Episode 63 – The Games

In which Flipshot gets a well-deserved kick in the shin.

Right, well, let’s hope this one can prove better than the last He-Man episode entitled The Games, which featured Skeletor burrowing around in a massive drill for no reason whatsoever, while Spikor demonstrated how incredibly infuriating he is. I think there’s a decent chance of an improvement, but the initial scene isn’t promising, since it simply consists of He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot and Kale watching previous episodes (The Sheriff of Gorn City?) on DVD, before concluding that they are ready to take on the Mutants in the Games.

Flipshot: “Let’s watch Dirty Dancing now.”

So off they go, bellowing stupid and immodest sentiments about how they’re going to win. Their first stop is to rendezvous with Spinwit, who will be joining them for the Games. Unfortunately, Spinwit has received a distress call from an asteroid, which quickly turns out to be a Mutant trap, set by Optik and that Mutant whose name I didn’t know, here revealed to be Hoov, which rings vague bells now I’ve heard it. Anyway, Spinwit crashes on the asteroid and is unable to make his appointment with He-Man and the other gamesters, instead spending his time fixing his ship and being attacked by some big roaring idiot monsters.

He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot and Kale arrive at the venue, and instantly begin playing a game which is essentially a zero-gravity version of bulldogs, and as such looks rather fun. The Mutants win this first round, and the two teams proceed on to a much less enticing game – walking a narrow bridge over a chasm. This is the sort of unimaginative contest at which Team He-Man excels, and they win easily.

Hydron: “Just hanging around, guys.”

With the Games tied, the hosts announce the final challenge: somewhere within the gaming arena is hidden a golden ring, and the first team to find it will win. The Mutants don’t seem interested in this contest, instead choosing to simply attack our heroes, who are losing until Spinwit makes a grand re-entrance to the episode and saves the day.

With the Mutants out of action, Kale and Flipshot find the golden ring, and in a last-minute twist, the hosts of the Games turn out to be a pair of small loonies who were disguised as squelchy green aliens. I’m really not sure why we’re supposed to care about this twist, but on the plus side, one of the short dudes does gratuitously kick Flipshot in the shins, which pleased me immensely.

He-Man: “You know, I’ve wanted to do that for 64 episodes now.”

In today’s adventure…

Shut the fuck up about drugs, He-Man. That is all.

Character checklist

This little adventure brings to our attention He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot, Spinwit, Kale, Skeletor, Flogg, Slush Head, Optikk, Hoov, and the Games Masters. There are also illusory versions of Caz and Drissy. I’m not sure how long it’s been since we saw the real versions, not that I particularly mind their absence.

Skeletor: “Optikk, this may be the first and last time you get featured in a picture on Owen’s website. Try to look your best.”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

No sign of him again, not that his absence is any great loss. I wonder if we’ll ever see him again.

Insults

Spinwit kicks things off by referring to the monsters on the asteroid as “mangy asteroid mutts”, which is pretty imaginative. Less imaginative is Skeletor bellowing “fool” at Optik, but since it’s well-deserved, we’ll let him off. I’m not sure who it is who shouts “suckers” at the Mutants, but I think it was Flipshot, and if so he gets his comeuppance shortly thereafter when Kale sarcastically refers to him as “hotshot”. Finally, one of the two disguised loonies addresses the other one as “Mr High-and-Mighty”, which I don’t think was meant politely.

Spinwit: “This guy looks like a typical Eternian.”

Does it have the Power?

I don’t normally comment on the quality of the animation, as it’s the storylines I find most interesting, and that’s perhaps just as well in The New Adventures of He-Man, since the animation is really pretty terrible in general. This week, however, deserves special mention with a couple of really odd continuity errors involving Skeletor. In an early scene, he’s inexplicably hovering high above the Mutants’ heads, and during the bulldogs game, we cut between shots in such a way as to make it look like he’s in two places at once.

Apart from that, this episode doesn’t quite deliver after the build-up of the last three episodes, but it’s not bad. As so often, the first half of the episode seems quite irrelevant to the second; in this case we concentrate on Spinwit’s adventures on the asteroid for a fairly inordinate length of time, which takes away from the time we could have spent at the Games, and as a consequence, the contests seem a bit rushed. The reveal of the small guys at the end seems bizarre as well; it’s like the writer thought there needed to be a twist to the tale, but didn’t know exactly what, and went for something that didn’t quite have the gravity needed. Perhaps it was meant to be played for laughs – I’m not sure.

Anyway, I’m going to chalk this up as good but not great, worth watching for the conclusion to the Games storyline, and if nothing else, it’s far superior to the Filmation He-Man episode of the same name.

Episode 62 – A Time to Leave

In which the Galactic Guardians try to rid themselves of the dead weight that is Flipshot.

We begin with a little sequence in which Hydron, Flipshot and Kale are practicing shooting at each other with the new weapons that Yalt gave them last week. In the course of this session, Flipshot says the first intelligent thing he’s ever said: “I’m not crazy about practicing with live ammunition.” It genuinely beggars belief that these guys would shoot live rounds at each other just to practice – I always thought He-Man was a pretty strict Health & Safety kind of guy. I suppose maybe Hydron and Kale are only pretending they’re practicing: in reality, they’re attempting to murder Flipshot. I’d have the utmost sympathy.

Flipshot: “Guys? I thought we were friends?”

Anyway, Beamo now pipes up, pointing out that the most direct route to the Games will take the Galactic Guardians past the planet Necron, where they will stop for two purposes. The first of these purposes is so that He-Man can ogle Mara in her new outfit, but the second – more important – one is so the Galactic Guardians can receive some training from Wolk, a former Mite gladiator of great renown and enormous skill.

As He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot and Kale depart Primus, Mara and President Pel decide to pay Wolk a quick preparatory visit. This proves ill-advised, since Wolk turns out to be a giant with a short temper and only incredibly rudimentary language skills. “Raaaaaaaa!” appears to be the limit of his vocabulary – that is, until Mara turns on the charm, at which point Wolk states he will consider training the Galactic Guardians.

Wolk: “Well, since you ask so politely.”

While Wolk is doing his considering, Skeletor materialises in front of Wolk and makes him an offer. It’s not an enormously enticing offer, to be honest – I can’t see what’s in it for Wolk – but the upshot is that Wolk will pretend to agree to train the Galactic Guardians, but will instead lead them into a trap at the Maze of Lume, an ancient labyrinth on the top of a virtually inaccessible mountain.

Once our heroes enter the maze, they are swiftly ambushed, and the episode treats us to a number of reasonably exciting fights between the Galactic Guardians, the Gleanons, the Mutants, Skeletor, and Wolk himself. Interestingly, Wolk doesn’t prove to be much of a threat, thus begging the question of how much the Guardians really thought they were going to learn from him.

Naturally enough, our heroes defeat all comers easily, but being a bit dim, they manage to get themselves lost in the maze. This is Skeletor’s cue to try a different tack: he instructs Critta to demolish the entire mountain, sealing the goodies inside. Critta readily obliges, but before she can enact this dastardly plot, Mara and the Mite space force arrive. The Mutants give up and run away without much of a struggle, leaving He-Man to emerge from the maze and try to sleaze his way into Mara’s pants.

He-Man: “Hey Mara, wanna see my creepy face?”

 

In today’s adventure…

Flipshot is polishing his motor (not a euphemism), and He-Man comes along and congratulates him on what a good job he’s done. It would be so nice for Flipshot if it ended there, but of course, he’s got his reputation as the biggest moron on Primus to uphold. Consequently, he hurls a spray can into an incinerator, causing an explosion. This leads He-Man to deliver a hilariously specific moral: don’t throw spray cans into incinerators. Perhaps realising that this is a bit mental, he goes on to elaborate that we must always read the label on any cans, boxes, packages, etc, as they will give us instructions for safe usage. This is less mental, but also less amusing.

 

Character checklist

This one’s got He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot, Kale, Mara, Beamo, President Pel, Wolk, Master Sebrien, Werban, Skeletor, Critta, Flogg, Optik, and plenty of Mites and Gleanons. You know who hasn’t been here for weeks and weeks? Meldock, Elcon, Gepple and Krax, that’s who, and their absence seems to mysteriously coincide with a dramatic upturn in the quality of the series.

Master Sebrien: “This guy to my right might look a bit like Meldock, but rest assured, he definitely isn’t.”

 

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

He’s not here this week, which is a shame, since Mara’s the only one who’s ever got close to guessing the Adam/He-Man dichotomy. It would have been nice to hear him try to cover his tracks with her one last time.

 

Insults

Flogg casually encompasses the entire population of Primus with “wimps”, while Wolk addresses Mara and President Pel as “fools”. We’re also lucky enough to bear witness to He-Man calling Skeletor the relatively ubiquitous “bonehead”.

 

Does it have the Power?

Yup, it’s another winner. The set-up in the first half is perhaps better than the payoff in the maze, but both halves of the episode are good. Despite only having appeared in the last 10 episodes or so, Necron already seems a much more well-developed concept than Primus: we have a sense of history to the planet, evident in such constructions as the Maze of Lune, which is pretty lacking on Primus. The maze itself promised much but ultimately delivered only a basic labyrinth, with none of the pits and traps that would have graced such a location on Eternia or Etheria.

Hydron: “Flipshot, you know your stupid wings? Why don’t you use them and just fly above this maze?”

But still, there wasn’t really time this week to go dawdling round a maze falling into trapdoors and the like: the focus was on the Wolk plot and the eventual ambush. Critta was wonderful as always, and Skeletor was entertaining. Flogg has never elevated himself above dull – and I strongly suspect that with only three episodes to go, he never will – but he’s passable at least. Wolk faded into the background as the story went on, which seemed a shame, especially since I never really got a grip on what his motivation was.

So, in summary, I liked this. It was action-packed, and the fight scenes were fun and engaging. There was good character work, and it moved along both the continuing storylines of Necron and the Games. In short, it’s a good one.

Episode 61 – The Blacksmith of Crelus

In which the gang get some new hardware.

Flogg has taken the Mutants on a shopping trip to Gorn City to buy some new weapons for use against the Galactic Guardians in the Games. Unfortunately, Argos have all sold out, Poundland is beyond their budget, and Sainsbury’s refuse service because the Mutants have forgotten their IDs. In frustration, the Mutants get into a bar brawl with an alien, who happens to be packing some pretty buzzin’ hardware. I am so down with the kids today. Just look at me casually slipping this street lingo into my review.

Flogg: “How shocking. And yes, it’s a bad joke. Sue me.”

Anyway, the alien reveals that he got his great weapons from Yalt, the blacksmith of Crelus, and so off the Mutants go to Crelus. I’m fairly confident that even if they buy an entire nuclear arsenal from Yalt, it wouldn’t give the Mutants the advantage over He-Man, even if he didn’t know they were coming. Still, just in case you were worried, Meliak is in the bar and overhears the conversation, so he gets on the phone to He-Man and warns him, so I imagine this little charade is already basically over.

He-Man takes Hydron and Flipshot with him on his mission. I’ve been wondering why He-Man always involves Flipshot, given he’s a complete cock, and I’ve finally realised that it’s because He-Man is also a complete cock, but he’s hoping having Flipshot along will divert attention away from him. Unsurprisingly, this theory goes unconfirmed throughout the series, but you know I’m right.

Flipshot: “Why is He-Man spending this journey standing ominously behind us?”

Skeletor and the Mutants find Yalt first, and it turns out that he is only willing to make weapons for good people. Unfortunately, as well as being very principled, Yalt is also very credulous, and so it isn’t hard for Skeletor to persuade Yalt that the Mutants are the goodies, and so Yalt forges some shiny new weapons for Flogg, Optik and that other guy whose name I have never managed to pick up. Yalt promises more weapons will be ready by nightfall, so the Mutants head back to their ship to wait.

He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot and a dude called Kale finally arrive on Crelus, after an interlude with some missiles which involved He-Man having to go for one of his notorious space walks. I got livid when She-Ra did this, and for a while I got even angrier when New He-Man started it. Now I’m just opting for tired acceptance.

Anyway, there’s no need to dwell on that now. The important thing is that when He-Man and his posse show up, Yalt immediately assumes that they are baddies and attacks them. Luckily, He-Man is able to prove how good he is, and so poor old Yalt is set to work pimping up Hydron, Flipshot and Kale’s weapons. Once he’s finished, it’s nightfall, and the Mutants return, at which point there’s an almighty rumble.

Yalt: “You know what, I don’t care how good you are. Skeletor and his lot asked first.”

During the battle, Flipshot accidentally makes a huge hole in the roof of Yalt’s house with his new weapons. Luckily, no one was particularly relying on Flipshot, and the battle ends when Skeletor breaks his Havoc Staff and immediately does a runner. Flogg and the rest of the Mutants follow, leaving He-Man to deliver a sanctimonious lecture to Yalt about how sometimes evil pretends to be good. Yalt ignores him, instead opting to give Flipshot a lesson in how to use his new weapon.

In today’s adventure…

Hydron and Flipshot deliver a timely and relevant moral about how to use a ladder safely. When I say “timely and relevant”, I of course mean anything but.

Character checklist

On this little jaunt, we’ve got He-Man, Hydron, Flipshot, Kale, Master Sebrien, Meliak, Yalt, Skeletor, Flogg, Slush Head, Optik, that nameless Mutant, and the alien in the bar who kicks the whole thing off.

Yalt: “BY GRATHOR’S HAMMER …. oh sorry, wrong franchise.”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Adam doesn’t see fit to show his face this week, which is just as well, because he’d only be blathering to Master Sebrien anyway. I don’t like Master Sebrien, so the less excuse he’s got to show up, the better.

Insults

When Flogg and the Mutants get into a brawl with the alien in Gorn City, there’s a fair few insults flying about. The alien refers to Skeletor as “bonehead” and spits out “drones” to Flogg and that Mutant whose name I don’t know. Flogg retaliates with “needle-nose” and “space weasel”, both of which are pretty good by Flogg’s usual standards.

Alien: “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Yalt addresses He-Man as “evil one”, which He-Man takes in his stride. Finally, there’s a two-for-one offer when Flogg states that Yalt is “all muscle, no brain”, to which Skeletor retorts that it “takes one to know one”.

Does it have the Power?

This one is a very solid entry, the vast majority of which goes by entertainingly. I liked the continuity that ties this episode into the wider Games plot that started last week, and I also liked the story of both Skeletor and He-Man vying for the powerful weapons of a mysterious blacksmith, a plot which felt fresh and interesting. There may be nothing of any true brilliance here, but for the most part it’s a good, decent episode.

But – and of course there’s always a but – the problem with the episode is the scene where the Starship Eternia blunders into a trap set by the Mutants, and winds up being chased by thousands of tiny but powerful missiles. The scene is actually very good: it’s tense, exciting, and a new and different threat. The problem is, as ever, the resolution: He-Man goes outside the ship, bellows “I have the Power!” and shoots a beam of light, which makes the missiles follow that instead. It’s just too easy and requires no logical thought. Our heroes ought to be using their brains to evade and escape such traps – not just shouting gibberish and using deus ex machinas.

Frankly, this is not a major part of this episode, but it is a symptom of the general problem that I have with this series. If you can look past it this week, then you’ll be rewarded with an entertaining episode, which is definitely worth watching.

Episode 60 – The Call to the Games

In which Star Wars erupts over Primus.

A close cousin of the Death Star approaches Primus, and naturally everyone gets very panicked when it starts shooting. Artilla, Sagittar, Spinwit and some new boy called Vizar lead the defence in the Starship Colossus, while He-Man, Hydron and Flipshot take the Starship Eternia to provide backup. All our heroes are really cross that the Mutants have managed to build such a powerful new ship – except He-Man, who theorises that the Mutants might not be behind it.

What do you know, he’s right. I was so surprised you could have knocked me down with a packet of crisps. Heaven forbid He-Man be wrong. Anyway, another Death Star is even now attacking the Mutants, and they’re fighting back with their usual degree of efficiency i.e. they’re losing. This battle rips off Star Wars so much that there’s even a bit where a Mutant fighter flies down a trench along the top of the Death Star. I’ll be generous and class this as an affectionate homage rather than shameless copyright theft. Hopefully George Lucas’ lawyers did likewise.

Mutant: “Does this seem in any way familiar to moviegoers?”

After treating us to a long and potentially irrelevant space battle, both Death Stars suddenly call off the assault, instead contacting the Primans and the Mutants and instructing them to follow as the Death Stars leave. The Starship Eternia and the Mutant mothership thus arrive at a rendezvous point, at which point the Death Star owners engage in a marvellous display of pointlessness and teleport both ships to the planet Denebria.

Both ships emerge from the teleportation entirely bereft of power, and as such start to be pulled down to the surface of Denebria. Luckily, He-Man goes out for a spacesuit-less walk on the Eternia’s hull and does some incomprehensible jiggery-pokery to allow the Eternia to land relatively safely. Over on the mothership, Skeletor also crawls around in the vacuum of space and similarly lands the ship without crashing, or at least without crashing too badly.

Flipshot: “Oh look. He-Man’s out in space again. Perfectly normal.”

Both ships have fortuitously landed very close to each other, so Skeletor and Flogg are kind enough to fill up some more of the episode’s runtime by shooting at He-Man, Hydron and Flipshot. This tedious waste of time goes on for a little while, before the Death Stars reappear in the sky and announce that they have arranged for the Galactic Guardians and the Mutants to battle each other as part of the Games, a gladiatorial contest which will be held shortly on the Death Stars’ home world.

Skeletor and Flogg readily accept. He-Man officially registers his disapproval at the notion of blood sports, and unofficially starts drooling at the prospect of smashing Skeletor’s skull to smithereens. Once both sides have agreed to participate, they are allowed to depart for Primus and Moon Nordor, to await further instructions on when and where the Games will take place.

Skeletor: “Just chilling and enjoying the show.”

 

In today’s adventure…

I’m on the edge of my seat here. Will it be drugs again? No, it’s not. We’re back in the realms of the relatively sane. Flipshot borrows Hydron’s basketball without asking, and accidentally throws it into the incinerator. Hydron sounds like he couldn’t care less, as he monotonously recites that we must respect other people’s property. I sometimes get the impression that Hydron’s voice actor is only involved in this series as some kind of bizarre public humiliation imposed on him for an act of petty criminality.

 

Character checklist

Roll up, roll up, it’s Prince Adam, He-Man, Master Sebrien, Hydron, Flipshot, Spinwit, Sagittar, Artilla, Vizar, Caz, Beamo, Skeletor, Flogg, Slush Head, that green Mutant whose name I’ve never learned and probably now never will. There’s also the Death Stars, who possibly count as characters in their own right.

Artilla: “Still a bit nervous in case that Great One dude pops up again.

 

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

When the alarm sounds, Adam is hanging out with Caz and Beamo, and naturally enough he doesn’t want them to see him transform. He neatly solves this conundrum by saying, “Caz, you stay with Beamo.” Nobody says, “Yeah, and why don’t you stay with us too, you idiot?”

 

Insults

The only insult uttered in the episode is He-Man calling Skeletor “bonehead”, which is fairly standard. I’d like to add a comment that is not really an insult, more of an observation: the new Galactic Guardian Vizar has a fucking terrifying voice. He sounds like an evil mastermind working undercover. If I were He-Man, I wouldn’t trust him.

Vizar: “Glad to join the team. Sorry I’m a bit late in the series.”

 

Does it have the Power?

I’m happy to report that we have here another winner. Despite a tad too long spent on the various battle scenes, which do begin to plod, the episode rattles along pretty entertainingly. It’s all setup, of course, for when the Games actually do take place, which a sneak peek at the rest of the episode titles tells me will be in three weeks’ time.

Being honest, I don’t imagine this week’s instalment is strictly necessary, since nothing of note happens except to establish how powerful the Death Stars are and that they want our heroes and villains to participate in some games – which, as we’ll recall, was achieved easily enough within the first three minutes of Filmation episodes like The Arena and, uh, The Games. But since it’s fun, that’s easy to forgive. The one quibble is of course all the stupid trolling about in outer space without spacesuits. Christ, that gets my goat every time.

Episode 59 – There’s Gems in Them Hills

In which He-Man and Flipshot play fancy dress.

He-Man and the Galactic Guardians begin proceedings this week by capturing some green aliens identified as intergalactic renegades, and handing them over to Meliak, the Sheriff of Gorn City. Meliak locks the aliens up, but it doesn’t take long for Skeletor and the Mutants to show up and bust them out. Skeletor then informs the aliens that there are vast deposits of gemstones on Primus, in the hope that the aliens will attack Primus to get their hands on these non-existent gems.

He-Man: “Now, Meliak, can I trust you to keep these baddies locked up? Can I buggery.”

Alerted to the jailbreak, He-Man takes Flipshot, Artilla and Beamo to Denebria to try to recapture the aliens. Unfortunately, once they arrive, they find that Skeletor has stirred up the entire city with tales of the thousands of rhondial gems on Primus, with the result that all the townspeople are ready to fly to Primus to try to get a cut.

He-Man and Flipshot infiltrate the crowd wearing some rubbish disguises. He-Man in particular reminded me of Tom Cruise in Top Gun. On the other hand, it’s been 19 years since I last saw Top Gun, so it’s possible my memory is playing tricks on me. Anyway, they are swiftly unmasked and are forced to run away back to their ships, without having achieved a dicky bird.

Flipshot: “He-Man, we’re supposed to be incognito. Skeletor’s going to notice if you keep making the ‘wanker’ sign at him.”

In the meantime, Artilla is ambushed by bounty hunters, who inform him that his presence is required by a mysterious Great One. He is incapacitated and bundled into a ship which will take him home, but luckily – and probably rather embarrassingly – he is saved by Beamo, who manages to steal a gun and come rolling to the rescue. There’s every chance that this storyline is simply killing time, but the reference to the Great One is sufficiently interesting that I thought I’d better mention it in case it becomes relevant in a later episode.

Once Artilla and Beamo have finished escaping, they come barrelling along to save He-Man and Flipshot, who have been cornered at the space port. Beamo saves the day again, informing the alien renegades that the rhondial gems are actually on Moon Nordor, which comfortably diverts the aliens away from Primus. As a reward for his bravery and cunning, He-Man enlists Beamo into the ranks of the Galactic Guardians, and they finish the episode by standing around bellowing like halfwits.

Flipshot: “Don’t worry, He-Man, we won’t tell anyone if you flatten Beamo.”

In today’s adventure…

Jesus, it’s like being in a time warp here. He-Man and Flipshot – yet again – are blathering on about drugs. This time, we even get a crash course in how to identify dope dealers, and surprisingly, they do not necessarily look like short green aliens dressed in evil-looking cloaks. Why in the seven hells are we getting so many rabid drugs warnings? Was there genuinely a drugs epidemic sweeping the USA’s five year olds in 1991? I have my doubts.

Character checklist

Today’s outing features Prince Adam, He-Man, Master Sebrien, Hydron, Flipshot, Artilla, Beamo, Meliak, Skeletor, Flogg, Critta, Slush Head, BH, Quake, Stackhorn, Optik, the big green aliens, and the bounty hunters.

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Adam makes his transformation in the presence of Master Sebrien, which – as usual – means he doesn’t have to concern himself with an excuse.

Prince Adam: “Tell me, Master Sebrien, did anyone ever ask who I am and what I’m doing here?”

Insults

The boss of the big green aliens refers to Flipshot as He-Man’s “puny friend”, but don’t worry – he later gets his comeuppance when Beamo tells him that he is “dumb” and a “dunce”. Flogg is also kind enough to inform all the renegades that they are “good-for-nothing”.

Does it have the Power?

It’s so weird how this series can veer from downright appalling to hugely entertaining in the space of two episodes, especially when both episodes are written by the same guy. After last time’s complete washout, we move on here to a really enjoyable action adventure, which sparkles with some great dialogue. The story moves along at a fair old clip, everyone gets something to do, and we’re subtly introduced to a potentially interesting back story for Artilla. He-Man isn’t annoying and doesn’t save the day with a deus ex machina – in fact, he doesn’t save the day at all. Beamo has the potential to be very irritating, but he isn’t in the slightest, which is a testament to the writing and the voice acting. And everyone’s favourite villain, Skeletor, is back on form with some extremely cutting sarcasm. What’s not to like?