Review: Turtle Temper Nickelodeon TMNT ep 3

The new Nickelodeon series has been a hot subject as of lately.  I’ve been going around hearing lots of people talk about the series and how they saw the first hour episode last week.  How the Turtles found out about pizza, the changes in their looks, and just the overall feel of the new series.  So far, the feedback has been positive for Nickelodeon as people are willing to keep going forward to see where the show is headed.  This week we deal with Raphael’s temper, an issue brought up in a handful of different Turtle medias, including in issue 14 of the IDW comics which just came out last month.  Is Raph’s temper so bad the other Turtles don’t want him around?

This episode starts off with the Turtles trying to find the Kraangs for April.  She gave them an address where she thinks they’re going to break in that night, so they are waiting there. Only to be discovered by a man who lived in the building they were waiting at.  This man catches video of the Turtles in battle and wants to sell it to the news.  The Turtles have to retrieve the video which leads into another adventure of fighting the Kraangs and more mutant problems.

While excited about the new series, a little disappointed in how fast they jumped ahead.  We don’t know how April came up with the idea of where the Kraangs was going to hit next.  It would’ve been nice to see the intro as where April is informing Donatello.  Instead of Don, explaining this to his brothers.  Though I do like the brother interaction.  I am not a fan at how fast Mikey gives in to Raph.  One of the things I enjoyed in the 4Kids series was Mike stood a chance against Raph as seen in “Meet Casey Jones” and “The Battle Nexus”.

While the opening was ok, the rest of the episode was a lot of fun.  I really do like how the Kraang talk, they’re funny which takes an edge off of them even though they’re dangerous.  The man who found them was annoying, though that was what they wanted us to feel so he was written and performed well.  These Turtles have to be more careful, and I love it that they are using the fact that people record things with their phones these days in the show.

Splinter’s lesson in how anger clouds the mind was awesome.  It really did show just what he meant, and the other Turtles did have a lot of fun with it.  This lesson made it so we can see not just hear how it clouds the mind.  Though I did not agree with Splinter’s request for them to take the video back nicely.  This should’ve been one of those area where Splinter had to realize that the video needed to be taken back no matter what.  He heard what the guy was like, and should of had them remove the video without being caught or seen.

Asking for the video back, went how I thought it would.  There was no nice way of getting it back, and I was not too surprised that the Kraangs appeared back on the scene.  Raph’s temper really got the best of him in this scene, and it was well written.  I could see him being this upset.  I was slightly surprised that Snakeweed was not with the Kraangs on this second battle.  I did not like how easy Leonardo went down because of Raph taking off.  I like it when you can still see the others holding their own even when one of them is doing something stupid.  I understood why Leo sent Raph away though, his temper was not just dangerous to them but a distraction for the rest of them.

I enjoy the scene between Splinter and Raphael down in the lair.  As we get to see Raph once again confine in his pet Turtle, Spike.  I like how Splinter used Raph’s own reasoning with Spike, to get to tell his story.  As we hear how Splinter blames himself for the lost of Tang Shen.  This was a strong scene, with a real good lesson in it as well.  This is stuff I enjoy, the growth between Splinter and Raph here is showing character development which I hope they keep doing through this series.

The final battle I felt could’ve been done better.  Once again they use the fight as a way of showing all of them have to be fighting for them to win.  Though when the Turtles were going against Spiderbite they totally ignored the best way to handle one strong bad guy... split up so he doesn’t have just one area to focus on.  Once Raph joined in, they realized this and the fight moved forward.

Overall it was a fun episode, but they focused on the lesson more than how the other characters could react to what is going on.  Which for me made it feel forced in those other areas.  Other than that, I enjoyed it and can not wait for the next episode.

Did you see this episode?  What is your thoughts?  Please share reviews, comments and questions below.