NM, thats right The Next Mutation
 

This series that came on Fox Kids is a series i remember watching and I actually liked it, and still do. It is a shame to me we dont get the whole season on DVD, hopefully we do. It is part of our tmnt history now, and its been about 10 years since it has aired. Sure the female turtle people dont really care for, but there was talk about bringing casey and april in season 2. Any thoughts on The Next Mutation?

Removing all the "wacky" sound effects would've gone a long way towards making it enjoyable.

The sound effects were the worst part of the show. When Leo jumped on a Rank Warrior, you heard a horse for some reason. It was some lame attempt to make the show funny, I was just a kid when I was watching it (I think I was only 13 at the time the show was airing back in 1997) and I found those sound effects lame.

Other than that, it did have some decent points to it. Dragon Lord wasn't a half bad villain, but there were too many silly episodes and it could have been more serious.

April O' Neil and Casey Jones
 

Why not bring in at least April O' Neil, even Casey Jones. Everybody, not only TMNT fans, know who April O' Neil is.

the sound effects never really got to me, and the silliness to the show, well i always thought where funny.

Human Dragon Lord
 

I would like to see a human Dragon Lord instead.

To elaborate, the show actually had some decent concepts. A gritter, movie based setting, for one. The Dragons were interesting villains. I liked the Turtle designs (they were very 90s), and I didn't even mind the presence of a girl Turtle.

Next Mutation is a classic example of good concepts with poor execution, because all the sound effects, corny dialogue, and terrible special effects overshadowed everything the show did right.

I was in fifth grade when this came out, and my friends and I anxiously awaited its premiere. All I can say is, my interest in Turtles diminished pretty quickly after this aired.

i remember the day they where with the power rangers, i was like WOAH!! It made me happy. I was in the third grade when it hit came out.

Let's not forget the crappy fighting choreography as well, but other than that, I enjoyed it as a kid.

Leaving out April and thus leaving out the first Turtle and human relationship was a dumb move to start with.

The series had potential if it had the bugs cleaned off the windshield it would have been half decent.

And yes, removing the pointless honks and squeeks during the fights would have helped.

===HERO

I agree, the sound effects were utterly pointless and stupid, the same applies to venus in my opinion.
The Turtle costumes weren't bad though.

It's good to see I'm not the only one who found the sound effects terrible. I really do like this series. I recently got 2 DVDs of it (I had East Meets West before) and watched the whole series although I'm missing 3 episodes.
Definitely cheesy, but its alright. It gets REALLY silly though. The sound effects I found extremely irritating I noticed that there seemed to be more in the later episodes. Every little action came with an annoying sound like a sheep or honk.
I like most of the characters apart from those 2 little vampire kids. Venus is okay but during the fight scene in the play park she recites all these stupid jokes non-stop in a way that isn't funny, you just want to facepalm. She makes it more interesting though sometimes its too focused on her. I despise Bonesteel as well but he certainly has his moments.

Shredder's costume is daft but I'm glad they had the Foot in the series. I know some people think it can't possibly follow on from the movies because of what happened to Shredder in Turtles 2. He could've easily survived the dock collapsing on him especially as he was in mutated form.

Overall I like the series but there are many problems. The sound effects are a BIG problem. The absence of April really takes away from it as well.

Weapons
 

And the turtles seldom use their weapons. They use them more in the 1987 cartoon, even if it's often just to disarm their enemies.

I got to...
http://blip.tv/file/1257413
and
http://blip.tv/file/1257457

The Next Mutation
 

And why is the show called "The Next Mutation"? Does it refer to Venus or what?

It could be true but I wouldn't put much stock in rumours of a second season with April and Casey. The reason she wasn't in it in the first place was because Kevin wanted to retire the character for awhile.

I'm also in the camp that hated the sound effects. I know the series gets compared to Power Rangers a lot but seriously even at the beginning Power Rangers had a lot more to it and by the time of the Next Mutation was telling much better stories.

Stylisticaly speaking when you hit a power ranger sparks flew off them, it didn't make weird noises. If anything the Next Mutation is what PR would be if they did an episode centered around the Bulk and Skull slapstick.

Pretty much, yes.

It was a name that was kicking around anyway. It was the name of one of the early concepts kevin and Peter were working on for the fourth movie were the turtles would have a secondary mutation which gave each one an individual power.

I guess it was just a cool sounding name that Kevin chose to keep for the live action series.

Next Mutation
 

But that never happened in "Next Mutation". Instead it was in the 1987 cartoon from season 9 (1995) the Ninja Turtles' mutations were unstable and they were like monster turtles sometimes.

yea and we will never know if the turtles would have had a new mutation in the next mutation.

The Serie was also shown in Germany & Austria in 1999. Recently I had a talk with the german Voice of the Dragonlord. He told that, when he and dub director first have seen the series they knew that it would be complettly trash, so they tried to give the series a darker tone by making the dub a bit more serious. Well I told him that they failed and he said 'Yes, I know:lol:!'

But it's still fun watch the series when it airs on german networks ^^

Next Generation
 

Is it a word play on "Next Generation"?

i dont find it to be trash.

Second season
 

How do you think/want a second season to be if one existed?

Five Reasons TNM could have been better

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Dvd
 

Here are the DVD's http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/dvd_nextmutation.html (mostly Region 2).

i know the dvds are out, but i mean i hope we get it here in USA. Region 1 DVD. And i think season 2 would have been weird actually, maybe trash, but overall i dont find season 1 as trash. Season 2 could have been good, maybe a new main villian.

1987 cartoon
 

Maybe they are released in the USA after the 1987 cartoon DVD's?

yea that could be possible. I can see it happening. HMMM I have 15 episodes from the series. The language was funny. Calling DragonLord Weenier and Bonesteal calling the Turtles Cooters, lol.

Other characters
 

Not only April and Casey are missing, they could bring in characters like Leatherhead, Rat King and Baxter Stockman. That would made the show more popular.

thats also very true, Baxter and Rat King would have been pretty stupid in the series probably.

Why
 

Why? They don't need to be like in the 1987 cartoon.

Okay I never really liked Last Mutation so I only saw about a few episodes and that one crossover with power rangers in space, but I'd like to ask... What's with all the hate on Venus? Educate me please cause I just don't get how it started, or where it came from, or why even the creators hate her with a passion.

I think it mostly has to do with the fact that a magical, girl Turtle is just one huge gimmick. Also, her presence violates some sort of commandmant that every version of the Turtles shall be about four mutant brothers.

Whatever. I don't really hate her in theory.

Oh no I'm just curious really. I mean I've heard things like... Laird and Eastman get pissed if anyone even mentions her. So I was just wondering what all the hate was about. I mean was it cause she was too much of a Mary Sue or something?

I could not stand that show hated it so much.

Magic
 

I hate that she uses those magic balls, not her as a character.

I think it's less about her as a character, and more about how she violates what Laird and Eastman think of as being the core of the story: four isolated brothers.

Back then
 

But was she popular back then? Many were kids, in the modern Internet's childhood, and didn't know about the Mirage comics.

Laird didn't have anything to do with creating venus or the Next Mutation series other than signing off on it. He does seem to dislike Venus and consider the character and the series apocaphyal.

Eastman did create Venus and these days seems to have a positive opinion on her. At the time the show was coming out however, he did state that the character was forced on him by Fox and he didn't agree with it. This was because it went against what he and Laird had always stated about not wanting a female turtle etc and because he knew that fans would view the character with scepticism.

As for why a lot of fans dislike her, as others have said, it pretty much violates the concept of them being four brothers. I know that one huge bone of contention a lot of fans have is in the second episode when in a
effort to make some romantic tension Leo tells her that none of the turtles are related.

(To be fair though, the show did flit around on this subject a bit of whether Venus was a sister or just another mutant turtle. I guess it's safe to say that the Next Mutation turtles consider themselves brothers even if they don't share the same blood because they were raised together. Venus being raised by Chung I wouldn't be viewed by them the same way)

I've heard some say they wouldn't mind her so much if she was part of the main cast. I've also heard some complaints from feminist fans about her look, her breast protruding from her shell and her bandana braided like a ponytail etc.

For me personaly I just didn't like the character. It seemed that tried to make her humourous by having her ignorant about basic things. She kept on referring to the sewers as "toilet" and misquoting basic well known phrases with the other turtles constantly correcting her.

The show kept on making a big deal about her not being a ninja or interested in fighting but a mystic, it made her unique. Then she would be seen single handedly kicking the crap out of Foot Soldiers.

It would've been better if she'd started off as an inept fighter and early on have her realise the importance of physical self defence and have her train as a ninja

Spin off
 

Why not create a spin off instead, featuring four mutated girl turtles living in the sewers of another city, like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles or whatever. They shall still use martial arts, maybe not being ninjas but not stuipd magic. And one day they will go to New York City or the TMNT to their city. Remember the He-Man girl spin off She-Ra.