Episode 23 – The Sweet Smell of Victory

In which Skeletor uses skunk.

We open to the familiar sight of He-Man and his cronies defeating a selection of Skeletor’s finest in battle. This in itself is not particularly noteworthy, but on this occasion the action has also been observed by a small furry creature named Odiphus, who expresses a desire to join Team Skeletor. I have no idea why. On the strength of the performance he’s just witnessed, Odiphus would be completely mental if he’d said to himself, “Yes! Those are the guys I want to hang out with!”

Odiphus: “I actually aspire to being beaten up every single week.”

Notwithstanding the fact that he’d have a better chance of taking over Eternia if he joined the Cub Scouts, Odiphus makes his way to Snake Mountain, where he sneaks into Tri-Klops’ lab. As luck would have it, Tri-Klops is currently working on a device to stop Beast-Man smelling so unpleasant. This is presumably because Skeletor’s got fed up with seeing Ralph Lauren cologne on Beast-Man’s Christmas list every year and is searching for a more permanent solution.

While Tri-Klops is out of the room, Odiphus starts messing about with the device and manages to transform himself into a giant skunk surrounded by a foul-smelling cloud. Noting that he smells really dreadful, he immediately concludes that this is the sort of special ability that will get him an instant pass to being Skeletor’s right-hand man. He introduces himself and this concept to Skeletor, but is sorely disappointed: Skeletor tells him to piss off, and I can’t say I blame him.

Odiphus: “As a first job interview, I suppose it could have been worse.”

Odiphus wanders off sadly, taking his cloud of evil-smelling steam with him. As he passes a herd of rhino-like animals, his scent panics them and causes them to stampede towards the Palace. The Masters manage to calm the animals down, but the incident is observed by Skeletor and Tri-Klops, who re-evaluate Odiphus’ potential usefulness. Once the Evil Warriors have all put gas masks on, Skeletor invites Odiphus to lead an assault on the Palace.

Well, as ever, it’s a valiant try. Odiphus manages to draw He-Man and Man-at-Arms out of the Palace as a diversionary tactic, while Skeletor and various other clowns attack once He-Man is gone. Roboto – who is going through a tedious subplot concerning him thinking he’s no good at his job – comes up with the means to defeat Odiphus, a plan which essentially boils down to throwing him in a river and hoping he runs away, which he does. Even so, Skeletor is surprisingly pleased with this outcome, and offers Odiphus a permanent position on his staff, under the new name of Stinkor.

Skeletor: “Sometimes I impress even myself with my subtle wit.”

In today’s adventure…

“Dwelling on a defeat can turn you into your own worst enemy,” says Man-at-Arms, and he should know, given how many defeats he’s suffered in his time. This advice, which he offers to Roboto, seems to boil down to “just blunder through life without thinking about it, it’ll be fine”. Which is, admittedly, what I do, but not because Man-at-Arms told me to, okay?

Character checklist

This week, keep your eyes open for Prince Adam, Cringer, He-Man, Battle-Cat, Man-at-Arms, Roboto, Ram-Man, Stratos, Buzz-Off, Skeletor, Stinkor, Tri-Klops, Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn and Mer-Man. There are also very brief appearances for Teela, Mechaneck, Clawful, Whiplash and Trapjaw.

Man-at-Arms: “God, I look good, don’t I?”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

I really did think we’d be seeing some good excuses in this series, but yet again, there’s nothing to report here.

Insults

Odiphus refers to He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms and Roboto as “creeps”, and Trapjaw says that Odiphus is the “most offensive thing” he’s ever smelt. I do wish Skeletor would call someone a fool soon; it’s not quite the same without that.

Does it have the Power?

This episode has an inherent goofiness about it, and it feels like its tongue is planted firmly in its cheek. This is a very good thing: the series has been taking itself pretty seriously for the most part, so it’s great to see an episode that isn’t afraid to laugh at itself. I don’t think I’d ever call it a favourite or a series highlight, but it is a lot of fun and worth a watch. Shame they never actually made that Stinkor action figure that the episode is advertising, though.

Episode 22 – The Island

In which Clawful becomes a telephone operator.

Two fishermen are sat on a rock on Orkish Island, chatting about their youth. One of them – called Decker – claims to have been the head of the Palace guard once upon a time, and that King Randor and Duncan (aka Man-at-Arms) were his favourite students. The other fisherman casually asks whether Duncan ever amounted to much; sadly, Decker does not reply that Duncan is now a massive incompetent with a talent for getting eaten by fish. Instead, he tries to make out that Duncan is actually really successful, and that he’ll soon be visiting the island.

This deluded conversation is overheard by a pair of giant lobster men, who incidentally happen to be Clawful’s relatives. The episode doesn’t bother to give them names, so we’ll call them Boreful and Snoreful. They pass word to Clawful, who informs Skeletor that Man-at-Arms will soon be on Orkish Island. Skeletor is more interested in this information than I would really expect him to be, and starts making demented plans to capture Man-at-Arms and learn all about his inventions.

Boreful: “I’m excessively interested in the holiday plans of Eternia’s foremost loonies.”

Boreful and Snoreful are put in charge of capturing Man-at-Arms, and they start by kidnapping Decker and hiding him in a cave. When Man-at-Arms arrives, with Prince Adam and Teela in tow, he instantly concludes there’s something wrong because Decker isn’t hanging around on the beach to greet him. Seriously, if someone’s coming round to your house, do you stand outside all day until they arrive? No. Perhaps, Man-at-Arms, nothing is wrong but Decker is just waiting for you inside his house like a normal person.

Irritatingly, of course, Man-at-Arms is correct on this occasion, and he quickly deduces that Decker must be in the cave. Once he, Teela and Adam enter, they are quickly ambushed by Boreful and Snoreful, as well as numerous other lobster men who are going to have to be called Drawerful, Floorful, Storeful and – we probably shouldn’t go here, but what the hell – Whoreful, for those weirdos among my audience whose sexual tastes extend to lobsters.

Right, more plot summary, and fewer cheap jokes. Not that these can even be defined as jokes, really, it’s just idiotic rhymes. Whatever they are, less of them. Let’s get on with it. Fortuitously and entirely unexpectedly, Prince Adam manages to evade the ambush, but Man-at-Arms and Teela are captured, and tied up with Decker. Teela claims that their capture is all her fault, which is completely untrue, but Man-at-Arms seizes the opportunity to shift the blame away from himself and agrees with her. He’s such a twat sometimes, it’s utterly unbelievable.

Man-at-Arms: “I only managed to rise this high in the Palace hierarchy by knowing when to blame my underlings.”

Due to Boreful or Snoreful or one of the various other Awfuls being a certifiable moron, Man-at-Arms, Teela and Decker manage to free themselves, and are good enough to fill in a hefty percentage of the episode’s runtime beating up lobster men. In the meantime, Adam turns into He-Man and soon joins the others to further pummel the lobsters into oblivion. Quite a long time after this gets dull, the writer sees fit to introduce some giant jellyfish to cause further havoc, but they are sadly no more interesting than the lobsters were.

He-Man defeats the jellyfish, but not before one of them stings Man-at-Arms. It would be Man-at-Arms, wouldn’t it? Who else is enough of an idiot to get himself stung? Naturally, the sting is really venomous and toxic, yadda yadda yadda, and so everyone’s really concerned about Man-at-Arms. Everyone except me, obviously.

Teela: “Oh, no, Man-at-Arms might die, what a shame.”

Teela reveals that the only cure for the jellyfish sting is a certain pod from a certain tree, so He-Man swims off to find one. While he’s doing so, the episode tries some cheap emotional manipulation to make us feel sad that Man-at-Arms is going to die, but it’s so blatant that all it succeeds in doing is making us feel faintly irritated, and a little bit hopeful that maybe Man-at-Arms isn’t going to make it. But he does, obviously and annoyingly.

In today’s adventure…

Hmm, what lesson did we learn today? I really don’t know. I suppose Man-at-Arms taught us that if you’re in a position of authority, you can blame your subordinates with impunity. I have a feeling he already taught us this once, back in Filmation’s Battlecat, but obviously it’s been a while since that episode, so it’s good to see the message repeated here.

Character checklist

Well, it’s lovely to meet Decker, of course, and we’re also lucky enough to see Prince Adam, He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Decker’s fisherman friend, Skeletor, Clawful, Evil-Lyn, Panthor, Tri-Klops, and of course Clawful’s various relatives.

He-Man: “Decker, get out of the foreground.”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Teela comments on Adam’s absence, but no one makes any efforts to explain it.

Insults

He-Man calls the lobsters “crabs”, which I’m not even sure was supposed to be an insult. Otherwise, I got nothing.

Does it have the Power?

It doesn’t even pretend to have the Power. It’s just a load of rubbish. In complete fairness, I’ll grant that the first half was borderline okay – though certainly nothing special – but as soon as the ambush is sprung, we’re bombarded with what seems like hours of pointless and dull fighting scenes. It seems particularly odd to have an episode all about Clawful’s people without giving Clawful anything to do except receive messages from them, which he dutifully relays to Skeletor, in a subplot that seems unnecessary, to say the least. I didn’t care about Man-at-Arms’ relationship with Decker, and I certainly didn’t care about the tacked-on gibberish at the end about the jellyfish sting. Basically, I’m not a fan of this one.

Episode 21 – Snake Pit

In which all the slithering starts.

We begin this week with a jailbreak: a gentleman called Kobra Khan manages to bust out of the Palace prison with astonishingly little effort. This sparks an international manhunt, but to absolutely nobody’s surprise, Kobra Khan evades all attempts to recapture him, and makes his way to Snake Mountain, where he stands around shrieking about awakening the ancient masters of Eternia. Unaware that Kobra Khan has this intention, Skeletor recruits him into his growing collection of misfits.

Kobra Khan: “I come in peaccccccccccce.”

Back at the Palace, Man-at-Arms fills Prince Adam, Orko and Teela in on the back story. In long ages past, the Snake Men – ruled by a loon called King Hiss – almost conquered all of Eternia, from their headquarters in Snake Mountain. They were only defeated by the combined power of the Elders and everyone’s favourite “rider of the cosmic spacewaves” Zodac, a character I have to say I had forgotten about entirely. King Hiss and the other Snake Men were imprisoned within the Void, a mystical prison deep within Snake Mountain.

Man-at-Arms correctly suspects that Kobra Khan is seeking to free the other Snake Men, so he takes Adam and Teela on a pleasure cruise up to the Mystic Mountains to meet Zodac. Once Zodac hears of the threat, he decides to deal with it by himself, and zooms off in his mental flying chair. For once, Adam is on the same page as me: he clearly thinks Zodac is nuts.

Zodac: “Can’t remember if I’m meant to spell my name with a c or a k. Sorry.”

Zodac barrels his way into Snake Mountain and demands that Skeletor surrender Kobra Khan. I was kind of expecting Skeletor to say, “Yeah, man, chill, take him, it’s cool,” or words to that effect, but for whatever reason Skeletor chooses to fight, and naturally loses. Zodac struts deeper into Snake Mountain, eventually finding Kobra Khan just as he opens the Void and releases the Snake Men.

First out of the Void is General Rattlor, who is more than a match for Zodac. Further Snake Men begin to climb out of the pit, so it’s fortunate that Man-at-Arms, Teela and He-Man arrive at this juncture. He-Man indulges himself in a brief flirtation with incompetence by falling into the Void himself, but eventually he and Zodac manage to reseal the Snake Men in their prison. The only exceptions are Kobra Khan and Rattlor, who run off after shrieking the usual you’ll-regret-this-next-time-we-meet sort of rubbish.

Rattlor: “Am I really this large, or is it just an unflattering camera angle?”

In today’s adventure…

Zodac regrets his rashness in attempting to defeat the Snake Men alone, giving He-Man the perfect opening to address the camera directly to say, “Even the strongest of us need help from time to time.” While it’s nice for these moral lessons to be relatively sane, I’m sure I can’t be the only one who’s a bit nostalgic for the days when He-Man would go off on a mental tangent and start bellowing about drugs or crossing the road safely or something.

Character checklist

For what I feel is a pretty important episode, there’s not a huge cast list. We’ve got Prince Adam, He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Zodac, Skeletor, Kobra Khan, Rattlor, Beast-Man, Tri-Klops, Mer-Man, Two Bad, Evil-Lyn and King Hiss.

Kobra Khan: “Hey Skeletor, someone forgot to colour Beast-Man in.”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

He-Man announces that “the Sorceress contacted me”, explaining why he has shown up. This doesn’t explain where Adam has gone, but no one seems too concerned about that.

Insults

Bizarrely enough, no one says anything unkind today.

Does it have the Power?

After several lacklustre efforts, this one’s far more like it. It gives us a real sense of the scope of Eternia, showing us that it’s a place with an interesting and dangerous history. Kobra Khan – despite having a slightly annoying voice – is an exciting character, joining Skeletor’s team for his own personal motives and ditching Skeletor the moment it becomes convenient. The threat of King Hiss rising again seems very real; even though it’s been thwarted this time, it feels as though this was a set-up for later events. It also must be said that even though we meet a fair number of new characters for the first time today (Zodac, Kobra Khan, Rattlor and King Hiss), the episode never comes across as an action figure advert; the characters are just there organically as part of the story. It’s a fine example of successful product placement. All in all, it’s an exciting and engrossing episode, which I have no doubt will prove important further down the line. Recommended.

Episode 20 – Buzz-Off’s Pride

In which Buzz-Off takes on three boring giants.

Buzz-Off and Orko are off to the village of Veridas this week, to gather some honeyberries for Buzz-Off’s queen bee. En route, they run into a big purple giant called Azgol who is occupying himself being unnecessarily and motivelessly unpleasant to merchants on a bridge. Needless to say, they are entirely incapable of defeating Azgol, especially when two of Azgol’s mates show up. Muttering vague and distinctly unintimidating threats, Buzz-Off returns to the Palace in a temper, warning Orko not to tell anyone about his defeat.

Azgol: “My favourite film has to be Honey I Shrunk the Buzz-Off.”

Azgol and his friends then decide to destroy the bridge entirely, which will presumably in some unspecified way further their no doubt intelligent plan. News of this swiftly reaches Man-at-Arms at the Palace, who decrees that the bridge must be rebuilt. Buzz-Off – keen to get his revenge – eagerly volunteers to help, and sets off with Prince Adam, Man-at-Arms and Ram-Man.

By the time they arrive at Veridas, the giants have upped their game and are now busy trying to knock down the village gates. Man-at-Arms suggests caution, but Buzz-Off is too impatient and leaps straight into the fray, getting so fixated on teaching Azgol a lesson that he isn’t there to help when Man-at-Arms and Ram-Man need him.

Buzz-Off: “Guys, you know you’re aiming the Wind Raider at the ground, right?”

Naturally, it doesn’t particularly matter that Buzz-Off’s not about, because He-Man is, and we all know that He-Man is vastly more efficient than Buzz-Off anyway. Even so, the other two giants manage to achieve their goal, which is to nick a glowing crystal which has the power to make fruit grow quickly or something. Given last week’s events, the thought occurs that the giants could just keep the crystal and our heroes could ask Moss-Man to grow the fruit instead.

Ram-Man seems to think that if Buzz-Off had been present, the giants wouldn’t have been able to nick the crystal. I don’t know who he thinks he’s kidding, since all Buzz-Off has done this week is prove he’s incapable of taking on even one giant, let alone three at the same time. Anyway, Ram-Man and Man-at-Arms blame the stolen crystal and devastated village entirely on Buzz-Off, who is dense enough to accept responsibility.

The final stage of this mess of an episode sees Buzz-Off flying off to get the crystal back all by himself, a task which suddenly and inexplicably he’s capable of. He takes the crystal back to Veridas, replaces it on its plinth, and doesn’t put anything in place to prevent the giants simply nicking it again when everyone’s gone back to the Palace. Still, since this scene brings the episode to a conclusion, I was willing to count it a victory.

Buzz-Off: “There we go, that’s that sorted.”

In today’s adventure…

Oh, some rubbish about not allowing your pride to get in the way of doing a good job, or something like that. There’s also some stupid bollocks spouted about fighting for justice and love, not revenge. No one really cares.

Character checklist

Today the star of the show is, of course, Buzz-Off, but there are also appearances from Prince Adam, Cringer, He-Man, Orko, Man-at-Arms, Ram-Man, someone called Queen Bee, Azgol, and there’s also the red giant and the green giant. They might have been given names, but I wasn’t exactly enthralled by this instalment, and may have dozed off at the relevant moment.

Azgol: “Lads, who are you again?”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

Adam doesn’t need to come up with an excuse today; Man-at-Arms does it for him, instructing him to fly off to find He-Man. And believe it or not, Adam finds He-Man with no trouble at all.

Insults

The green giant refers to Azgol as “dumb”, the red giant addresses Man-at-Arms as “little man”, and Buzz-Off calls the three giants “creeps”, but the meat and potatoes of today’s insults come from Azgol in Buzz-Off’s direction. In relatively quick succession, he calls him “bug-boy”, “insect” twice, “buzz-boy”, “bug”, “coward” and “fly-boy”. No wonder Buzz-Off’s got low self-esteem.

The Curse of the Tree Fellers

In the initial confrontation with the giant, Buzz-Off receives a vicious backhand that sends him flying with such force that he knocks down two trees. This is, admittedly, not Buzz-Off’s fault, but I don’t like Buzz-Off, so I’m going to count it against him. Azgol himself knocks down a tree as well, in a later similarly disinteresting scene.

Buzz-Off: “This doesn’t seem fair somehow.”

Does it have the Power?

No. Just no. It’s dull and plodding, with hugely irritating voice acting from Azgol and the other giants. Buzz-Off’s plotline is predictable and pointless, and the writer can’t even be bothered to resolve it properly, leaving me to conclude that the giants will just nick the crystal again next week. The middle of the episode consists of endless boring scenes of Buzz-Off fighting Azgol while Man-at-Arms, Ram-Man and He-Man take on the other two giants, and somehow everyone comes across as a complete moron – or, in Man-at-Arms’ case, more of a moron than usual.

The one mildly interesting thing about it is that I think it’s the only time the plotline gets resolved without He-Man doing a dicky bird. Seriously, he doesn’t contribute anything – he’s just there. It’s Buzz-Off who defeats the villains, though God knows how he’s suddenly able to do so. So I suppose that’s worth noting, but it doesn’t make the episode worth watching.

Episode 19 – Orko’s Garden

In which Orko tries and fails to be useful.

Oh yes, Orko. I’d almost forgotten he existed, given how much interest this series has shown in him up to this point. He’s on one of his regular Christ-I’m-useless kicks again this week, but to his credit, instead of sitting around moping or running away, he’s tried to get himself a job. To shut him up, Man-at-Arms appoints him Palace Gardener and sends him off to mow the lawn.

It turns out this appointment is way behind time. The Palace Garden is an absolute state. There can’t have been a gardener for about 25 years. It’s not even overgrown; it’s just dead and rotten. I find it hard to believe that Randor and Marlena have so little pride in their kingdom that they’d let the ornamental gardens in their own Palace get into this condition.

Orko: “This garden is a bit … grotty! Get it? Oh please yourselves then.”

Orko’s initial attempts to remedy the situation fail, so on Ram-Man’s advice, he heads to the Evergreen Forest to consult Moss-Man, who is famous for being able to make any garden grow. Unfortunately, Orko doesn’t know what Moss-Man looks like, which makes it easy for an evil Moss-Man impersonator to deceive him and give him a bag of special seeds to plant.

Well, we’ve all been watching He-Man long enough to know that this is really bad news. Sure enough, the special seeds grow into massive vines which incapacitate everybody in the Palace except for Orko, who doesn’t know what to do about it. Luckily for him, the real Moss-Man shows up with an inexplicably Deep South accent, and explains that the guy Orko met was Evilseed. Orko utters his traditional cry of, “It’s all my fault!” and very pleasingly, Moss-Man essentially agrees.

Moss-Man: “I may be a goody, but I’m not above attacking Orko.”

In the meantime, Evilseed has used his vines to drag a selection of our heroes into his underground lair. It seems the writer was a bit sketchy on Evilseed’s motives, since when asked what he’s up to, he simply bellows, “Revenge!” and then produces a surprising parade of dinosaurs made out of plants, which rampage around unnecessarily until the episode fades for the commercial break.

Thanks to Orko being a complete moron, Evilseed soon learns of the great powers hidden within Castle Grayskull, so decides to take the action there for a while. This is only delaying the inevitable, of course: Moss-Man is pretty good at fighting Evilseed anyway, and once He-Man finally gets around to showing up, the whole thing’s essentially over before it begins. After Evilseed is defeated, we end with a touching scene in which Orko decides to quit as the gardener before Man-at-Arms fires him.

He-Man: “Right, Orko, I’ve got your P45 waiting for you.”

In today’s adventure…

The final scene sees several characters standing around spouting inane platitudes which are presumably supposed to be the moral, though none of them bear any resemblance to the story we’ve just sat through. Moss-Man kicks off with “Don’t go looking for shortcuts – tending a garden requires patience.” This would have more impact if he hadn’t just fixed a plant with instantaneous magic.

He-Man then chimes in with the comment that “It’s a sign of maturity to know your strengths and limitations”, though no one asked him to contribute anything. Man-at-Arms, seeing that everyone else is dispensing advice, decides to get in on the act with the utterly irrelevant and borderline nonsensical comment that “If you do your best, no job is too small”. If you ask me, Man-at-Arms has finally completely lost his mind.

Character checklist

This less than exciting episode involves Prince Adam, Cringer, He-Man, Battle-Cat, Orko, Moss-Man, Man-at-Arms, Ram-Man, the Sorceress, King Randor, Queen Marlena, Mechaneck, Buzz-Off, and of course Evilseed, though I wish it hadn’t.

Evilseed: “Evil by name, evil by … nature! God, I’m hilarious.”

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance

I’m pretty sure that Adam makes his transformation right in front of King Randor, Queen Marlena and Buzz-Off today. Accordingly, he doesn’t bother to give an excuse.

Insults

This little adventure was ticking along beautifully politely until about a minute before the end, when Evilseed tells Moss-Man that he is “miserable” and “moss-covered”.

The Curse of the Tree Fellers

There’s a lot of vegetation being chopped back in this episode by the goodies, but since it’s all evil vegetation, we won’t be awarding any points.

King Randor: “It’s nice to appear in the series again, eh, dear?”

Does it have the Power?

I don’t like to be that guy who sits in the corner muttering that things aren’t as good as they used to be, but really, there’s no one on the planet who would choose to watch this over Filmation’s Evilseed. Whereas that episode covered the same initial bases with the out-of-control vines imprisoning our heroes and also found time to give Skeletor one of his best outings ever, the MYP remake simply degenerates into a low-budget version of BBC Gardeners’ Question Time, featuring about 10 minutes of He-Man and Moss-Man chopping up plants, which is even less thrilling than I’ve made it sound here with my rave write-up. By the end, the episode seems to have become nothing more than an advert for the Moss-Man action figure – and since there was no Moss-Man action figure in the 2002 line (yes, yes, other than the limited edition SDCC or whatever one), this makes the whole thing even more frustrating. I’d give this one a miss, if I were you.