Should you watch this, Wiki this, or wait for the recap? Watch it.
While investigating a series of mysterious earthquakes, the Turtles stumble across a Kraang portal and find themselves lost between dimensions. Meanwhile, Shredder unleashes his deadly mutant assassin – Tiger Claw!
So here is my inaugural television review post! Many more to come, I hope. In any case, the 2012 Nickelodeon rendition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been most toyetic, with the toys and the cartoon supporting each other fully. I haven’t seen any toy that hasn’t been represented by a cartoon only character, and almost all the characters (with the exception of a human Karai thus far) on the show have been given a toy representation.
If you haven’t caught the new Ninja Turtles and you’re wondering if you should start from Season 1 Episode 1, the answer is yes. It’s one of the few series I’ve watched which starts off strong right from the pilot episode (I’m looking at you, Iron Man: Armoured Adventures, for your incredibly boring pilot two-parter) and maintains that tempo all the way to the season finale.
For this episode, some places have it listed as “Wormquake, Part 1” but the eventual title card used was “The Manhattan Project.” Which is fitting, seeing that the wormquakes aren’t quite the focus of the episode. There’s a lot going on in this episode, but squeezing all the plotlines into this episode and the others into the next episode wouldn’t make much sense, so this two-parter works, in a way.
Highlights
Release the Kraathatrogons!
At the climax of the episode, the Kraang unleash the devious cause of the Earthquakes, with the loud battle cry of “Release the Kraathatrogons!” in deadpan, monotonous Kraang style. I’ve been a huge fan of all the modern pop culture references in TMNT (April Derp anyone?) guffawed at this line.
Splinter fighting
Yes! It’s always a treat to see Splinter’s gentle, fluid form of fighting. Not to mention that the Turtles call him via the Cheesephone, another reference to the red telephone that Commissioner Gordon has in the old Adam West Batman series. Splinter takes down Tiger Claw with ease, showing us just why he’s the Turtles’ teacher, and his relevance to the series.
Dimension X
I’m a huge fan of any Dimension X episodes, be it the 80’s series or in this one. It’s huge fun to see the wacky alien dimension because anything can happen there, and episodes with Dimension X are never boring (unlike say, the Earth-based gangsters). This one presents the Biotroid, but sadly no sign of the Technodrome. I hope it reappears in the season 2 finale.
Letdowns
The 80’s Turtles cameo is just… a short still
The much hyped appearance of the 80’s Turtles is reduced to a short glimpse of them through one of the portals while they’re lost. Donatello ogles 80’s April’s jumpsuit (didn’t we all), building on his character and crush on April… but that’s as far as it goes.
Tiger Claw isn’t that awesome
Tiger Claw’s appearance is… quite disappointing. For a fearsome assassin, he isn’t that skilful or powerful, and you’d still default to Karai if you want a preferred henchman for Shredder. He doesn’t get much backstory, except for some snippet about his lost tail which never gets resolved. Besides that… meh.
Still, this episode ends on a good cliffhanger which leads on to the next episode – all our heroes are endangered, and you really want to see what Shredder has in store for his old nemesis, Splinter.
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