Episode 16 – Divided We Stand

In which everybody does a bunch of inconsequential stuff.

Duncan kicks off proceedings today by informing Prince Adam, Cringer and Teela that, last week, he was stupid enough to inform Skeletor that Castle Grayskull is now in Avion. Thanks to skirting round the truth, he gets off relatively lightly, and attention moves onto the Sigil piece that Adam and Teela recovered from Gary, which zooms out of the Wind Raider and tries to magnetically attach itself to the first Sigil piece. This is the cue for a whole bundle of wacky hi-jinks as the team attempt to keep the two pieces apart, which we don’t really need to dwell on.

Now that he knows where Grayskull is, Skeletor has emerged from Eternos to attack – and in his absence, Teela gets in touch with Orko and Man-e-Faces to ask them to steal the remaining Sigil piece. This is the perfect moment for them to inform Teela that King Randor has been captured, which prompts Teela and He-Man to get into a screaming match with each other. This in turn leads Man-at-Arms to yell at them both and make me want to punch his stupid face.

Cringer: “Don’t worry, guys, I’ll eat him in a mo.”

Orko and Man-e-Faces venture out into the city, where they rather easily reprogram all the security bots to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience against Skeletor’s regime. That’s all well and good, but although Eternos seems to be on the brink of recovery, things don’t look nearly so dandy in Avion, where Skeletor has just arrived with a large army. He-Man reassuringly remarks that he’s got a plan and that he will save Avion, Eternos and all of Eternia, but he doesn’t see fit to explain said plan before the episode comes to an end.

In the meantime, Krass has re-entered the series: she’s returned to the tiger tribe village, where she’s had a quick flashback and grabbed a Polaroid of her parents before zooming off on her bike to the Mystic Mountains. As she explains to Stratos, who tags along for the journey, she’s hoping to learn more about the rock in her helmet, which originally came from a cave in said mountains.

Krass: “Yeah, not really that happy about this team-up.”

On arrival, sadly, they instantly get embroiled in a fight with another old favourite from the Masters of the Universe archives – Webstor, who doesn’t have the power of speech. This is perhaps an advantage for those of us who remember his Filmation nasal whine all too well. Anyway, Stratos occupies a fair chunk of the episode’s runtime tussling with Webstor, while Krass heads off to find the cave. Once she does, she discovers that the gem came from a load of glowing green material, which in this series tends to indicate Havoc. Uh oh.

In today’s adventure…

It’s Orko and Man-e-Faces leading the moral lessons today, with an extended and not enormously subtle conversation about the importance of just being yourself. This might have been actually really insightful for all I know; unfortunately, I got bored and tuned out.

Orko: “Don’t blame you. I wouldn’t listen to me either.”

Character checklist

Our dramatis personae today includes Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Teela, Duncan, Krass, Orko, Stratos, Man-e-Faces, Webstor, Tuvar and Badra. Skeletor, Beast-Man and Trapjaw limit themselves to non-speaking cameos in the episode’s final moments.

Insults

Man-e-Faces addresses Orko as his “tiny understudy”, which is clearly not meant insultingly, and I wouldn’t even have mentioned it if it didn’t otherwise mean that the insults section would be empty, and that would never do.

Does it have the Power?

It’s a competent instalment which feels action- and story-packed, although on reflection it actually does little more than spin the wheels while gearing up for what I assume will be a big showdown next week. He-Man, Teela, Duncan and Cringer don’t achieve anything of note this week, and Orko and Man-e-Faces’ success in turning the Eternos bots against Team Skeletor doesn’t take up much time either. The meat of the episode, such as there is, comes from Krass and Stratos’ trip to the Mystic Mountains, and even with this storyline, any major revelations are kept back for later: we can assume that Krass has discovered her powers stem from Havoc, but we don’t know for sure, while Stratos seems to be trying to recruit Webstor, presumably to join him and Mosquitra with whatever they’re trying to do – but again, we don’t see how that pans out. Ultimately, I’d call this an enjoyable episode, but one that is probably inessential to the storyline, and not one that anyone would describe as a series highlight.

Episode 15 – Meanwhile…

In which Skeletor skelebrates his birthday.

We open in Eternos City, where it’s Skeletor’s birthday. To celebrate, he’s forced all the inhabitants to queue up and give him presents, while singing an insane little ditty. I don’t know how it’s done, but in each and every incarnation of Masters of the Universe, the writers always manage to make Skeletor a delightfully crazy character. As I think we all know by now, he’s the star of the show as far as I’m concerned – never mind He-Man. Anyway, Trapjaw’s gift to Skeletor is a turbo-charged motorbike called Pain-thor, while Beast-Man offers up a magic rock. Skeletor seems unimpressed with the latter, but humours Beast-Man by rubbing the rock – and immediately vanishes.

Trapjaw: “A rock, Beast-Man? That’s really the best you could do?”

Trapjaw and Beast-Man react to Skeletor’s disappearance by getting in a fight over who’s the boss now, rather than doing anything in any way useful. They’re eventually distracted by King Randor, who – under the control of the Tri-Klops helmet thing – comes bounding in, quickly getting himself captured. Luckily, since Randor is significantly more intelligent than either Trapjaw or Beast-Man, he quickly manages to take charge – and comes very close to reacquiring his throne.

Skeletor, meanwhile, reappears inside Castle Grayskull, where Duncan has just said farewell to Adam – who’s off on his stupid Gary adventure – and is now messing about trying to recover Eldress. Duncan’s experiments haven’t worked: instead, he’s somehow beamed Castle Grayskull into what he describes as cosmic limbo. This wouldn’t be great at the best of times, but since he’s now stuck in said limbo with Skeletor, he’s really not happy about it.

Duncan: “Just look at my stupid face. Look at it and hate it.”

Once Skeletor and Duncan have stopped trying to beat merry hell out of each other, they decide to work together to bring Grayskull out of the cosmic lockdown so they won’t be stuck together until the end of time. Duncan’s first question is to ask how Skeletor appeared in Grayskull, and it soon emerges that the magic rock is of Trollan origin. In accordance with the usual lack of sense governing anything to do with Trolla, users of the rock can only have one magic wish, so Skeletor lobs the rock outside Grayskull to stop Duncan using it to wish Skeletor out of existence.

Duncan engineers a bot of some sort to head outside and recover the rock, but in the meantime wastes time baking Skeletor a birthday cake. Skeletor reacts exactly the way you’d expect: by blasting the cake into smithereens and throwing a tantrum about how his birthday is turning out so rubbish. Duncan persists by throwing Skeletor a party, at which The Best Character In All Of Fiction Ever cheats at all the games and ends up having quite a pleasant time after all.

Skeletor: “Some call this sort of thing character assassination. I call it character development.”

Eventually, this slightly inexplicable turn of events comes to an end when the bot returns with the magic rock, at which point all bets are off and Duncan and Skeletor engage in a tussle to grab hold of it. In the end, Duncan persuades Skeletor that his only wish is to get them both out of the situation, and Skeletor agrees to let him try. As the episode ends, Castle Grayskull returns to reality, and Duncan welcomes Adam, Cringer and Teela back from their dragonfly nonsense. Skeletor, meanwhile, reappears in Eternos, locks King Randor up, and orders Beast-Man and Trapjaw to make ready for an attack on Grayskull to acquire the Sigil of Hiss.

In today’s adventure…

Today we learned that even if you are an evil overlord, you can still be polite and say thank you if someone bakes you a birthday cake.

Character checklist

It’s largely the Duncan and Skeletor Show, but there’s ample screen time for Beast-Man, Trapjaw, King Randor, Tuvar and Badra as well. We also see Prince Adam, Cringer and Teela, but only bookending the episode and reminding me of that stupid Gary business, so let’s not dwell on that.

Skeletor: “So, this Fifty Shades of Grey thing, is it really as good as people say?”

Insults

Naturally, all this week’s insults are issued by Skeletor, who refers to our heroes as a whole as “brats”, addresses Duncan personally as an “imbecile”, and describes the absent Krass as “helmet-girl”. In so doing, he’s looking at a tapestry depicting the goodies facing off against the baddies, and he muses on why Krass doesn’t have a nemesis, which is precisely what she was asking herself a few weeks ago. We’re clearly building up to something with this.

Does it have the Power?

Rather impressively, Duncan manages to not be hugely annoying in an episode that’s all about him; this is perhaps because he’s paired up with Skeletor, who puts in one of his most entertaining performances in a while. He’s the perfect combination of grand ambition and small-minded pettiness, alternating grandiose schemes for domination of Eternia with petulant whinging about having a miserable birthday. The storyline is nothing particularly special, but as a character study of Duncan and Skeletor, it’s a success, and a pretty amusing one at that. If nothing else, it’s infinitely better than last week’s nonsense, so I’m very happy with it.

Episode 14 – A Very Hungry Dragonfly

In which Teela and Evil-Lyn gang up on a dragonfly.

I kind of feel like I’ve missed something in between the end of last episode and this one: we open with Teela getting word to Prince Adam that Evil-Lyn is on the trail of the final Sigil piece, and it might be a good idea to get there first. Adam responds to say that Duncan is busy with a “thing” involving Eldress, while Krass has pissed off back to the jungle, but he and Cringer would be all too keen to help. It’s probably all just part of the setup, but it does feel a bit abrupt.

Prince Adam: “Why so blue, Teela?”

The episode does at least take the time to explain what Duncan is doing: he’s trying to use the proto-Havoc from the Sigil piece to recover Eldress. For anyone – specifically, me – who needed reminding why Eldress needs recovering, I’ve just re-read my review of The World Above and learned that Eldress disappeared shortly after she shifted Castle Grayskull to Avion. So that’s great – go on then, Duncan. We’re all watching.

Actually, we’re not all watching, because after he explains that this is what he’s up to, Duncan unceremoniously disappears from the episode. Adam and Cringer set off in the Wind Raider on their way to join Teela, who’s found Evil-Lyn hanging out at the bottom of a small hill. On the top of said small hill is a structure that looks exactly like a cock and balls. One can only assume the animators were about to get fired anyway.

Evil-Lyn: “No comment.”

Teela has a nice little chat with Evil-Lyn, who reveals that the Sigil piece was already gone when she arrived. The perpetrator makes itself known pretty swiftly – it’s a massive flying dragonfly, and it eats them both. Fortunately, Teela teleports them out, at which point the two of them discover that the dragonfly is capable of speech. In the course of the ensuing conversation, the dragonfly reveals that its name is Gary and that it enjoys singing stupid songs. Evil-Lyn wants to kill it, and I can’t say I blame her.

Teela is less keen on killing wildlife for no good reason, so she has a long chat with Gary. Gary explains that he was really hungry, but eating the Sigil piece filled him up, and as a result he’s not happy with Teela telling him that she’s going to teleport the Sigil piece out of his stomach. He eats Teela’s staff and then flies off, leaving Teela and Evil-Lyn to light a campfire and sit around it, while Evil-Lyn explains her personal motivations for those of us who were perhaps a little unsure. Essentially, she’s not interested in raising the Snake Men, but she does want the Sigil’s proto-Havoc so she can regain her own powers and – presumably – take on Skeletor.

Teela: “I kind of feel like we’ve done this before, in some other life?”

Finally, after quite a long time, Adam and Cringer arrive. They’re quite surprised to find Teela chewing the fat with Evil-Lyn, but they take it in their stride, and so it’s all aboard the Wind Raider to chase Gary down. Not unexpectedly, the moment they catch up with him, Evil-Lyn says “laters” and leaps out the door to claim the Sigil piece. What follows is a right load of flash-flash-bang-bang, which continues until eventually Gary vomits up Teela’s staff, followed some time later by the Sigil piece. He-Man grabs this latter, and Evil-Lyn decides that doing a runner is the best course of action.

In today’s adventure…

The subplot running through this episode concerns He-Man not telling Teela that Eldress has disappeared, because he knows it’ll be difficult for her to hear, given Eldress is allegedly the closest thing Teela has to family, though frankly that’s a detail I’d not really clocked before, and I’m not convinced it’s been particularly apparent until this episode when it’s suddenly needed. Anyway, the whole thing unravels at the end when Evil-Lyn reveals the truth (though how she knows it is left unexplained) and Teela gets cross. The life lesson that we’re all here for is, of course, that keeping secrets and not delivering bad news doesn’t solve any problems in the long run, and may in fact just make them worse.

He-Man: “I’ve bollocksed this one up, haven’t I?”

Character checklist

A very tight cast list this week: there’s just Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Battle-Cat, Teela, Evil-Lyn and Gary. There’s also a very short appearance for Duncan, which is just as well: I welcome any week when we don’t have to sit through Man-at-Arms’ grandiose fuck-ups.

Insults

Evil-Lyn leads the way this week, addressing Teela as a “hand-witch”, a “street urchin” and a straight-up “witch”. She also describes the absent Duncan as a “whelp”. Surprisingly, no one’s got a bad word for Gary; I, on the other hand, do, but it’s not suitable for publication.

Gary: “Y’wot, mate?”

Does it have the Power?

To put it charitably, this one wasn’t my favourite. On paper, it’s a reasonable effort to duplicate the success of The Witch and the Warrior, the fan-favourite Filmation episode in which Teela and Evil-Lyn teamed up to do something or other – I can’t remember what, but I’m sure it was very exciting. This episode, however, doesn’t really present any compelling reason for the two of them to team up, other than that they both happen to be present: there’s a vague effort to suggest that both of them are weaker than usual (Teela loses her staff, Evil-Lyn is, er, hungry) but it doesn’t feel terribly realistic, and frankly it would have been far more of a surprise if Evil-Lyn hadn’t pulled her inevitable betrayal. It’s not helped by the infuriating character that is Gary, about whom the less said the better, and the fact that the entire final third of the episode is composed of a pulsing magic light battle that’s enough to give you epilepsy. Let’s just forget this whole thing happened, accept that He-Man and gang have now acquired the final piece of the Sigil, and move on.

Episode 13 – Eternia 3000

In which He-Man and Skeletor go ballroom dancing.

Remember last week I mentioned Skeletor’s ominous comment to Krass about the jewel in her helmet? Well, clearly the writers were concerned we’d miss it, since this week opens with Krass having a quick flashback so we can hear that comment again. We also learn that Krass isn’t satisfied: she feels like a third wheel on the team, and resents not having a nemesis or a “special attack”. Personally, I’d say that being able to roll up into an enormous pinball and launch yourself at people is a special attack – I mean, it’s certainly not a normal way to attack people – but hey, let’s go with it for now.

Krass: “I’ve been wondering whether we should do something about the wallpaper in here.”

Meanwhile, Duncan has been doing some tests on the piece of the Sigil of Hiss, and learned that it’s packed with proto-Havoc, which is of course a nasty and uncontrollable type of energy. That’s by the by for now, though I suspect it’ll be important later: the relevant thing right now is that Duncan has been able to scan for other sources of proto-Havoc, which has led to the potential discovery of another piece of the Sigil. The catch – because there’s always a catch – is that the piece appears to be doing extremely fast laps around a 2,000 mile long circuit, which is something of a puzzle.

Heading to the circuit, Adam, Duncan, Krass and Stratos find a huge goods train whizzing round a futuristic railway. Quickly deciding they must stop the train – presumably by making an announcement that there are leaves on the line or that the train is awaiting a member of train crew or any of the other million excuses that the Transpennine Express and Avanti have in their back pockets – Adam and Stratos get into a slanging match over who’s going to actually do it.

Stratos: “Piss off, Adam. Can’t you see that stopping a train is clearly a job for a flying man in a gimp mask?”

Adam wins the argument, turns into He-Man, and leaps into the train’s path to try and stop it. It’s only at this point that Duncan sees fit to reveal that if the train slows down, it’ll explode. Fuck’s sake, Duncan – nice and timely, as ever. He-Man decides that he’d better board the train instead, and it’s at this point that Skeletor shows up, as well as a non-aligned newby on the scene called Mosquitra. Mosquitra is loosely based on the original action figure Mosquitor, who’s never appeared on screen before, so truly this is a momentous day.

Mosquitra, as leader of a group of bandits, is only interested in stealing the various goodies on the train, and she sets about draining the train’s power to bring it to a halt – presumably unaware that this will make it blow up. While Duncan takes on Beast-Man and Trapjaw, and He-Man and Skeletor enter the train, Krass indulges herself in a fight with Mosquitra, who implies that Krass’ power is made up of both golden and green energy – the gold being the Power of Grayskull, and the green being Havoc, I suspect. Clearly there’s more to Krass than we’ve been told thus far.

Mosquitra: “Hi guys – new character alert!”

Meanwhile, He-Man and Skeletor are merrily pummelling each other into oblivion, but are soon interrupted by an automated guard which detects that they’re being unpleasantly violent and triggers the carriage’s self-destruct. The two of them leap onto the next carriage just in time, where they realise that they’ll have to pretend to be friends to prevent the robot guard from blowing up this carriage too. Instead, He-Man enquires politely where the piece of the Sigil is, and the two of them are shown into a room containing said piece, as well as at least ten robot guards dancing to the illumination of a spinning disco ball. He-Man and Skeletor, not seeing much alternative, join in the dance. I am not making this up.

Skeletor: “Every time I think I’ve reached rock bottom…”

While He-Man and Skeletor waltz away, they make repeated attempts to grab the Sigil, but are prevented each time by the robot guards. Eventually, after a lengthy and demented dance sequence, Stratos enters the carriage and succeeds where both He-Man and Skeletor failed. Unfortunately, he’s almost immediately mugged for the Sigil by Trapjaw, and the baddies beat a hasty retreat as the entire train blows up.

Our heroes escape just in time too, and in a temper, He-Man tells Stratos to piss off because he’s completely useless. Bet Filmation He-Man would have liked to do that to Filmation Stratos. Stratos, demonstrating a complete lack of ability to read the room, decides that his best option now is to team up with Mosquitra, with the avowed intention of saving Eternia. Not sure how that’s going to go, Stratos, but let me know how it works out, yeah?

Duncan: “Yes! Someone even less useful than me!”

Meanwhile, down in the sewers, Teela has had word that Evil-Lyn – now exiled from Skeletor’s court – is going after the Sigil of Hiss for herself. Accordingly, Teela sets off to find Evil-Lyn, leaving Orko to guard Randor. This proves challenging, since Tri-Klops is on the prowl: in this series, Tri-Klops appears to be a flying spinning helmetty thing that can attach itself to people’s heads and thus control them. The episode ends with Tri-Klops flying towards Randor’s head, so we’d better all go for a big uh-oh.

In today’s adventure…

Skeletor only learns about the existence of the train today because he’s read King Randor’s diary. I’d say that’s a pretty solid life lesson for us all: don’t keep a diary, because if your undead brother ever nicks your house, he might also read your diary and find out where you keep your favourite toys.

Character checklist

All aboard, all aboard, it’s a jolly on the LNER for Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Krass, Duncan, Teela, Orko, King Randor, Stratos, Skeletor, Beast-Man, Trapjaw, Mosquitra and Tri-Klops. Mosquitra also has a pair of unnamed minions, who don’t do or say anything, so I don’t really know why I mentioned them.

Cringer: “Whose idea was it to let the giant tiger drive?”

Insults

There aren’t many insults today, but one of the ones we do get is a real belter: Skeletor refers to Randor as a “bearded buffoon”, which is so obvious and perfect that I can’t believe we’ve never heard it before. Elsewhere, we get Duncan calling Beast-Man and Trapjaw “goons”, and Orko describing Tri-Klops as a “wretched robot”.

Does it have the Power?

It’s rare these days that we get an episode that’s completely off its head, in the same vein as Here, There, Skeletors Everywhere or Flowers for Hordak. This one’s perhaps not quite as mental as those high points, but it’s definitely trying: the scene with He-Man and Skeletor joining in with the waltzing robots is as hilarious as it is entirely inexplicable. Just for that, the episode would get a pass, but happily the rest of it is good too: the quest for the Sigil continues to be absorbing, and it’s fun to see the team finally lose patience with Stratos being a pain in the arse. We get a few more hints at the mystery surrounding Krass, Mosquitra’s introduction is pretty entertaining, and Cringer gets several good jokes and moments of physical comedy. The Orko and Tri-Klops storyline was the only bit here that wasn’t particularly interesting, but it only took up about two minutes of the episode’s runtime, so it certainly didn’t ruin it. All things considered, this is yet another strong episode in what is shaping up to be a hugely entertaining series.

Episode 12 – The World Below

In which Stephen Fry puts King Randor in a cage.

Teela, Orko and King Randor are still on the run from Beast-Man, so Teela’s guided them down into the sewers where she used to live. Here they meet Man-e-Faces, who’s rather unexpectedly played by Stephen Fry. Teela is acquainted with Man-e-Faces, and gives King Randor the back story: he was once the entirety of the royal theatre troop, but his contract was terminated by Randor’s parents. On the strength of a little play that Man-e-Faces now puts on, it’s not hard to see why.

King Randor: “Take it up with the union, mate.”

Anyway, it may be years or even decades since these events, but unfortunately Man-e-Faces is still rather bitter about losing his job. In the intervening time, he’s set himself up as the King Below, acting as a leader to many people in the lower echelons of society who have been ignored by the rulers of Eternos, which is pretty good of him. What’s not so good is his announced intention to hand Randor over to Skeletor in exchange for supplies, on the basis that one king is just as bad as another.

And so it’s over to Teela to persuade Man-e-Faces that although Randor might be a bit of a dick, he’s nowhere near as bad as Skeletor. This doesn’t go well, so it’s perhaps fortuitous that Beast-Man and his bots arrive at this juncture and start tearing the place up. Working together, Teela, Man-e-Faces and Randor manage to see Beast-Man off, and having reached some level of understanding, they all go on the run together.

Beast-Man: “Gosh, I am a good-looking chappie, aren’t I?”

Meanwhile, Prince Adam, Cringer, Krass, Duncan and Stratos have arrived at Snake Mountain on the all-important mission to find the Sigil of Hiss. They’ve barely started the search, however, before Skeletor and Evil-Lyn appear as well, and that gives rise to an almighty kerfuffle. Despite a pretty high level of peril, our heroes emerge victorious, even managing to come away with a piece of the Sigil. Skeletor returns to Eternos to lick his wounds, where he takes his temper out on Evil-Lyn by breaking her staff and reducing her powers, then deciding to unleash something called Tri-Klops to track Randor down.

In today’s adventure…

Randor and Man-e-Faces have a nice little chat at the end about how kings ought to behave, and while most viewers probably aren’t kings, the message that we should always think about the consequences of our actions carries through regardless.

King Randor: “If you want to be a king, you’ve got to dress like a king. And kings don’t usually dress like a tin of tuna.”

Character checklist

As you’d perhaps expect, this week features Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Krass, Duncan, Stratos, Teela, Orko, King Randor, Man-e-Faces, Skeletor, Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn, Trapjaw, a couple of Avion guards, and a whole host of inhabitants of Man-e-Faces’ little kingdom.

Insults

Skeletor’s in a foul mood this week, firing off a whole load of zingers. These start with the standard “brats” directed at our heroes, to which he adds “urchins” for a bit of variety. He then spits “witch” at Evil-Lyn and refers to Stratos as his “featherless friend”. Finally, he addresses a portrait of King Grayskull as “my dear, dead King Grayskull”, which is arguably a statement of fact but is sufficiently venomous that I’d call it an insult.

Skeletor: “Admit it, you wouldn’t mind if I did do something unpleasant to this clown.”

Does it have the Power?

Another winner today. This episode balances its two plotlines nicely, giving us a solid introduction to Man-e-Faces and moving along the quest for the Sigil. Man-e-Faces’ establishment as defender of those neglected by the royals is an interesting perspective, though it’s perhaps less easy to care about his sob story of being fired as an actor. It’s not altogether surprising that he and Randor came to an understanding by the end of the episode, but I think he’ll make a decent addition to the team.

The Sigil plotline gives us our action quota, with a pretty epic battle between He-Man, Krass and Skeletor which plays out while Cringer, Duncan and Evil-Lyn compete to acquire the Sigil. It’s all very entertaining and the stakes feel high, and while our heroes win, it’s plain to see there’s trouble in paradise: Stratos is proving to be something of a liability, and moreover, Skeletor has taken the time to make some ominous comments to Krass about the jewel in her helmet. There’s clearly something brewing there; can’t wait to see where it goes.