Should you watch/Wiki/skip this? You can watch from episode 8, “Vision Quest” and Wiki the rest.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is the third animated series in the franchise, and focuses on four anthropomorphic turtles that are teenage ninjas. In this reimagining, the Kraang are an alien race who are only tenuously allied with Shredder, who has a growing army of evil mutants at his behest.
Season 3 can be roughly broken up into two parts – the “farmhouse” episodes which last from episode 1 to 8/9, and then the rest of the season which takes place in New York. It picks up after the painful finale of Season 2, which has left the Turtles broken and defeated and hiding in April’s farmhouse.
Season 3 is more of an uneven wad of episodes rather than the consistent goodness of Season 2, with some spectacular episodes and other more “meh” ones with forgettable villains. While overall, we did get a lot of new characters (and toys!), the season felt it could have benefitted from maybe (horrors) a clip show or a larger budget (really, there were some episodes which felt like filler).
Highlights
Bebop & Rocksteady!
They didn’t appear as often as I would have liked, but we finally got this incarnation of Bebop and Rocksteady! They’re also differentiated from each other, and have a fun dynamic as a duo. While they’re pretty powerful in their first appearance, they quickly succumb to villain decay and become just one of Shredder’s mooks later on. If we get an episode with them, Shredder, and Kraang working together, it would be a wonderful homage of a dream.
New four-man teams
We’ve got three new four-man teams to complement/conflict with the Turtles this season – the Punk Frogs (Attila the Frog, Genghis Frog, Napoloen Bonafrog, and Rasputin the Mad Frog), the Mighty Mutanimals (Slash, Leatherhead, Pigeon Pete, and Monkey Brains), as well as the Dream Beavers (Dark Beaver, Dire Beaver, Dread Beaver, and Dave Beaver)! It’s more fun to see the Turtles battle other teams, because frequently what happens is that if an episode introduces one single characters, the Turtles get overpowered and struggle to defeat him. But in subsequent appearances, they get depowered (like Slash and Leatherhead, for instance). It’s a great form of world building too, that there are other heroes that the Turtles can call on in a pinch (which they do).
Tale of the Yokai (episode 20)
In this episode, the Ninja Turtles go back in time to see how exactly the rivalry between Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki began. We didn’t get all that much of Shredder this season, so to have an episode exploring his background and Splinter’s past was amazing. It also fleshes out the story and shows that young Splinter was a bit of a douche. And thanks to predestination, they were always meant to save Splinter.
Use of the new costumes
So this season sees the introduction of the Vision Quest costumes (which later become more like their stealth costumes, though I don’t think all of them wore it) and the return of the LARP costumes! It’s funny to see the Turtles dress up, although it’s not without purpose here so that’s awesome. We also get the return of Savage Mikey, the coolest Michelangelo redeco (more so than Turflytle). Speaking of which, we didn’t get to see Turflytle this season. Ah well.
Shredder’s finale
Shredder cements himself as the number one baddie in the series with his final act of betrayal in the final episode. While his actions don’t overshadow the larger threat of the Triceratons, it’s also significant because of the personal stakes involved for all the main characters, the Turtles included.
Letdowns
Leonardo’s injury lasted too long
Leonardo’s injured knee became far too repetitive as a plot element and was frankly, quite annoying. While we had multiple episodes show that it was a physical injury, the resolution didn’t treat it as such, and thus cheated the viewers of expectations. You didn’t expect his injury to be of a less physical nature now, did you?
First one third was boring
The farmhouse was OK, but it didn’t delve that deeply into the characters of the individual Turtles. And without the natural encounters of the city, stories had to be sometimes contrived to get the Turtles to face conflict. Who knew there were so many mutants in the forest? It makes you wonder just how dangerous the world is.
Triceratons came out of nowhere
The Triceratons are a formidable foe for the Turtles, but there was also very little foreshadowing of their arrival. It’s as if they were a last minute idea that was shoehorned in. Perhaps if they appeared in the filler episodes (“Eyes of the Chimera,” “The Deadly Venom”) then we might have been more fearful of their arrival and eventual plans of destruction.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (2012) Season 3 was a fun rollercoaster romp that started off slow and ended with a surprise twist. But mostly, the farmhouse episodes could have been given a miss.
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