The worst 2003 episode by far...

[D-ray]

It seems akward for me (a 2003 fanboy) to heavily critizie this serie, but it's undeniable that "Fathers and Sons" is very likely the worst episode in the entire serie.

Just a quick recap for those who don't know or remember the episode:
The turtles are waiting for Karai to heal up from the Tengu's Shredder attack. In the meantime, Splinter tells the turtles a story were he brought them to japan
when they were young, so he could have given the ashes of Yoshi to the Ancient One.
Turns out that a demon was lurking around, commissioned by the Mystics. The baby turtles can see him, and ultimately lead the demon to fight against Splinter and the Ancient One in the Ninja Tribunal stronghold. They win, and the memories of the turtles are whiped out so they couldn't remember the event.


So, why it sucks?
Some of you might already say "it's from the 5th season, so is obliviously shite". But not really; the 5th season is weird and kind of badly written, but is not a complete pile of feces (unlike this episode).
This episode is the worst just by how many unlogical things it has.
Here's a list:

1 - Splinter (the extremely protective father who never wanted to bring the turtles out of the sewers) bring the baby turtles to JAPAN. Yeah, just behind the corner you know.

2 - Splinter, somehow, has Yoshi's ashes, even tough Yoshi died like a week earlier than Splinter's mutation. I mean, the corpse must have been rotten by that time, and if not, the police would have brought it to a cementery or something, making it impossible to recover. Also, were the hell did Splinter burned Yoshi's corpse? I mean, come on, did he put it in the oven or what?

3 - Splinter just comes in front of the Ancient One like he is nothing, not even thinking of the old man's reaction to him. I don't know guys, it seems like a braindead move compared to the Splinter of the past seasons.

4 - The worst of all: Splinter, SOMEHOW, knows that Shredder is an alien. How? He is shown completely surprised in the 2nd season when Ch'rell came out of Shredder's stomach.

5 - Splinter can feel the presence of the invisible demon, but not the super powerful Ninja Tribunal. Ok.

6 - For whatever reason, the Ancient One gifts the turtles their masks in the end of the episode, even tho he didn't gave them the masks when Splinter was supposed to go back to New York. Like, he said "Bye" to Splinter, and then magically when he didn't even expect that he followed him, remembered "Oh ye, give these thingies to your sons". It makes no freaking sense.

Is like a complete mess to me. I mean, the first time I saw it I was like: "yeah kind of dumb" but now I rewateched it like 3 times, and I can't get the fact that is trash out of my head.
What do you guys think? I'm too rough on this one or am I right?
Let me know!

[Prowler]

I barely remember the Nina Tribunal season anymore tbh. So I can't say lol.

Some of the season 2 filler episodes were pretty bad from what I remember. The 2nd Garbageman episode was terrible. Probably a top 5 worst episode in the series.

[mrmaczaps]

Originally Posted by D-ray

It seems akward for me (a 2003 fanboy) to heavily critizie this serie, but it's undeniable that "Fathers and Sons" is very likely the worst episode in the entire serie.

Just a quick recap for those who don't know or remember the episode:
The turtles are waiting for Karai to heal up from the Tengu's Shredder attack. In the meantime, Splinter tells the turtles a story were he brought them to japan
when they were young, so he could have given the ashes of Yoshi to the Ancient One.
Turns out that a demon was lurking around, commissioned by the Mystics. The baby turtles can see him, and ultimately lead the demon to fight against Splinter and the Ancient One in the Ninja Tribunal stronghold. They win, and the memories of the turtles are whiped out so they couldn't remember the event.


2 - Splinter, somehow, has Yoshi's ashes, even tough Yoshi died like a week earlier than Splinter's mutation. I mean, the corpse must have been rotten by that time, and if not, the police would have brought it to a cementery or something, making it impossible to recover. Also, were the hell did Splinter burned Yoshi's corpse? I mean, come on, did he put it in the oven or what?

I would imagine Yoshi having no family, that he would have been cremated & interned in Potter's field. And that it would take likely a few days between dying & someone calling the cops, unless the Shredder made enough noise to alert neighbors. In that case, or really either, Splinter being aware enough to care about Yoshi, may have snuck back to his home, found him gone & I dunno, sniffed him out? Lol. Leading to the morgue which then leads to Potter's field... or Splinter gets there as Yoshi is cremated, breaks in & stills his ashes once put into the bag... there are a few logical leaps required for that to work but then, we're talking about a mutant rat & 4 mutated baby turtles stealing a body or its ashes...

I don't really recall the episode directly but I know I watched it a few years back on YouTube...

Edit: easiest way, assume Shredder left no noise & no one noticed the body for a week... Splinter some how manages to get it out of the apartment & cremates Yoshi on his own in the sewers somewhere & for whatever reason, saved his ashes... lol.

[CyberCubed]

Not counting the clip show episode, "Junklantis" was the worst episode of the first 5 seasons.

[neatoman]

I don't know, Fathers and Sons is arguably the worst if we don't count Fastforward and Back to the Sewers as the same show, but I think there might be some contenders.

• Garbageman
• Reflections
• Junklantis
• The Golden Puck
• The Lesson
• Headlock Prime
• Playtime's Over
• Clash of the Turtle Titans
• Enter the Jammerhead
• Incredible Shrinking Serling
• SuperQuest
• Mayhem from Mutant Island (though it might not be fair to count it)

These are basically what I'd consider the bad episodes. Most of them are either based around some really dumb idea, force bad retcons or are tonally off. And in some cases they're just bad stories.

Enter the Jammerhead the episode I'd just consider total crap. It takes a really annoying character and makes him the villain of some cliché sitcom plot about embarrassing parents coming to visit, a total waste of time.

[CyberCubed]

The Golden Puck isn't too bad. Feels like a plot from the original cartoon though (and a watered down version of the comic its based on). Those Texas yahoos felt like Fred Wolf villains.

[Prowler]

It's strange how bad some of the one-shot original villains in 2k3 were terrible, as we're their episodes. 2k3 was a pretty solid cartoon overall. It's definitely not a faithful Mirage adaptation but it was able to pull off its original concepts like Utrom Shredder, Ultimate Ninja, Battle Nexus and characters like Bishop and Hun.

But characters like Garbageman, Touch and Go, that muscular scientist woman and the villains from The Golden Puck episode? Ugh.

And the saddest part is, Garbageman was supposed to HAVE A 3RD EPISODE! They were gonna make him Huns long lost brother or something like that.

[FrederikWolferson]

Weird thing is that we had 2 big game hunters with Australian accents and robotic sidekicks in this series.

[D-ray]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I don't know, Fathers and Sons is arguably the worst if we don't count Fastforward and Back to the Sewers as the same show, but I think there might be some contenders.

• Garbageman
• Reflections
• Junklantis
• The Golden Puck
• The Lesson
• Headlock Prime
• Playtime's Over
• Clash of the Turtle Titans
• Enter the Jammerhead
• Incredible Shrinking Serling
• SuperQuest
• Mayhem from Mutant Island (though it might not be fair to count it)

These are basically what I'd consider the bad episodes. Most of them are either based around some really dumb idea, force bad retcons or are tonally off. And in some cases they're just bad stories.

Enter the Jammerhead the episode I'd just consider total crap. It takes a really annoying character and makes him the villain of some cliché sitcom plot about embarrassing parents coming to visit, a total waste of time.

Ok, the Garbageman episodes were kind of dull because he is one of the worst villains of the serie; but come on Reflections and The Lesson are good fillers. They don't have much action or stuff, but atleast they're correctly written, and in my personal opinion, having episodes where the turtles don't fight and do normal stuff, just makes them even more realistic characters as a whole.

Fathers and Sons is a filler and its extremely bad written compared to Reflections and The Lesson. It adds nothing new (apart from previously mentioned stupid unlogical crap) and it has no real point in the 5th season storyline progression.

Originally Posted by Prowler

But characters like Garbageman, Touch and Go, that muscular scientist woman and the villains from The Golden Puck episode? Ugh.

And the saddest part is, Garbageman was supposed to HAVE A 3RD EPISODE! They were gonna make him Huns long lost brother or something like that.

I refuse to believe that Touch and Go are bad villains, and I'll make you change your mind one day.

About the 3rd Garbageman episode: is kind of hironic that the only interesting episode (atleast for me) about him got cancelled. I mean, giving it a real backstory could have made him less like a '87 villain.

[D-ray]

Originally Posted by FrederikWolferson

Weird thing is that we had 2 big game hunters with Australian accents and robotic sidekicks in this series.

Never noticed the Australian accent due to the Italian dub; but hell, that was a mindblow for me.

[superstaff]

Thank you, D-Ray! I watched this episode recently on Pluto TV, and it was awful. The inconsistencies drove me up a wall, so I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

2003 TMNT had some bad episodes, particularly from the Fast Forward and Back to the Sewers seasons, but this one took the cake.

[ABrown]

Over the years I've tried to make sense of the giant continuity error that is Fathers and Sons. Is it possible that the Ancient One filled in Master Splinter on the details of the original Shredder during their journey to Japan (in between the episodes Ninja Tribunal and Lap of the Gods)?

Of course this episode was hardly the first time that the show featured an inconsistency in a character knowing that the Shredder was an utrom. It's a little odd that the head guardian didn't know that the Shredder was an utrom during the first season.

[TMNachoT]

Don´t remember that episode very well, actually, season 5 is not my fav.

Regarding the ashes, maybe the remaining ninja guardians were informed about yoshi´s dead and they took care of his dead body.

The episodes that I think are the worst are from FF and BttS, actually, those season are horrible.

[Teddygaming reviews]

my lest favourite episodes are the garbage man and the race for glory.

the reason for garbageman is because it had a very good message but went around the whole situation completely wrong.
the reason for race of glory is because triple threat was a bad villain in that episode.

[srmff]

A lot of this isn't ringing any bells with me. I suppose it has been a few years since I re-watched the series. I remember not liking the superhero episodes. I did like Nobody though.

[D-ray]

Originally Posted by superstaff

Thank you, D-Ray! I watched this episode recently on Pluto TV, and it was awful. The inconsistencies drove me up a wall, so I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

2003 TMNT had some bad episodes, particularly from the Fast Forward and Back to the Sewers seasons, but this one took the cake.

Lol what a coincidence, I happened to watch it the same time period.
Not on Pluto, on Youtube, but still: what a coincidence comrade.

Originally Posted by ABrown

Over the years I've tried to make sense of the giant continuity error that is Fathers and Sons. Is it possible that the Ancient One filled in Master Splinter on the details of the original Shredder during their journey to Japan (in between the episodes Ninja Tribunal and Lap of the Gods)?

Of course this episode was hardly the first time that the show featured an inconsistency in a character knowing that the Shredder was an utrom. It's a little odd that the head guardian didn't know that the Shredder was an utrom during the first season.

But Splinter seems to know that Shredder is an Utrom in the flashback. Meaning that he already knew that basically just after Yoshi's death.
The only "logical" explanation, is that Splinter forgot the fact that he was an alien because he is old.
Yes. There is no other logical explanation in my opinion.

By the way, on the guardian thing.
Even tho he didn't know about Shredder being an alien, is weird considering that is working for the Utroms, but at the same time can still be ok. Like, the council doesn't need to explain every dumb Utrom thing to his guardians. They could have just said "oh there is this japan obsessed metal wanker that keeps giving us problems; could you take care of him?"

Originally Posted by TMNachoT

Regarding the ashes, maybe the remaining ninja guardians were informed about yoshi´s dead and they took care of his dead body.

Well, that can be an explanation.
I mean, Splinter knows alot of stuff about the Utrom organization and the guardians in Secret Origins part 1. Maybe he met them looong time ago when he recovered Yoshi's ashes.
But at the same time, he remained there for like (on quote) 8 hours with them waiting for the turtles to turn back. He might have got plenty of time to ask what was happening and who were them.

[ABrown]

Originally Posted by D-ray

But Splinter seems to know that Shredder is an Utrom in the flashback. Meaning that he already knew that basically just after Yoshi's death.
The only "logical" explanation, is that Splinter forgot the fact that he was an alien because he is old.
Yes. There is no other logical explanation in my opinion.

I went back and rewatched the episode, and yes, your are correct. Man I would really have to hope that Splinter calling him the utrom Shredder was just a way for the audience not to get confused as to which Shredder he was talking about.

[D-ray]

Originally Posted by ABrown

I went back and rewatched the episode, and yes, your are correct. Man I would really have to hope that Splinter calling him the utrom Shredder was just a way for the audience not to get confused as to which Shredder he was talking about.

Yeah maybe. Still, a very confusing episode.

[FrederikWolferson]

Ninja Tribunal and Ancient One knew about Shredder being an Utrom,but Splinter? That doesn't really add up.