TMNT - Shredder Strikes Back

Decided to change it up a bit, tonight we're going to take a look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The following four episodes are from one of the newer versions of the gang and aired on Fox.


The King:

This episode takes place partway into the season and has the turtles living in April's apartment, which leads to a bit of craziness. The episode itself follows Donatello as he meets an artist who lives in the basement apartment. The artist is named Kirby, a reference to the big comic artist, and he appears to have acquired a crystal that allows whatever he draws to come to life for a short time. The two bond a bit and find that a portal Kirby drew allows them to and visit a different dimension, which is when things start to get even more crazy as they have to fight to save a town from the evil monsters that the artist had drawn in his spare time.

Shredder Strikes Back - 2 Parter:

This makes up the bulk of the episodes viewed tonight and centers around Shredder as he begins to seek revenge on the turtles for defeating him. The first episode is rather action packed as we follow Leonardo on a training run and is attacked by the Foot Ninjas, the Tech Foot and the all new Foot Elite. While he works to defend himself we often switch back to the apartment where April and the others are simply enjoying a lazy afternoon watching TV and having breakfast. The peace ends, as does the episode, when Leonardo is thrown through the window unconscious.

Part two continues the action as the Shredder sends his forces in to attack the remaining turtles while they are still shocked at what happened. Against rather overwhelming odds, the turtles and Master Splinter fight against the Foot clan as they try to escape the apartment building. Soon though, the villain Hun joins in along with Shredder himself as they raise the stakes. The turtles though find help as Casey arrives just in time to help even the odds up barely. The episode ends with our heroes locked up as the Antique Shop/Apartment are left burning by the Shredder.

Tales of Leo:

Though it's not quite a "part 3" this episode still follows up on the cliffhanger explosion that occurred at the end of the previous, 'Shredder Strikes Back Part 2' and shows how our heroes managed to barely escape. Thought to be dead by Shredder, the turtles retreat with their injured brother to Casey's grandmother's house out in the country. The rest of the episode shows the gang telling the unconscious Leonardo his early adventures and use the stories to help guide him back to them.


It's a bit hard to really say much about the series as a whole, but it does look rather worth a look for any Ninja Turtle fan. The Shredder two-parter definitely stands out as a solid couple of episodes with plenty of ninja action while still moving the story along instead of being a ' Bad guy of the week' type of deal. Perhaps the weaker episode for me is the 'Tales of Leo' since I've never really been too fond of flashback episodes just because of how it generally only acts as filler and slows things down. However, the episode does act as a good breather after the full on fighting seen in the previous couple of episodes and helps to set things up I imagine for what's to come in future episodes.