Irma’s introduction to the series feels as if it was intended to play up April’s qualities by bringing in someone who in many ways is her opposite: there’s little indicator that Irma cares about her job or is any good at it in the early goings, and while April only makes occasional references to finding a partner throughout the series, Irma is obsessed. Her desire to find a man to sweep her off her feet in some paperback romance novel scenario is a constant theme throughout the first four years of the show, and I get the sense that part of the intended gag is that all of this would come easily to April if she wanted it, but for Irma – frequently inferred by the show to be frumpy or plain – such things remain perpetually out of reach. 

When it comes to Turtles discourse there sometimes seems to be borderline hostility towards Irma, perhaps in part because she’s driven by a desire for those old traditions, but I think largely based on people focusing on her appearances in those first three seasons (the only ones people tend to pay attention to, especially outside of the fandom) and viewing her on a surface level: April, so the thinking goes, is glamorous and exciting, Irma is merely her gawky sidekick. I’ve consistently gone to bat for her throughout Turtlethon’s run precisely because The Struggle is Real: Irma exists, living and growing as a flawed human being alongside the successful, infallible April and her friends, the ever-valiant Turtles. She messes up, she fails, she frequently ends up being on the receiving end of pure bad luck but through it all she keeps going, persevering in the background while the focus remains on April and the Turtles. As the show continues, we start to see her maturation, both in terms of taking on different roles within Channel 6 and the downplaying of her man-hungry antics. By the end of season seven there’s a sense that Irma has grown into a fully capable person and shed her insecurities, culminating in her brief reinvention as an action heroine and her defeat of Krang(!) in “Shredder Triumphant!” 

There’s an argument to be made that season seven should have been the end point of the series, or at least that years eight through ten ought to be viewed as merely a possible continuation, a look into how things could have continued rather than something set in stone. The truth is that aside from maybe Shredder, the core cast is served poorly by the Red Sky era: the Turtles come across as miserable throughout, April seems adrift after moving on from Channel 6, ultimately losing prominence following Carter’s introduction to the show, Bebop and Rocksteady are robbed of any semblance of personality and Irma only makes two appearances in season eight before being unceremoniously dropped entirely. I’ll freely admit that by the end of season nine, watching each episode for Turtlethon was becoming a deflating experience: by that point the spark was gone from the show, and seeing what it had become just felt sad. Happily, things improved a bit in S10, but I can’t shake the feeling that Shredder, Krang and The Boys riding off in the pick-up truck at the conclusion of season seven would have been the right time for the Turtles to bow out.

TMNT ‘87 was looked down upon from the outset by readers of the Mirage comic who saw it as sacrilege, a mockery of everything the source material was about, and once newer animated iterations came along that adhered more closely to Eastman & Laird’s vision the perception of the MWS version took an even greater hit. Ironically there are a bunch of disgruntled guys around my age – Xennials and the youngest Gen Xers – who will now swear blind that the ‘87 Turtles are the one true faith, and that any deviation from the way the team were depicted then is a disgrace. Click on any TMNT post on Instagram, especially the ones pertaining to Mutant Mayhem, and you’ll find these dudes in the comments pissing and moaning about how much better things were in their day, when the Turtles were real tough guys and manly men, which is an oddly rose-tinted perspective of a show where a significant portion of fights were won with a cream pie or pizza to the face. That’s the thing: at its heart, Turtles is a fun adventure show, one that over its run draws heavily upon martial arts tropes, sci-fi macguffin chases, aliens, monsters, dimension hopping and occasionally time travel: these concepts are all part of the DNA of the superhero comic book, and in that respect, the show is absolutely in the spirit of the Mirage comics which were themselves conceived as both a parody and a loving tribute to that artform. 

That’s it. That’s what the point of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show is: it’s a fun adventure cartoon that might not aesthetically resemble the Mirage comics, but it has an innate understanding of how to adapt the underlying concepts of those stories into a series that connects with its target audience. 

One of my intended aims for Turtlethon, in pulling apart and analysing every episode of TMNT, has been to dispel two commonly held stances about the show that I see online all the time: 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) was never good. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) was only good for the first five episodes, everything after that was terrible. 

People who take the first stance are harder to reach. Some of them are from that group of Mirage readers who were around back in the day and still hold a grudge, but the majority of those who hold this opinion have a wider disdain for eighties cartoons in general. They dismiss the contributions of everyone who worked on these series entirely because they were all “thinly veiled toy commercials”: to them TMNT and every other show from that era are nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing. I hope in my analysis I’ve shown how far this is from the truth: even the clunkiest episodes of Turtles occasionally have moments where the animators go above and beyond to create impressive sequences, and when the show was at the height of its popularity during seasons three and four these teams created a lot of television on a modest budget within a short timeframe. On the writing side, over the course of the series Turtles incorporates themes into its stories of environmentalism (including climate change and conservation), how sensationalist media and wealthy individuals in positions of power can cultivate hate movements against marginalised groups, and gentrification, to name just a couple of topics off the top of my head; an entire side season was also dedicated to having the Turtles travel around Europe to be exposed to its arts, history and culture. These efforts are a drop in the ocean compared to what the Archie Comics version of TMNT was doing during this period but are respectable, nonetheless. 

The second position – that the show goes off the rails after “Shredder & Splintered” - is something you’ll hear from viewers who have perhaps purchased the first few seasons or the entire series on DVD and have started watching it, but they’re not engaged with the source material. If you’re only half-watching the show, if it’s background noise while you perform other tasks, then the visual drop-off from “Return of the Shredder” onward combined with the drudgery of the Eye of Sarnath arc might make you wonder if there’s any point in venturing further. Undoubtedly there are stretches of the series that tested even my patience: the ungainly syndicated adventures in season four, the bizarre, sometimes directionless Vacation in Europe arc, and pretty much all of season nine. There’s still great stuff in there, however: the second half of season two is far stronger than the first, season three is full of classics such as “Turtles on Trial”, “The Ninja Sword of Nowhere” and the concluding Big Trilogy, and seasons four through six have phemomenal adventures and character spotlight episode scattered throughout. Season seven – the proper season seven, not the vacation episodes – might be the strongest stretch of adventures in the entire series as TMNT regains its focus and attempts to mature in step with its original audience. There’s so much good stuff in Turtles if you stick with it, and I can’t see how anyone could watch the series in its entirety and come away thinking only season one has value unless your criteria for what makes a good cartoon comes down purely to looking cool and some vague aura of edginess. 

ABOVE: A June 1990 TV Guide cover in which Ariel from The Little Mermaid mingles with Bart Simpson, Donnie, Leo and Raph. Yes, Bart is missing his ear, but also WHY DO THE TURTLES HAVE THREE TOES WHAT THE HELL

I hope that if you’ve never actually sat down and watched the 1987 version of TMNT from beginning to end that maybe the breakdowns of each adventure I’ve cobbled together for this blog will inspire you to do so, and that if you’ve seen the show before they’ll allow you to rewatch it with additional insight. More than anything, the goal of Turtlethon has been to point out why Turtles works, while also acknowledging the times when it doesn’t. It’s lost to history now, but there was a vanishingly brief window of time – pretty much just the entire calendar year of 1990 – where the ascendancy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in pop culture occurred in parallel to the rise of The Simpsons. The two series were linked by their indie comics origins and their anti-establishment appeal, however Simpsons was able to reinvent itself after the hype around Bart died down as one of the greatest TV series of all time by continuing to up its game and making Homer the central figure of the show. TMNT was never in a position to make that leap, hampered as it was by budgetary restraints, parental backlash and being more overtly targeted towards children, but as a body of work it still has value, and its longevity speaks to how strongly it resonated with viewers around the world. It is, in a word, tubuloso. 

---

When Turtlethon was in its early stages, I gave some consideration to what series I might like to deep-dive afterwards. I reference Transformers all the time on this blog and it’s without a doubt my First Fandom, so there’s a natural inclination for me to want to go back and examine the 98 episodes of that show. Between that and TMNT, Ghostbusters was my second major fixation, and there’s a lot of The Real Ghostbusters to explore too. 

The natural extension of our journey is to move on to Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, but I honestly doubt it would be fun for me to write or for you to read. I dunno, maybe you want to see me rip it to shreds, but I'm unsure how much financial compensation I’d need to make up for the psychic damage that would inevitably be incurred. (The tip jar is there, if you’re so inclined; let’s just say that Yale could use an international airport.) Moving on to the 2003 version of TMNT would be much more fun, but also a tremendous undertaking that - for now - I don't want to approach. After years of writing about the Turtles, I’m exhausted. I’m also acutely aware that while Turtlethon has been beneficial for me in many ways as a writer – it's allowed me to refine my skills, to learn how to create and maintain a regular schedule, and made me a more effective editor, even if you’d never know it from the length of my posts – the time I’ve devoted to writing about the Turtles would have been better spent working on my own comic series, Corinne Morgan, Corbie, which has been on hiatus throughout the life of this blog. 

[SIDE NOTE: If you want to see me put my money where my mouth is, and if I’ve learned anything through analysing Turtles, read Corbie when the new edition of issue #1 comes out in a few weeks. Its influences are more rooted in the Archie version of TMNT than the MWS series, but if you like cute, light-hearted and socially conscious superhero adventures then I think you’ll soon become a dedicated flocker.] 

I’ve undoubtedly been teetering on the edge of burnout lately, and my workload has been further encumbered by the technical changes implemented by Tumblr that negatively affected the last two seasons’ worth of Turtlethon entries. Behind the scenes, I’ve gradually been making moves to port the blog in its entirety to a stand-alone website where all 193 entries can be enjoyed in the original format. The thinking is that this will allow me to also write about anything else that takes my interest, post my art and generally keep you up to date on the status of all my assorted ongoing projects. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Portertronic, which is now live. The Turtlethon entries for the first two seasons of TMNT have been posted there already, with the rest of the series to follow in the weeks and months ahead. 

This isn’t the end, for Turtlethon or for this account: you’ll still see new TMNT posts from me here, as I have a laundry list of one-off bits and pieces related to the series I still want to explore. The plan is that new content moving forward will be made available first to Patreon and Ko-Fi supporters, then appear on Portertronic, and eventually get posted here too. To kick things off, there’s a pair of upcoming Turtles-related CDs I’ll be looking at as part of a crossover event to introduce Excess Volume, a sub-blog that will cover pop music of the 1980s and early 1990s. I’m not going away, just getting off the treadmill I’ve been on for the last couple of years, and trying to refocus on writing shorter bursts of material while I return to working primarily on Corbie. 

Our heroes sneak into the empty Hall of Science and find the dimensional portal still active. The group are about to follow their enemies inside when they hear cries for help from nearby. In a holding cell is Gargon, a diminutive, scaly green alien who explains he was the victim of an experimental mutation carried out by Krang. Raphael is reluctant to free the captive mutant, reasoning that they should be focusing on stopping their enemies, but is reminded by Michaelangelo of Splinter’s earlier instruction that they focus on doing good above fighting evil. Gargon points out that he’s from Dimension X and can help the Turtles track down their enemies, and so the team free their new ally, agreeing to let him tag along. Arriving in Dimension X, they find themselves at a different location than expected thanks to a route scrambling function implemented by Krang, and face the prospect of being eaten by a dinosaur-like monster with huge fangs as act one ends.

The Turtles run up a hill to escape the monster, receiving no help from Gargon who cowers in a tree. The hill itself turns out to be an even bigger creature, and with some encouragement from the green teens soon awakes from its slumber to do battle with the smaller beast. With the two giants going at it, the Turtles are provided with a distraction, and able to continue their journey. Gargon informs them that he overheard Shredder and Krang discussing heading to the planet Balaraphon, “an arid desert world”.

As Gargon heads off to source a spaceship, the Turtles find themselves divided, unsure whether he should be treated with suspicion or given the benefit of the doubt. Leonardo again points out Splinter’s remarks that “the good you do returns in abundance”. Donatello jokes about the abundance of monsters they were forced to confront; for some reason Michaelangelo takes offence at this, assuming Donnie is “making fun of the sensei”.

For a single shot Donatello and Michaelangelo briefly resemble their pre-Red Sky selves in appearance as Gargon returns, explaining that he’s found a group willing to trade a spaceship for the weapons used by the Turtles. “They’re collectors of unusual armaments,” he adds, “and of course, your earthy weapons are incredibly rare here in Dimension X.” You’d think this would be the moment when the Turtles finally decide this guy is bullshitting them, given that they’ve been here multiple times and encountered enemies using equipment far more complex than swords, sais, a wooden staff or a grappling hook, but they continue to go along with this.

Gargon introduces the Turtles to The Wrecking Crew, a group of huge half-mechanical, half-organic aliens who look like they were designed by somebody who enjoys playing Smash T.V. while getting incredibly high. (Seriously, one is a half-man, half-tank... guy, another is an entirely different kind of tank-man, one’s a cyclops, still another some sort of rollerblade warrior... collectively these dudes must be the most bizarre unit to ever appear in the show.) The gang inform the Turtles that they’ll need to wager their ability to beat them in battle to be awarded a spaceship. Our heroes find themselves outmatched but begin using the equipment scattered around the Wrecking Crew’s hideout to defeat them; as per their agreement the Turtles quickly leave with Gargon in one of the ships belonging to the group.

We cut to the Technodrome, where Shredder and Krang say little of any importance. They’re greeted by good old General Traag, making his eleventh and final appearance here; a pretty good run for a guy who never got to do a whole lot beyond carry out the occasional order from his boss. He did a lot better than poor old Granitor, that’s for sure.

Aboard the spaceship the Turtles still can’t decide whether Gargon is trustworthy, with Michaelangelo insisting they give him the benefit of the doubt while Donnie and Raph wonder if his real intent is to get them killed. Enemy fire forces the ship to make a sudden landing, and the Turtles soon find themselves face-to-face with a unit of Rock Soldiers Warriors. The team are forced to run for cover as their ship is flattened during an attack by Krang’s army, who are advancing upon a village where innocent people are fleeing. Yet again, the Turtles find themselves unable to agree on whether to focus on their mission and head for the Technodrome or take time out to help the villagers, but remember Splinter’s words and ultimately decide to offer assistance. The green teens oust the troopers, hijacking their equipment and forcing them to retreat.

Taking one of the ships left in the battle, the Turtles and Gargon travel in the direction of an enormous pit, but soon wind up back on foot. Friction among the team has been increasing throughout the episode and worsens now, with Leonardo admonishing the others for constantly squabbling; the on-again, off-again tension between Leo and Raph that we’ve observed through the years during Turtlethon appears to be set to come to a head as the two prepare to throw down, but the team’s leader ultimately opts to relinquish his katana, declaring that Raphael “[isn’t] worth fighting”.

The group continue to argue as a purple, tentacled monster grabs each of them. Facing the prospect of being pulled into the nearby pit, the Turtles call for help from Gargon; the mutant begs for forgiveness as he backs away, unable – or perhaps more accurately, unwilling – to come to their aid. Soon the Technodrome rolls up, now rendered in an odd cream and baby blue colour scheme; from it emerges Shredder, at the controls of a new retro-mutagen cannon. The Turtles assume Shredder must be bluffing and won’t shoot, but if this season has taught us anything, it’s that the new Shreds never bluffs. He turns the cannon on Gargon, rewarding him for his duplicity by undoing his mutation and turning him back into... a lumpy yellow guy in a powder blue tunic? Honestly, it’s not much of an upgrade. 

Gargon explains to the Turtles that this treachery was the only way he could become his old self, but has a sudden change of heart upon seeing that Shredder is seconds away from turning them back into ordinary pets. (It’s not entirely clear why, given that he’d been okay with putting them in grave danger this entire time.) He restrains Shreds long enough for the Turtles to break free of the tentacles and return to their hover vehicle; moments later the retro-mutagen cannon is destroyed, and the green teens hurl their old enemy into a vat of... some undefined substance. Whatever it is, it looks gross, I’ll say that much.

The Turtles are fed a story by Gargon about how when he saw them beat the Rock Warriors, he knew he couldn’t go through with Shredder’s plan. (If he’d had a change of heart that far back, why did he still refuse to help when the tentacle monster attacked?) After saying goodbye, he takes the hover tank back to his own world. Our heroes bypass Bebop and Rocksteady to escape back through the dimensional portal; moments later the Technodrome itself, already burdened by failing engines, is wrapped up in the tentacles of the unseen monster and pulled into the pit, landing upside-down.

Returning to the Lair, the Turtles reflect upon how Master Splinter’s teachings turned out to be correct, and doing good deeds ultimately allowed them to banish Shredder and Krang to Dimension X. They agree to not fight between themselves again, but it doesn’t take long before they start squabbling once more, this time over who gets control of the TV remote.

Season seven’s "Shredder Triumphant!” set a high bar as far as grand finales go, and given how much of the show as it was has been discarded since then it would be hard to outdo. “Turtle Trek” is restrained by comparison, but efforts are made here to give the team a sprawling, involved adventure to round things out. As alluded to earlier, we’ve seen the team visit Dimension X numerous times over the course of the series, but the hostility between them – I don’t think we’ve ever seen the Turtles this aggrieved among themselves, certainly not for this long – brings something new to the mix to prevent the story from feeling like a complete retread. We also get the big status quo altering shake-up we’ve come to expect at the end of each season, with Shredder and Krang arguably in an even worse position than they were before, now trapped in Dimension X within the powerless husk of the Technodrome. I don’t know if I’d say this is a great episode, but for long-time viewers of the show it’s certainly an interesting one.

Going into season eight I feared the worst, having never watched this year’s episodes from beginning to end and only having vague memories of the unpleasantness of seeing some of the Red Sky shows almost three decades ago to work off, all of which coloured my perceptions. To my astonishment, TMNT season eight is a solid body of work. You get the sense, watching these adventures, that the pressure placed upon everyone involved in the production has forced them to step up their game, and yet conversely with the casual viewers having long since left the building there’s also an air of freedom. The [animated] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of 1990 could never be what their 1994 counterparts are: they could never live in this world that is so unrelentingly wary of them, or brood to this degree, or get genuinely mad at each other because they have disagreements about how to fight evil – they have a reputation to uphold, and tins of pasta to sell! In season seven, we saw all of that begin to slip away. Now, as 1994 approaches its end, the Turtles are liberated from the trappings of being squeaky clean heroes whose adventures are primarily targeted at young boys; if anything, as we saw with the X-Men inspired HAVOC arc, the demographic the series is looking to win over demands of them this newfound maturity, something the new TMNT is ready and willing to offer. It’s a good thing.

And yet... part of me laments that the show has changed so much that it’s almost unrecognisable at this point; that what we’re watching isn’t the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of 1987-1993 but a distinct entity, one that hovers in its own creative orbit somewhere between the goofy cartoon that preceded it and the 4Kids Turtles still to come early in the next decade. Even now it continues to shed its remaining ties to the cartoon that many of us grew up on, with today’s adventure seeing further departures.

BIDDING THE BOYS GOODBYE

General Traag’s exit is notable, but it’s nothing compared to this: “Turtle Trek” marks the last appearance in the series of Rocksteady and Bebop. For eight years The Boys – Krang originally addressed them as such on one occasion a few seasons in, and at least around here it stuck – have been the comedic backbone of TMNT, their mishaps and failings genuinely funny even early on, when the Turtles themselves had a tendency to come across as one-dimensional. These two goofballs, paired with Shredder and Krang, comprised a sort of makeshift dysfunctional family unit that I suspect allowed the cartoon to maintain a degree of credibility with cynical older kids, teens and adults that it would otherwise have lacked.

Regrettably, the writing has been on the wall for Rocksteady and Bebop throughout season eight. No-one is allowed to be funny in TMNT anymore beyond the occasional quip, and our favourite mutant henchmen have largely been relegated to carrying out routine tasks for Shredder, afforded only the most mundane lines of dialogue along the way.  

Shredder and Krang will be back – eventually – but the family dissolves here, neither of the two underlings seen again. It’s too bad that the retro-mutagen cannon was destroyed, as it would have provided a fitting explanation for their absence from this point on: Shredder’s willingness to turn Gargon back into his original form suggests that he would perhaps offer Rocksteady and Bebop the same way out and a chance to return to their old lives if that was something that they wanted (and given that by now he’s lost almost everything – and won’t be the show’s main villain moving forward – there's little point in them hanging around in the remnants of the Technodrome). I’d like to think that wherever they wind up after this, as mutants or as humans, things eventually turn out well for them. As we’ve discussed previously, free from Shredder’s influence The Boys were never truly evil, but simply misguided, and they remained that way to the end.

So that’s it. No more Wardrobe Updates, no more driving Shredder up the wall, no more run-ins with the Turtles. Don’t feel sad, we’ll always have the fission plant. Or was that the fishing plant?

***

FLY PAPERS: A BAXTER STOCKMAN INTERLUDE

With the exception of “Night of the Rogues”, I don’t know if there’s ever been an episode of TMNT that ties back to as many prior adventures as this one, so it might be a good idea for us to do a quick recap of relevant past events that will play into this story. Waaaaay back in season one, “A Thing About Rats” introduced Baxter Stockman as a down-on-his-luck scientist who had the misfortune to cross paths with Shredder, aiding in the creation of an army of his own “Mouser” pest extermination robots which were turned against the Turtles, Splinter and April. After this plan was foiled, Baxter wound up being captured by the authorities and – presumably because of his insistence that his undoing was due to the existence of the then-unknown Ninja Turtles – he was confined to an insane asylum. In the aftermath of these events, Shredder would go on to attempt to revert the Turtles back to their original pet forms using a retromutagen ray gun, only for Splinter to intervene and destroy it.

Season two’s opener, “Return of the Shredder”, saw Shreds break Baxter out of the asylum, and for the first half of the season Stockman would serve as the masked villain’s right-hand man. After a series of embarrassing defeats at the hands of the Turtles, “Enter: The Fly” had Shredder request that Bebop and Rocksteady, then residing in the Technodrome in Dimension X, be sent to Earth. To maintain the dimensional balance Shredder would hurl Baxter through the portal. Krang had no use for Baxter and ordered that he be placed in a vaporising chamber, but the presence of a fly during the procedure led to the scientist instead being transformed into a half-man, half-fly, who would return to Earth and swear revenge on both Shredder and the Turtles. At the conclusion of this episode, Baxter found himself suspended in a temporal limbo, permanently out-of-step with the rest of the world and only able to watch events unfold around him as a ghost-like figure.

Season three’s “Return of the Fly” brought Baxter back fully into our dimension, leading to him being manipulated again by Shredder. Later that year, “Bye Bye, Fly” would see the mutant discover an underground temple that was ultimately revealed to be an alien spaceship. Further encounters with the Turtles and Shredder followed in this adventure, during which Baxter would arm himself with a mutating ray stored aboard the ship that could turn his enemies into a variety of different animals. Later, Baxter would escape in the ship only for it to fall apart, leaving him trapped between dimensions, about to be eaten by a giant spider.

Baxter would survive – somehow! - and in season four’s “Son of Return of the Fly II” used a dimensional rift to return to Earth. Now accompanied by his friend, the alien computer’s spaceship (known as “Z”), the increasingly addle-brained fly created chaos at Channel 6 and was briefly able to capture the Turtles. A scuffle at the station headquarters between Shredder and Baxter would culminate in the destruction of Z’s computer form, leaving him a mere circuit board that wound up trapped with Baxter between Earth and Dimension X.

Things would take an unexpected and disappointing turn in season five’s “Landlord of the Flies”. Somehow Baxter was back on Earth, with no explanation given; “Z” was also nowhere to be found. Following an adventure in which Stockman controlled an army of flies that brought to city to its knees, he was sent by Donatello back into dimensional limbo, the last time he had been seen up to this point. It’s arguably easier to consider “Landord” non-canon, given that it doesn’t line up with any of the prior Baxter appearances or what will happen in today’s adventure. (It was also a cruddy episode all-round, and thus easily discarded in the great scheme of things.)

Now that we’re up to speed, let’s return to today’s adventure, already in progress: several of the events detailed above will play into those that are about to unfold, albeit often in ways that raise more questions than answers.

***

For whatever reason, Shredder has decided that now is the time to repair the retromutagen ray from season one. To that end, he has Bebop and Rocksteady recover a Nutronium crystal, the final component he needs to make it operational again. All of this would be fine, but... the ray as it appears here looks nothing like it did when we last saw it. Instead, it’s drawn to look identical to Baxter’s mutating ray from “Bye Bye, Fly”, the one that didn’t undo existing mutations but rather shifted the target from one form to another; it even still has the dial with pictures of different animals on it. An egregious goof, to be sure. Let’s press on.

At “Genetic Research” - that’s what the sign says – a night watchman stands guard as the Turtles look on from nearby. Baxter is namechecked by the team during their conversation, leading to Raph mentioning that “thanks to Krang he’s stuck in some kinda... dimensional limbo”. Wait, what? The last time we saw Baxter it was Donatello that sent him to another dimension; I guess we can take this as confirmation that “Landlord of the Flies” has been scratched from the record, as the only thing this seems to match up with is the portal to the Technodrome being shut down while Baxter was in the middle of passing between dimensions in “Son of Return of the Fly II”.

As Shredder makes the final adjustments to his ray gun, Krang is attempting to restore contact with Dimension X. With his equipment faltering, the portal instead focuses on a different realm, the one where Baxter was trapped. The fly passes back through the portal, arriving in the Technodrome clutching the circuit board that is the last remnant of his buddy, “Z”.

Baxter evades a group of Foot Soldiers then hurls himself at Krang, picking the alien brain and his bubble walker up before flying to the roof and dropping him back down to the floor. Shredder intervenes, only to be tossed into a wall. Following Z’s instructions, Baxter connects the alien computer’s circuit board to the Technodrome’s systems. Now in control of the undersea fortress, Z has the Foot Soldiers round up Shredder, Krang and The Boys, locking them in a storage facility. Having picked up on Vernon’s earlier broadcast, Z informs Baxter of the experiments taking place at the research facility and begins plotting to use these developments to achieve world domination. A handheld computer allows Z to continue aiding Baxter remotely.

I neglected to mention this in prior Turtlethon entries but over the course of the last few episodes, as the focus of the series has returned to the Technodrome, the traditional transport modules have been phased out in favour of a new amphibious version. One of these vehicles appears briefly here, emerging from the water and rolling into the city. Meanwhile the Turtles abandon monitoring the research facility when April requests help, having found herself on a rooftop while covering news of a fire. The blaze has since spread, putting her in danger, and so the team rush to her aid. Moments after their departure the module rolls up; from it emerges Baxter, whose appearance causes the guard to faint. The fly smashes through the windows of the lab, barging in and stealing the test tubes containing the genetic materials.

At EMF (it’s unbelievable!), April finds herself cornered by the worsening fire until Michaelangelo, descending from the Turtle Blimp, swoops in to save her at the last second. Later, a fireman shows the Turtles and April the “Super Slosher 2000”, an advanced water cannon used to quickly put out blazes. April is informed of a break-in at the lab by Burne, and leaves with the Turtles in her van; Baxter is already long gone from the facility, and steals the Super Slosher to use as a delivery mechanism for the stolen genetic materials. Testing it out, he takes aim at the firemen, who become giant mutant termites as the first act concludes.

Returning from commercials, Baxter watches as the termite men begin devouring the wooden exterior of an old building. Meanwhile, the Turtles and April talk to the professor at the lab regarding the break-in, and note the tell-tale signs that this is Baxter’s doing. While the team find it hard to believe that Stockman would be capable of doing much with the formulas given his diminished mental state, his supercomputer friend Z is another story altogether, and so our heroes rush off to intervene.

At a fairground, Baxter opens fire with the Super Slosher, turning everyone in attendance into mutant insects. He laments that despite all of this going as planned, he feels something is still missing; Z then suggests that the Turtles should be the next target in his quest for revenge, and that attacking their allies at Channel 6 would be an effective way to lure the green teens out of hiding. The mutant fly leaves, forgetting to take Z’s handheld computer form with him.

In the Technodrome, Krang posits that his fortress was built “too well”, providing no means of escape. Shredder suggests that mixing the chemicals present in the storage facility could allow them to create an explosion and blow down the door. Meanwhile the Turtles arrive at the fairground and restrain the mutant insects. Donatello finds the handheld computer, but Z refuses to reveal what’s going on, shutting down his system instead. As a means of pressuring him into revealing what’s going on, Donnie threatens to dump “fifty megs of random data” into his logic circuits. (This might not sound like a lot now, but keep in mind that in 1993 it might have been the size of your home PC’s entire hard drive.) Z reluctantly explains that Baxter was able to acquire some of Krang’s mutagen and is using it into conjunction with the stolen lab materials to turn everyone into mutant bugs.

The Turtles and April learn that Baxter is now at Channel 6, and hurry over to the station offices to confront him. Inside they find a giant honeycomb, an indicator of things to come. Burne soon emerges, having been turned into a half-man, half-bee. Before the Turtles can react, Irma – now a moth lady – joins her boss in attacking, the pair working together to drag Leonardo and Michaelangelo away. Meanwhile Krang’s makeshift chemical bomb proves entirely ineffective in blowing down the door, and so the Technodrome Crew find themselves having to go back to the drawing board.

Baxter has taken over broadcasts at Channel 6. He goes on the air, promising his viewers that if they aren’t already mutants, they will be soon, and espouses the benefits of living as an insect. Elsewhere in the building, Donnie and Raph look to rescue Leo and Mikey, but instead find themselves trapped in the web of a mutant spider Vernon as act two reaches its conclusion.

Act three opens with April cutting her friends free from the web. Donnie and Raph point out to Vernon that spiders eat flies, not turtles, and encourage him to spin an enormous web outside of the building so that Baxter can be captured. Back in the Technodrome, Krang suggests using his bubble walker to force the door open, and so the bad guys get to work on their next escape plan.

Baxter confronts a captive Leonardo and Michaelangelo in the station offices, promising to get even with the Turtles, despite conceding that he can’t remember exactly why he wants revenge to begin with. Donnie and Raph intervene, freeing their friends, but further threats emerge as Baxter turns April into a wasp. (Compared to her genuinely creepy transformation in “The Cat Woman from Channel 6”, this is handled in a haphazard and shoddy fashion; in one shot she has wings and antennae, in the next her entire body has changed, and I can’t help but wonder if this was a result of laziness or someone considering showing the full metamorphosis to be too frightening.) Insistent on not fighting her friends, wasp April instead joins the Turtles in chasing Baxter out of the building. There, the mutant fly finds himself trapped in the web created by Vernon, the Super Slosher destroyed in the process.

Much to Vernon’s frustration, Baxter is saved from being devoured, with Raphael noting “that is not how we get rid of villains on this show.” Meanwhile April continues trying to resist attacking the Turtles. Donatello suggests to the team that the only way of restoring everyone to normal is to get Shredder’s retromutagen ray, and so our heroes have Baxter take them to the transport module.

Bebop and Rocksteady attempt to use the hydraulic limbs of the bubble walker to pry the door open, but without success. Meanwhile the Turtles arrive in the Technodrome, but are tricked by Z into entering a room full of Foot Soldiers, still under his control. The robots free Baxter, only to be quickly defeated by our heroes.

As the Turtles rush to shut down the Technodrome’s main computer, Baxter seeks the retromutagen ray, intent on returning himself to his human form. Z attempts to deter the Turtles with a group of wheeled machines, but his systems are ultimately taken offline thanks to a well-placed strike from Donatello’s bo. With Z no longer in control, the doors of the storage facility unexpectedly open, making Shredder suspicious. He grabs the retromutagen ray as the Turtles arrive to confront him and begins opening fire. Briefly, it seems that the Turtles are set to be reverted to their original forms, but Baxter swoops in, grabbing the ray out of Shredder’s hand. He leaps through the portal, followed by the Turtles, who recognise retrieving the gun is the only way April and everyone else can be made human once more.

Seeing an opportunity to be rid of the Turtles forever, Shredder shuts down the portal. Caught between dimensions, the Turtles realise that only a few seconds remain before their route back to the Technodrome vanishes from existence. The team leap back in, restraining Shredder in another of the complex’s storage facilities.

Evidently some time must have passed before the concluding scene takes place, with Raphael noting that “everyone in the city is back to normal” as the Channel 6 regulars are restored to their regular forms. Leonardo uses his sword to destroy the retromutagen ray, ending once and for all the threat that it could be used to revert the Turtles nto regular pets. None of the station employees remember their time as insects, but Vernon still has a latent appetite for flies and chases one through the building, echoing his lingering desire for cheese following his time as a rodent in “Were-Rats from Channel 6”.

All things considered, this is a lacklustre way for Baxter to go out. The final moments of the story tease the idea that he could be returned to his normal form, and doing so would have granted both him and us a nice bit of closure, particularly if we assume there was no intention to use him again moving forward. Perhaps David Wise wanted to keep his options open for stories in future seasons, but to have Baxter’s arc end in this fashion – never even acknowledged once the Turtles re-emerge from the portal, becoming an afterthought in his own episode – strikes me as an unsatisfying conclusion to one of the show’s few ongoing storylines. I suppose in theory it’s possible that he was able to restore himself to his human form during his largely unseen scuffle with the Turtles, but even if that were the case, his prospects while trapped between dimensions – particularly now that he no longer has (the presumably destroyed) Z as an ally – seem bleak.

Within the wider workings of season seven, “Revenge of the Fly” feels representative of how things are going. From “Night of the Dark Turtle” through to "White Belt, Black Heart" we had a stretch of some of the strongest episodes in the show’s history, as the more juvenile tone that had become synonymous with this incarnation of the Turtles gave way to an ever-so-slightly more mature, focused series, if only out of necessity. Things began to falter with “Night of the Rogues” - a huge story that required more broadcast time to work that it received – and each of the subsequent episodes has suffered from similar problems. I’m beginning to get the impression that saving Turtles this far into its run is a monumental task, one hampered by broadcast regulations, dwindling budgets and executive meddling, and it’ll take more than a few strong scripts to do it. (If that reads as a bleak analysis, keep in mind that we’re only five episodes away from a dramatic tonal shift that will alter the direction of the series for the remainder of its run.)

Savage boasts about his intention to track down “every last one of you freaks”, a vow that understandably rattles the Turtles. The broadcast ends with AJ Howard encouraging citizens to request Savage’s services by way of a special hotline, 555-NO MUTANTS.

The Turtles head to Channel 6 and request April and Irma’s help in learning about Dirk Savage. April isn’t able to find much beyond him being “a professional soldier of fortune... he’s fought for governments all over the world!” Irma provides further details about Savage’s allegiances, noting that he typically fights against “rebels, misfits and other outcasts”. While at the station offices our heroes receive an incoming Turtlecom transmission from Napoleon of the Punk Frogs, who has just arrived in town with Genghis. It only takes a matter of seconds before Genghis manages to get his foot caught in a laser trap. From the bushes emerges Dirk Savage, who swiftly captures both frogs and carries them away.

Our heroes head to the spot where the Punk Frogs were captured, and determine this was indeed Savage’s doing: in a nod to the weariness that viewers may have been feeling after seven seasons of new supporting characters being introduced, Raphael notes that there are “eight zillion mutants in this series and [Savage] captures two of the good ones!” With no clear plan on what to do next, the team head back to the Lair to request Splinter’s advice.

Savage is seen transporting the Punk Frogs in his personalised truck to a special facility, where several mutants can be seen imprisoned in energy cages. The mutant hunter checks in with AJ Howard, who reminds him that the Turtles are still free: Savage assures his boss that capturing them is his top priority.

Splinter tells the Turtles that he senses Dirk Savage may be the key to solving their problem, and that they should focus on convincing him to change his ways by showing him his hatred for mutants is the result of ignorance. Later, while wandering the sewers, the Turtles discuss these words of wisdom. Donatello and Raphael are unconvinced by the idea that Savage can be reasoned with. Michaelangelo is then pulled into the air and captured in an enormous electromagnet, which Donnie helpfully explains has him “by the buckles of his bandoliers!” Before the team can free him, Dirk Savage appears, a gun in each hand and set to capture his enemies, as act one wraps up.

Act two opens with Savage angering the Turtles by calling them “mutant scum”. He attempts to capture all four members of the team, but after restraining Leonardo is pounced upon by Raphael and has a stream of water sprayed on him by Donatello from a nearby pipe. Ultimately the mutant hunter retreats, taking the tied-up Leo and Mikey with him. As he loads the two Turtles into the back of his truck, he makes a point of relieving them of their Turtlecoms, crushing the devices with his bare hands. Donnie and Raph head to the Turtle Van to give chase, but are alerted to further developments from April, who asks that they return to the station as Irma has made a major discovery.

Savage presents Michaelangelo and Leonardo to AJ Howard. The two Turtles are understandably furious and refuse to comply, but the billionaire forces them to don “compliance cuffs” - arm restraints that compel anyone wearing them to do his bidding. Napoleon, Genghis and the other assembled mutants can only look on as Leo and Mikey are brought to their knees. Meanwhile, Irma reveals her discovery to the Turtles: that Howard used to own a genetics lab which was suddenly closed, coinciding with the wealthy businessman’s disappearance for more than a year. (We can only take Irma’s word for this, as the report which appears on-screen contains no relevant information and seems to just be letters of the alphabet in sequence.)

While April and Irma are helping the Turtles, Vernon goes on-air with an editorial segment. Professing his allegiance to AJ Howard, he rails against the “nasty creatures” supposedly taking over the streets, before revealing that more than half of the city’s residents now wear the billionaire’s anti-mutant bracelets. Raphael is keen to give Vernon a piece of his mind, but is convinced to direct his energy elsewhere, as Donatello intends to infiltrate the mutant holding facility. Meanwhile, April and Irma will investigate the site of Howard’s in-construction skyscraper.

Donnie and Raph visit Mondo Gecko, making his first appearance since his debut two years earlier. As per the conclusion of that adventure he appears to still be residing in the sewers as a neighbour of sorts to the Turtles. Upon learning of the activities of Howard and Savage, Mondo agrees to assist, angered by the capture of his good friend Michaelangelo.

Savage places a table of food in an alley, luring Tokka and Rahzar into the open. This turns out to only be partially successful, as he’s able to capture the snapping turtle but not his partner. After escaping, Rahzar can only watch from a nearby rooftop as Tokka is loaded into the back of Savage’s vehicle and transported away; enraged by the loss of his buddy, he vows revenge before howling at the moon. On his way back to the mutant detainment facility Savage also encounters and captures Mondo Gecko. This time Donnie and Raph are ready, and follow the mutant hunter in the Turtle Van.

As April and Irma arrive at the Howard Building, which is covered in an enormous sheet and surrounded by guards, Donnie and Raph watch Savage unload his mutants at the facility. After he leaves again our heroes use a vent to gain entry to the mutant detainment building. Inside, they watch – along with the captive Leo and Mikey, as well as the other jailed mutants – as AJ Howard places his special cuffs on Mondo Gecko and Tokka. After an off-hand remark from Mondo about how the billionaire will never be able to kill destroy the city’s entire population of mutants, Howard reveals that isn’t his intent, and that his captured prey will serve as his own personal army. The assembled mutants are shocked as Howard removes his rubbery face mask to show his true form: that of a half-man, half-slug.

The impact of Howard’s revelation is watered down considerably by the fact that when we return for the concluding act, he’s seen pulling off his mask again, this time spouting new dialogue as he does so about being not only a mutant, but the greatest one of all. He further explains that it was an accident in his genetics lab that led to his current form (hence his year-long disappearance alluded to by Irma earlier). Donnie and Raph emerge to confront Howard, but through his compliance bracelets the slug turns the jailed mutants against them, forcing the two Turtles to retreat to their van. With his true intentions now known, Howard declares that he needs to implement the next phase of his plan immediately and marches off with his new mutant army.

Donatello is beginning to warm up to the idea suggested by Splinter earlier about Dirk Savage acting as a potential ally. From a phone booth, he calls the hunter’s hotline and leaves a message indicating that two mutant turtles have been spotted. Meanwhile April and Irma watch as Howard relays a message to the guards surrounding his building, informing them that as the mutant issue has been dealt with, they can stand down. With the coast clear, the two ladies sneak inside, finding what initially appears to be a relatively innocuous building.

Savage takes the bait, arriving at a fish market to find Donatello and Raphael. Before he can capture them Rahzar intervenes, still livid at the capture of his friend. The Turtles battle the mutant wolf, ultimately using one of Savage’s own restraining weapons to deal with their foe. It’s only after being saved by Donnie and Raph – and subsequently lectured by them about how not all mutants are bad – that Savage learns he was working for a villainous slug-man the entire time.

AJ Howard guides his army to his new skyscraper, revealing that its true name is not the Howard Building but rather the Mutant Building, a towering statue of his true form mounted on its roof. As he pulls away the sheets at ground level, April and Irma have made it to the top, and head inside to find a control room. Donnie and Raph are informed of this discovery and head off with Savage to confront the bad guys.

Michaelangelo and Leonardo are taken to the top floor by Howard with the other mutants, and due to the compliance cuffs are forced against their will to capture April and Irma. Both ladies are made by Howard to wear his “Down with Mutants” cuffs: far from being a mere propaganda tool, the slug reveals these are miniature versions of the restraints worn by his army. Soon, he announces, they’ll be used to bring everyone in the city wearing them under his control. Across town at Channel 6, Vernon is seen gushing about the bracelets to a surprisingly wary Burne Thompson. As the bracelets are powered up April’s rival is seen marching out of the room, his boss furious at the idea of him taking orders from anyone else.

Dirk Savage is also wearing one of Howard’s anti-mutant bracelets, which activates as he flies the Turtle Blimp, accompanied by Donnie and Raph. Despite this setback the team manage to open fire upon Howard’s statue, and the resulting destruction of the control room breaks the control of the bracelets over the humans who had been wearing them. Howard still has sway over the mutants, but only temporarily – it doesn’t take long for Savage to snatch the control unit out of the hands of his old boss and destroy it.

A further complication arises as the building begins to shake. Howard reveals that the explosion which destroyed the control room must have overloaded the building’s power generators. Donatello drops a dizzying number of ropes from the Turtle Blimp, allowing everyone to fly away safely before the entire skyscraper blows up.

Later, Savage makes a brief apology for the way he’s treated the assembled mutants, pledging to try and understand them in the future and offering his help if needed. Michaelangelo suggests this is almost a happy ending, but something is still missing: the Punk Frogs then step in, offering to buy the Turtles a jumbo pizza, and this is enough for Mikey to now be entirely satisfied.

Michaelangelo might be content with this conclusion, but I’m considerably less impressed. For the most part “Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter!” is an exceptional episode even by the standards of what has been a surprisingly strong season. While the series was set up around the premise that the wider world would be hostile to the Turtles – in this continuity that was established from the outset as the reason Splinter trained them to be ninjas, a means of defending themselves rather than to kill Shredder – only season three’s “Turtles on Trial” explored this idea in depth. In the years that followed, the Turtles became real-world celebrities who spent more time selling cereal, raising awareness of public transportation and going on tour as musicians than they did being depicted as underdogs struggling in a world that didn’t understand them. Arguably this fed back into the series, as the team have spent years wandering around mostly without disguises, meeting little resistance from the residents of the city and often being treated as celebrated heroes. It’s only here – in the seventh season of the show, as the need for the Turtles to serve as real-world pitchmen and role models for hire fades away, that we begin to see a re-alignment take place, freeing the team to become ninjas who reside in the shadows once more. To that end, here we return to the idea of a media-driven narrative turning opinion against the Turtles. These themes felt worryingly prescient when I wrote about them in the Turtlethon entry for “On Trial” a few years back and viewed through the lens of this episode seem just as relevant to our real-world political and cultural climate now. The difference is that while the season three approach to this story resulted in an effective story with an ending that felt all too plausible, this one manages to stumble right before making it over the finish line.

I don’t know what it is about season seven: for some reason the overarching theme for this year seems to have been terrific stories that invariably wind up with half-baked, unsatisfying conclusions. (Baxter’s final appearance is the most obvious example of this.) Whereas Clayton Kellerman’s insistence on continuing to profit by directing hate at the Turtles even after being saved by them felt all too real, here Dirk Savage’s willingness to cast aside his hatred of mutants so readily comes across as entirely inauthentic. Far worse than this, though, is AJ Howard’s fate being omitted from the end of the show completely. Did he feel any remorse for treating the mutants the way he did? Was his perspective changed after being saved from the exploding buildings by the Turtles, or would he simply vow to get revenge? We’ll never know, and it’s one of the great missed opportunities that this villain – part Ross Perot with his pie charts and presumably paid TV broadcasts, part Richard Nixon in voice and general demeanour – didn't get used again. I could easily envision an alternative direction for seasons eight through ten where it’s Howard who becomes the main villain of the series as Shredder and Krang fade into the background, a cartoon counterpart to Null from the Archie TMNT Adventures continuity whose influence and power make life much harder for the Turtles.

Comparisons to “On Trial” notwithstanding, there’s no shortage of other things going on here that are genuinely interesting. The revelation that Shredder’s schemes led to the creation of a variety of unseen mutants is intriguing, but even here there’s a sense that much more could have come of this: we see several mutants in this adventure who are all original designs, but they could so easily have been existing characters from the Archie comics or the toy line. It’s not hard to imagine the likes of Scratch, Panda Khan or Halfcourt receiving cameos here, or even Ace Duck finally getting some proper screen time. At least we get guest appearances from Tokka and Rahzar, albeit years after their debut in The Secret of the Ooze. This is more relevant to Turtlethon entries for the live-action movies – which I still intend to do before this project is over – but the inclusion of this duo in the cartoon after so long feels particularly odd given that they were effectively an unsuccessful attempt to outdo its own Rocksteady and Bebop. Perhaps Playmates were keen to have Tokka and Rahzar incorporated into the show, as both did have a couple of action figures at retail during this period.

The team briefly confront Shredder and his mutants at the museum: in what could be considered a nod to the fact that this will be the last go-around for many of the conventions we’ve seen countless times over the years, Leonardo goads Shredder for continuing to use the same tired old taunts against them. After Raphael threatens Shreds with what turns out to be a paper fan, he’s surprised to see the villain retreat: in reality, Shredder received a radio message from Krang giving the all-clear, and so the next part of their plan is ready to be implemented. The Turtles watch their enemies escape in the module and wonder why they would flee while having the upper hand.

Splinter can’t let go, and when the Turtles return to the Lair he warns that the path they’ve taken by confronting Shredder may lead to “the greatest danger [they’ve] ever faced”. Turning on the TV, the team watch a reporter cover the theft of a regenerative power cell from a space administration facility outside of the city. This, we’re told, is “the world’s most compact source of energy.... invented for a new super space station!” The thieves are said to be “a strange alien creature” and a group of ninjas clad in blue attire. The Turtles are quick to determine that it must be Krang and the Foot Soldiers that are being referred to, but this does raise two questions: How can it be that nobody in the city other than them knows who Krang is when he’s appeared on TV attempting to take over the world multiple times, and since when did the Foot Soldiers ever wear blue?

It dawns on the Turtles that they’ve been played: in a return to a strategy that worked when applied all the way back in season three’s “The Big Rip-Off", Shredder kept them busy with a distraction while the gizmo he was really after was being stolen elsewhere. An alarm sounds in Donatello’s workshop, indicating an impending tidal wave may be approaching the city. Rushing to the beach in their van, the Turtles watch as the newly energised Technodrome emerges. Our heroes are so blasé about the prospect of stopping the fortress now that they all begin to recite, in unison, the dutiful steps they’ll need to go through that they know like the back of their hands. “We break into the Technodrome, fight our way past the Foot Soldiers, disconnect the power device...”

The team use a grappling hook to hitch a ride to the rolling headquarters, and once inside begin taking out Foot Soldiers. Krang has also performed this song and dance enough times that he has anticipated the arrival of the green teens, and made allowances for it in the Scheme of the Day. He has the Technodrome tear through town until it arrives outside City Hall, where he begins the process of staging an invasion, accompanied by General Traag and a sizeable contingent of Rock Soldiers. He demands that control of the city be handed over to him immediately, threatening to destroy the building if the officials within refuse.

Inside the Technodrome, the Turtles move on to begin trying to disconnect the power source as planned, but are captured by Shredder and The Boys. Outside, Krang is borderline ecstatic as he relays the news to Shreds: “WE’VE DONE IT!” Now fully in control, the villains take care of the only force that could plausibly stop them – the Turtles – by tossing them through a portal into Dimension X.

Act two opens with the Turtles floating through a green, glowing void until they’re pulled inside a spaceship. They’re soon introduced to its pilot, a rodent-like slave trader by the name Weesel, who tells the team they’ll “fetch a nice price in the slave pits of Si-Ra.”  Back in the Lair, Splinter snaps out of his meditative state with the realisation that the Turtles are in danger, and the fate of the world is at stake. (He must surely be the only person left in town by now who’s somehow oblivious to the fact that the Technodrome has already flattened a decent amount of real estate on its way to City Hall, the danger he’s so worried about has been here for a while now.)

We start to get a sense for how quickly Krang’s takeover has impacted the city as April and Irma are seen leaving Channel 6′s car park in a news van, commenting on how their computers and phones no longer work. They find themselves unable to exit the building as Krang and a group of his followers are waiting outside, the TV station their next target. Soon Krang is confronting Burne Thompson, and I think this may be the first time we’ve ever had any significant interaction between these two characters. Burne is insistent that any takeover will never work as his employees are loyal to him, an assertion immediately disproven by Vernon, who agrees to work the cameras under the new regime. Splinter watches from an alley as Krang’s victory speech goes out on-air, a group of onlookers gathering to view the unfolding events on the TVs in the window of an electronics store. 

The Turtles try to lecture Weesel about the ethics of his profession, but he remains unmoved, taking them to be examined by Vorx, a slug-like alien who maintains control over his slaves by wielding a whip. Weesel is paid in exchange for the Turtles but before leaving spots his kid brother, Zwerk, chained up and being marched into the mines. When he questions Vorx about his younger sibling being part of the operation he’s warned that anyone could potentially end up working as a slave in the pits, even him should he continue to make a fuss. Reluctantly, Weesel finds himself with no option but to leave in his spaceship, as the Turtles are put to work.

In the foyer of Channel 6, Krang reveals to Shredder that a set of rocket thrusters are kept at the same space facility where the power cell was obtained. The next phase of their plan will involve taking these and affixing them to the Technodrome, effectively converting it into a spaceship. Taking it back through a portal, Krang will then be able to terrorise Dimension X while Shredder uses the Rock Soldiers to gain control of Earth. Bebop and Rocksteady are beginning to wonder where this leaves them, and are thrown a bone as Krang effectively appoints them as the new bosses of Channel 6. Later, the two mutants confront April, Irma and Vernon, keen to begin throwing their weight around.

The Turtles are made to toil away with pickaxes in the pits, and while working strike up a conversation with Zwerk. The young alien insists that his older brother isn’t really such a bad guy, and is simply trying to provide for the pair, an assertion that our heroes find dubious. He goes on to explain that the material the slaves are made to dig for is Ilanium, a rubble-like substance that serves as the diet of the Rock Soldiers. Putting two and two together, the Turtles determine that this must mean Vorx has a business relationship with Krang, and by extension likely has access to a dimensional portal too. The Turtles and Zwerk begin considering how to escape, but find themselves constantly being watched (and fired upon) by the slave master’s airborne drone guards.

In the offices of Channel 6, April, Irma and Vernon are tied up as part of “The Bebop & Rocksteady Show”. Destroying a nearby window with his laser weapon, Rocksteady announces that an upcoming segment of their broadcast will involve sending the three crew members out the side of the building, their final on-screen appearances culminating in them hitting the ground below.

Vorx has learned of the planned insurrection by the Turtles and Zwerk, and orders their extermination at the hands of The Great Chaarg, an enormous drooling cyclops monster. Chaarg looks set to devour our heroes until Weesel swoops in, using his ship to open fire upon the creature. The Turtles and Zwerk soon board his ship, and upon reclaiming their weapons, the green teens begin working with the alien brothers to figure out how to strike back against the slave owner.

Rocksteady fires at the feet of the Channel 6 trio with his laser rifle, nudging them closer to a fall as he joins Bebop in swearing revenge for all the times the station has aired stories that painted the duo in a negative light. (This scene is hampered briefly by a particularly egregious animation error in which it’s the lower body of Rocksteady himself that’s seen being pushed towards the window.) Splinter arrives to intervene, taking down the two mutants and encouraging his friends to snatch their weapons.

In the Turtlethon entry prior to this one (for “Combat Land”) I suggested that Irma taking on a more proactive role in stopping the bad guys may have been intended as foreshadowing for what was to come. That begins to take shape here, as upon picking up Rocksteady’s gun her voice and demeanour immediately change. Irma is livid as she holds The Boys at gunpoint, demanding that they reveal the current whereabouts of the Turtles. Bebop and Rocksteady immediately cave, but can’t provide concrete details about where they are beyond being in Dimension X. She continues to intimidate The Boys until they also cough up the details of Krang’s plan to steal the rocket blasters. Our heroes leave to stop the alien brain, providing Vernon with a blaster weapon so he can keep Rocksteady and Bebop in line; it speaks volumes that the henchmen are terrified of the new Irma but immediately begin to intimidate April’s old rival.

Weesel takes the Turtles and Zwerk to a bunker, where the master controls for the slave pit operation are said to be kept: he warns them that attempting to gain entry is a foolish exercise, as doing so would be near-impossible. Vorx soon emerges, flanked by a group of obedient henchmen, and begins doing battle directly with the Turtles. Nearby, the assembled slaves see the beginning of a potential rebellion taking shape, but the drones continue to keep them in line.

As the fight continues, the Turtles are forced to concede that Vorx’s forces are too powerful for them to prevail. The tide of battle is turned by the return of Weesel’s ship, which crash-lands into the bunker, destroying the systems controlling the drones. The rebellion soon begins, with Vorx and his underlings finding themselves surrounded by the furious prisoners.

The Turtles lament that Weesel was forced to sacrifice his own life so that his brother and the other prisoners could be free, and I must admit that for a second there they really had me going: I genuinely thought that maybe David Wise had been able to convince the powers that be to allow him to incorporate the death of a guest character into the show as part of the transition into the new, darker era to come. For better or worse, that’s not how this plays out: Weesel is alive, having sacrificed his ship but escaping via the use of a rocket pack, and he soon rejoins the group.

Following the capture of Vorx, the Turtles head into his control room and find there never was a portal there after all. The next best thing is a trans-dimensional viewscreen, which they use to call the Technodrome. As Shredder drives the rolling fortress to the space site his conversation with Krang is interrupted by his old enemies, who appear in a transmission where they roast him endlessly, declaring him to be a dishonourable coward. This trolling goes on and on and on until Shredder can’t take it anymore, and is goaded into letting the team come back through the portal so he can beat them legitimately.

Krang waits at the space site for Shredder to arrive in the Technodrome, oblivious to the return of the Turtles, and is soon confronted by April and Splinter. It’s a combination of characters going toe-to-toe that I don’t think we’ve seen in the show’s history, but the way it plays out is even more unexpected. Splinter is no match for Krang’s android body and its built-in weaponry, his walking stick broken in half. It’s clear that the duo is in over their heads, and then...

From the shadows emerges Irma, who is going all-in with her new persona, now sporting a Rambo-esque red headband. Declaring Krang to be “alien scum”, she opens fire on his android body, blowing a huge hole in its back and rendering him immobile. Inside the Technodrome, Donatello spots a cloaking device that can be used to alter a person’s appearance, and decides they could use this gizmo to their advantage.

Donnie and Mikey’s preoccupation with the cloaking machine leaves Shredder now facing just Leo and Raph. With only two Turtles to shake off he eventually makes it to an escape hatch, where he leaps out, bouncing off a nearby restaurant’s awning and running away. (If there’s one thing this show loves, other than TV stores with sets in the window that have the volume turned up and men getting their come-uppance by being made to stand around in their underwear, it’s a good springy awning that can serve as a makeshift trampoline.) Leonardo and Raphael follow, doing battle with Shreds on the street.

April reaches Donatello via Turtlecom, informing him that Irma has successfully disabled Krang’s robot body. I don’t think I praise the voice actors enough, so here’s an example of what a critical component of the show they are: the comedic beat when Barry Gordon (as Donnie) processes the news of who beat Krang - “Irma...? Oh! Well, that’s perfect!” is impeccable. The group agree to meet Donatello outside the Technodrome, leaving Krang where he is. This turns out to be a major mistake, as following their departure the alien brain is free to begin attempting to reconnect the wires of his android body, and is soon mobile again.

Bebop and Rocksteady use similar tactics on Vernon as the Turtles did on Shredder, goading him with threats of what their boss will do to the newsman upon finding out they’ve been held hostage. It’s a strategy that works as the cowardly reporter succumbs to a nervous breakdown, dropping his blaster and running out of the room. Now left unaccompanied, The Boys begin looking for a way to break out of the ropes restraining them.

Krang orders his Rock Soldiers to fall back, an event picked up on by Shredder as a sign that things are unravelling while he continues to battle Leo and Raph. Knocking the two Turtles aside, he tries to escape, but is confronted by Irma, April and Splinter, who work together to disarm him. Sandwiched between this trio and the two Turtles – at this point, even April has balled-up fists and is clearly ready to throw down – Shreds has finally wound up in a position where there’s nowhere for him to run.

Krang emerges from the Technodrome in his bubble walker, accompanied by Donatello of all people, and when he addresses General Traag as “dude” it’s clear that something strange is happening. The cloaking device wears off, revealing that this Krang was Michaelangelo the entire time. The real Krang rejoins Shredder and both watch in horror as the full extent of Donatello’s sabotage becomes evident: the Technodrome is pulled into a portal to Dimension X, doomed to spiral uncontrollably through space.

As in “Night of the Rogues” earlier this season, it falls to Bebop and Rocksteady to save their bosses at the last second. The Boys emerge in a pick-up truck – identical to the one used by yokel criminal family the Badds in “Donatello’s Badd Time” - and pull the villains into the back, Irma continuing to fire upon them as they flee. With the Technodrome, the Foot Soldiers and Rock Soldiers now gone, Shredder and Krang have effectively lost everything.

Throughout this season, almost all of the adventures of the Turtles have taken place at night, a subtle shift from the cheery bright blue skies often seen in years prior and an indicator of the more mature direction things were taking. Today, the Turtles have been out in the open during the daytime, forced to deal with a threat to the city big enough that it justifies them re-emerging from the darkness. As Splinter addresses the group in the closing moments of this outing – warning that Shredder may return to fight another day – sunset arrives, the sky above the city transitioning to a golden hue. In the final shot, a streak of red looms ominously on the horizon. Whether by intention or simple coincidence, it hints at a future still to come for our young heroes, one where things will never be the same again.

Oh, and Irma still has the gun. I’d like to think that she’ll hold on to that thing, knowing how grim things will soon become.

Phew. Okay, there’s a lot to take in here. “Shredder Triumphant!”, I dare say, could be considered a triumph in its own right; here we have not only a big end-of-season-finale for the first time in four years, but one that arguably tops them all. There’s a sense that all roads have led here, the almost one-hundred-and-seventy adventures of the Turtles building to this point: a final battle in which the entire main cast gets to show what they’ve learned, and who they’ve become over this journey.

I say “final battle”, pointedly, because I strongly suspect David Wise was writing this under the assumption that it might mark the end of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a series. Way back in the very first Turtlethon entry I touched upon how Wise had been tasked with closing the book on Transformers with “The Rebirth”, a five-episode final season that wound up being whittled down to three, intended by Hasbro as a hurried swan song for a franchise thought to be in a death spiral. Though “Shredder Triumphant!” doesn’t even have the benefit of being told over three shows, the intent seems to be much the same: achieve a happy ending, conclude with the villains on the back foot and bickering among themselves, and most crucially of all, provide a bit of wiggle room so that future stories can be told should a revival materialise later on.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t blame anyone who considers this their jumping-off point, a satisfying conclusion to a long-running show that for most of its life has been about the light-hearted, often goofy adventures of four youngsters enjoying themselves. What Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be when the story resumes with season eight is something else entirely. For now though, I think “Shredder Triumphant!” is worth celebrating as a tremendous final encore for the series as it was, a fitting end to a remarkable era.

Only three seasons of the show remain, each extending to a mere eight episodes. Before we get to those though, there’s some long-outstanding business to take care of. The first component in a trilogy of significant works of TMNT-related media which, while not a direct part of the 1987 show’s continuity, are too integral to the story of Turtlemania for us not to cover. So...