Episode 22 – The Mind Lens

In which our heroes give themselves a cool-sounding name.

Skeletor, Quake and BH are busy digging a big hole on Denebria, looking for ancient magical artefacts. Luckily and predictably enough, they find one – the Mind Lens, a device that allows its user to take over someone else’s mind. In an intelligent world, Skeletor would choose to take over He-Man’s mind, and then it would be Game Over; naturally, of course, Skeletor goes for the much less sane option of taking over the mind of Grot the Gardener.

Adam: “Give me the permanent marker. I’ll draw a moustache on his face while he’s unconscious.”

Grot dutifully goes mental, alerting Prince Adam, Drissy and Caz to the fact that something fishy is afoot. Before they can investigate, though, Skeletor turns the Mind Lens onto Hydron, who proceeds to ruin a surefire victory by ordering the Starship Eternia to retreat. He then trundles into the Council Chamber and preaches peace – or, at least, the laying down of arms on the understanding that the Mutants will do the same.

Master Sebrien’s fallen for this one several times before, and to his credit, he doesn’t fall for it again. He tells Hydron to shut the fuck up, which results in Hydron exclaiming, “Right! Well, if you won’t disarm with words, I’ll make you disarm by force!” He then struts out of the Council Chamber, and everyone just watches him go. Master Sebrien casually comments, “There’s something wrong with Hydron.” You think, do you, Sebrien? There’s something wrong. Well, I’m glad we’ve got you around to figure things out. I’m not sure we’d have got there on our own.

Flipshot: “Is this odd behaviour for Hydron? I can’t quite decide.”

Hydron’s next Skeletor-induced move is to nick off with the Starship Eternia and attempt to pilot it directly into the Floating City of Leviton. Luckily, He-Man and Flipshot manage to get on board; Flipshot is – of course – no use whatsoever, but He-Man averts disaster. Unfortunately, just in time for the commercial break, Skeletor finally goes for the sensible option and takes over He-Man’s mind.

Released from Skeletor’s control, Hydron helps Flipshot to land the Starship Eternia safely, while He-Man staggers about whinging that Skeletor has got inside his mind – which I’d have thought would be fine, since He-Man barely uses it. Realising that he’s become a danger to society, He-Man runs off into the forest, hoping to “get to Skeletor before it’s too late”. Given He-Man is on Primus and Skeletor is on Denebria, it would appear that He-Man has forgotten that you can’t actually run to another planet.

He-Man: “Arrrggghhh! Turn that bloody John Denver music off!”

Skeletor now has the upper hand. There are numerous, entirely safe ways he could dispose of He-Man. He could make He-Man walk off a cliff, or into a volcano. He could make He-Man draw his magic sword and cut his own fool head off. He could make He-Man eat steak and kidney pie until his stomach explodes. He could do pretty much anything, all from the safety of Denebria. So what does Skeletor do? He gets in his ship and flies to Primus, to “finish He-Man off in person”. It’s sometimes blindingly obvious that Skeletor doesn’t even want to win; it’s the only explanation for such blunderingly stupid moves.

Master Sebrien and the other goodies all join hands in some hippy-dippy ceremony to break the power of the Mind Lens, and to turn it on Skeletor. There’s no explanation of how this is achieved, obviously, but He-Man is able to take over Skeletor’s mind and orders him to attack Primus. I’m not sure why this is such a great idea, but it seems to work: Skeletor and the Mutants are defeated, and go flying home. He-Man and his mates finish up by standing around in Leviton bellowing rubbish about how they are the Galactic Guardians. First I’ve heard of it.

Flipshot: “Maybe having a cool new name for our gang will compensate for the crushing emptiness in our souls.”

 

In today’s adventure…

Hydron advises Caz to never run while carrying a sharp object. Instead, you should walk with it, making sure that it’s pointed down. Or, in the case of the animation in this little segment, pointed at your crotch. Hydron is also good enough to wink at the camera, which is something which always unaccountably gets my goat.

 

Character checklist

Plenty of characters to choose from today: Prince Adam, He-Man, Master Sebrien, Mara, Hydron, Flipshot, Sagittar, Spinwit, Caz, Drissy, Grot, Werban, Skeletor, Flogg, Quake, and BH (i.e. Evil Ram-Man).

 

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Even under Skeletor’s control, He-Man is able to come up with a plausible excuse for Adam’s absence: “He jumped out of the escape hatch as the ship landed.” Surely this is final, incontrovertible proof that Skeletor has known about the secret identity claptrap all along?

He-Man: “Don’t think about the secret identity. Don’t think about it.”

 

Insults

Skeletor’s in a filthy mood this week, coming up with all sorts of imaginative insults. He starts off by calling Quake and BH “mud-brains”, then tells BH that he is less intelligent than a “nitwit”. He refers to Grot as a “nature-boy” and a “pea-brained lummox”, to Flogg as an “idiot” and a “mutton-headed Mutant”, and rather mildly, to Flipshot as “that nasty Flipshot person”.

While under Skeletor’s control, Hydron calls Flipshot a “fool” and what sounds something like a “stupid wet sock”, though I suspect I’ve misheard that one. He also refers to Master Sebrien and the Council as “moss-bound old fogies”. Also under Skeletor’s influence, He-Man describes Leviton as a “hunk of cosmic slime” and Flipshot as a “joke”.

Finally, and not under anyone’s influence, Werban describes He-Man as a “dangerous madman”. I’ve been saying that for years.

He-Man: “I may be a dangerous madman, but you’ve got to admit that Flipshot is a dick and deserves this.”

 

Does it have the Power?

I’ll say this for the New Adventures: while it does sometimes (last week, for example) recycle episode plots from the Filmation series, that’s pretty rare. By the end of She-Ra, the storylines really were beginning to get a bit tired, since it was being produced by essentially the same core of writers and they seemed to be running out of inspiration. The New Adventures, by contrast, tends to feel fairly fresh. It’s not always a success, but the storylines do seem different.

This week is a good example. It’s not a pinnacle of high culture, but it is a pleasingly entertaining way of spending 20 minutes, and I can’t recall a single time Skeletor managed to take control of He-Man’s mind in the old series, thus making it a fresh story. It has a few flaws, of course – why does it take everyone an absolute age to realise that Hydron is not acting on his own initiative? Why doesn’t Skeletor just make He-Man shoot himself in the head? – but if we’re willing to ignore those logic gaps, I think we have ourselves a winner here.