- by Owen Morton
On this website, we've had He-Man episode reviews, reviews of Star Wars films, reviews of music albums, reviews of the entire run of the Monster in my Pocket figures, even a review of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. But until now, it hasn't actually occurred to me to write a review of an episode of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. There is a very good reason for this. It is because my memory - singularly impressive at unimportant and stupid things from my childhood as it is - does not seem to contain the full plot of any Turtles episodes. Perhaps there is a good reason for this as well. Perhaps the Turtles episodes were all so mind-bogglingly ridiculous that I thoroughly blotted them out of my memory after I watched the entire run of them on BBC2 at 7.30 in the morning four years ago.
However, not being able to remember any Turtles episode in depth isn't going to stop me reviewing one. I have selected the episode 'Turtles at the Earth's Core' for my review, mostly because it is the one episode I can remember the name and some semblance of plot of. I suspect, inaccurate as my plot summary may turn out to be, it'll make at least as much sense as the original episode did.
Right. Here goes.
At a wild guess, I would imagine that the episode begins deep underneath New York City, in the Technodrome (the origins of which we discussed back in November), as Krang details his latest outrageously clever yet mildly far-fetched scheme to destroy his arch-nemesises, those pesky Turtles. Without knowing for certain, I think I can be fairly safe in the proposition that Shredder, Bebop or Rocksteady says something inane at this juncture, which then prompts a really amusing argument. In the meantime, Krang's plan is set into motion.
I seem to recall that we now cut to the sewers of New York City, where the Turtles and Master Splinter are tucking into a freshly delivered pizza. (And just where did they find a pizza company who are willing to deliver to the sewers anyway? And while we're on the subject, how do the Turtles specify which area of the sewers they want their pizza brought to? And do they say to the guy on the phone, "Oh, by the way, don't be too surprised if the guys who pick up the pizza are actually four giant turtles and an oversized rat"? And where do they get the money to pay for the pizza anyway? And who installed the phone line so they could order the pizza in the first place? These are all things I think we need to be told.) Anyway, as they eat their pizza, they are disturbed by an earthquake-like shaking of their HQ. Splinter, being the boss, orders the Turtles out to the surface to find out what's happening.
Well, this is actually one occasion in which the general public is justified in not noticing the frankly unusual spectacle of four man-sized turtles rushing about, because today there is something even more bizarre going on. Yes … today there is a huge great Tyrannosaurus Rex stampeding about and generally making a nuisance of itself. We are all to assume that this is something to do with Krang and Shredder, because everything unpleasant which goes on in New York City is in some way connected to, or more likely is the direct responsibility of, those two nutcases. However, right now, the Turtles are rather less concerned with who's engineered this little entertainment than with putting an immediate stop to it. To this end, I would rather imagine that they go into "Heroes in a half-shell" mode and commence a brave but, well, slightly foolhardy attack on the T-Rex, each using his special weapon (that means whips for Michaelangelo, not nunchucks, and yes it does, Matt and Jonathan, so don't even start the torrent of abusive emails - it reflects more badly on you than it does on me).
Stupid as this course of action may be, I do seem to recall the Turtles succeed in driving the T-Rex back into where it came from, which, if I'm not altogether mistaken, is a large hole in the ground. Again if I remember rightly (you may be getting the entirely correct impression that I'm going rather hazy on the precise details of the plot), the Turtles - and April O'Neill, the irritating yellow-jumpsuit-clad reporter from some stupid TV programme - follow the T-Rex into the hole in the ground. If this is so (and if it's not, then I do apologise to the writer of this episode for doing him/her/it such a grave injustice), it strikes me as a particularly inane tactic. It is never, ever a good idea to jump into a big black hole in the ground into which a T-Rex has just descended, now is it? Nevertheless, I assume that this is precisely what the Turtles and April do, because as far as I remember, the plot now moves to an entirely different location: the Earth's core!
Okay. Now. Let's first get some basic scientific principles straight, shall we? Before we even begin, I think it's necessary to point out that anyone jumping from New York City down to the Earth's core is likely to be, well, not very well the instant they reach the ground. Beyond this, I seem to recall from GCSE Physics that the Earth's core is very, very hot, to put it mildly. So hot that the Turtles and April should be incinerated immediately after being squashed into pancakes by the impact of actually arriving there. Not that there's any solid ground there to land on, of course. Moreover - and this is the nonsensical aspect to top all others - when the Turtles and April make their safe arrival, they are actually in a whole new world with plants and trees and A BLOODY SKY!!! Never mind that they are 10,000 miles beneath the surface (according to some rather dubious calculations made by my good friend Carl), somebody thought it would look nice for the Earth's core to have a sky. Well, dur.
Whoever was responsible for this little departure from the realms of sanity also has various other things to answer for. Such as, to pluck a totally random example out of thin air, why there should be dinosaurs inhabiting this stupid world. It's one thing - though far-fetched enough - for nineteenth century writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle to theorise that there might be dinosaurs living in an unexplored corner of South America, or for Michael Crichton to write novels about artificially recreated dinosaurs, but to suggest that dinosaurs disappeared from the surface of the planet because they moved 10,000 miles beneath the planet's crust - as seems to be the implication here - does seem a trifle, well, stupid.
But I don't think sensibility has ever really been a top priority among the writers of Turtles episodes. My memory is, as this article has proven several times, dulled as to the precise details of the plot of this episode, but try as I might, I can't work out what Shredder and Krang's evil plan is, other than possibly "release dinosaurs to cause havoc in New York City, even though this will bring us no particular benefit". And even if this is the case, I still have trouble figuring out exactly how they get the dinosaurs up there anyway. The problem is that dinosaurs are bloody big, too big for anything the Technodrome can do to lift them up there, but on the other hand, they aren't so big that they can climb, jump or whatever the 10,000 miles to the surface. But never mind! It's possible that some greater purpose existed behind the release of the dinosaurs, and that some method was devised for their transportation. I'm guessing not, but I'll give the writer the benefit of the doubt. I don't know why. I'm just feeling generous.
In any case, Krang evidently doesn't like the Turtles showing up at the Earth's core to do whatever it is they need to do to foil his evil plot, so he dispatches Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady to go and deal with the Turtles. As with Skeletor, I don't think Krang ever properly realised that his lackeys were completely useless and that if he wanted something doing, he'd be better off doing it himself. Not that when Skeletor tried doing something himself, it worked. (Except once, in an episode called 'The Problem With Power', according to the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site - which, while we're on the subject, hasn't been updated for over a month now.) Anyway, Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady appear at the Earth's core in fairly short order. And there's something very odd about the way they do it. We will recall that the Technodrome lies maybe a mile beneath New York City. Whenever the baddies want to get to the surface, they use those cool machines which burrow through the earth and eventually pop up in all manner of surprising places (though never the sewers, apparently, which is odd because you'd think they'd have to go through the sewers to get tp the surface). But surely, to get to the Earth's core, they would have to go down, given that the Turtles presumably went down past the Technodrome to get to the Earth's core. If you're confused, here's a diagram (sorry the handwriting isn't terribly clear, but I think it's decipherable):
But what is bizarre is that when the baddies actually appear at the Earth's core, they burrow out of the ground there (instead of falling out of the inexplicable sky). The only way they could achieve this is if they'd gone a rather nonsensical route, like this one:
But why would they do this? It just doesn't make sense.
However, I think I've spent more than enough time on this particular point (and indeed the entire article), so let's move on.
Actually, to be honest, I have absolutely no recollection of how the episode progresses from this point. I don't think I'd be risking the ridicule of Turtlesologists if I were to theorise that it ended with a grand battle between the goodies and baddies, which would result in the baddies scuttling off to the Technodrome again (possibly involving the uttering of the phrase, "I'll get you next time, Turtles!"), the Turtles having done something which prevents the baddies reusing the dinosaur plan in the future. Then there would be absolutely no explanation of how the Turtles return to the surface, yet they would soon be back in the sewers, making infantile jokes and scoffing pizza. Thus ends a typical and deeply stupid episode of the Turtles.