The Ninja Sword of Nowhere
 

Anyone else love this episode? It had fantastic animation, Shredder using an alien sword to cut portals to a dimensional limbo, and Splinter being trapped in the void.

It had some really funny moments too, such as Donatello trying to hit some squash with his Bo to hit Shredder with and it just explodes in his face. :lol: This is also the episode with Krang watching John and Marsha.

Unfortunately this episode was tainted by Raphael's horrible alternate voice actor, but thankfully he didn't have many lines in this one so it was easy to ignore.

Also had a nice climax in the junkyard where the Turtles try to stop Shredder and the Foot, then alien tourists come down and swipe the sword with the Turtles going after them.

It's certainly marred by the very noticeable replacement Raphael VA, but I have always enjoyed this episode immensely.

Thank goodness it wasn't a heavy Raph episode. I think he only has like 8 lines throughout the entire episode.

Raphael's substitute voice in this episode never bothered me near as much as that ending with the aliens that just happened to be going through the same dimensional limbo Splinter was stuck in. Talk about anti-climatic.

I always saw them as transdimensional beings with the same ability to cut through dimensions that the sword did. They said in the episode the metal of the sword was left behind on Earth 1000's of years ago, it might have been from the same aliens.

They did say they would return in the year 2728 after all. :lol:

Oh, coincidences like that were par for the course of the FW series!

There is the somewhat silly Attack of The 20 Foot Irma,but I think of this one as a turning point to a more humorous series for awhile. It was an odd yet interesting plot and I was disappointed when the plot come to a head an alien antique dealer took the sword just as Splinter was rescued. It was a cheap ploy that was not hilarious random like the Elvis impersonating aliens and messed up an epic in to a great sci-fiNninjsu story with a serious threat.

One thing I loved about eps like this is Shredder was shown to be a threat.

In too many other Season 3 episodes like, "Turtles Turtles Everywhere" and "The Four Musketurtles" Shredder is basically defeated by simply Bebop and Rocksteady falling on top of him.

Its really interesting to note that depending on who wrote which episode that Shredder was either more than a match for the Turtles or some bumbling baffoon in others.

Krang
 

As Krang said early in the episode, the alien fragment that the sword was made of was used for interdimensional travel by spacecraft within microseconds, so the alien yuppies seemed to have such a fragment piece hooked up to their spacecraft's machine engines.

Eight lines too many. >_<

This was a good opener to the Volume 4 set of DVD episodes. The Turtles actually struggle in battle against Bebop and Rocksteady with Shredder unlike most times in this series before the sword gets stolen. The climax was good, though it roughly follows Enter: The Fly's formula once all the characters arrive at the junkyard, except this time we do get to peek into this dimension- perhaps this is where Baxter: The Fly was stranded before he made his first return?

Baxter Stockman
 

Baxter Stockman was sent some minutes into the future the first time ("Enter: the Fly").

No,Baxter was sent a microsecond forward in time so he would be out of sync with the physical plane. It took a lightning strike to reverse his situation. After this episode he was free to roam.Then he was stuck in Dimension X each time until Revenge of the Fly at which time he was stuck in dimensional limbo for forevermore as far as we know.

He only went to Dimension X that one time as a human and came back to Earth a fly. All those other times he got stuck in dimensional limbos.

Son of Return of the Fly
 

Isn't he in Dimension X early in "Son of Return of the Fly".

Yeah,that was what I was trying to point out.Enter:The Fly ends with him a microsecond forward in tine out of phase with the rest of reality.Return of The Fly ends with him loose underground NYC. Bye,bye Fly ends with Baxter stuck in an alien spider's web within Dimension X after Z's centeries old ship falls apart. Then he emerges in Landlord of The Flies(anamoly in his character continuity) out of Dimension X without explaination and Z. He returns from an unknown Dimension in Revenge of The Fly. He ends that episode trapped in a dimensional limbo and that version of Baxter Stockman is not given a proper ending and ends the character's appears there.

Baxter Stockman trapped in limbo is a fitting ending. He was tragic character, no need to give him a happy ending.

This episode was infact great, despite Raphs alternative VA that is. Shredder is having the upperhand fighting the turtles, for once. And i love how Krang is showing a sympathetic side on the show for the first time, crying when watching his daily portion of soup operas. :lol:

Ah, this was a fun episode. I liked the odd visuals, and seeing Splinter fight is always good. That, and I remember this episode a lot from when I was a child.

And Baxter isn't a tragic character. He's just stupid. :P

(Keep in mind, going by the very nitpicky definition of "tragedy" that I absorbed by being a Word Nerd)

I thought it was limbo even though it looked like Dimension X. He even said it wasn't Dimension X at the end of Bye Bye Fly.

About The Ninja Sword of Nonwhere, I enjoyed it. I felt bad for April that she lost the news van and camera and she had to confess to Burne. I still can't believe Shredder let one of the mutants sit on his lap and steer.

I have a hard time believing that myself. It takes the badda$$ out of him. He seemed to be a bada$$ limited by the light hearted nature surrounding much of the series. He never did it again I bet as he said it was the only time he would allow it. I can relate to Shredder in that he probably would think if I let the kid do this he will stop annoying me and lay off so I can get things done so the adult would no longer be irritated and the kid will stop nagging. However giving in to nagging by a kid can cause problems as it did with Shredder. I see it in that prospective.

I said it above,but I think this episode was the turning point that would stay in place until "Sleuth on The Loose" of a more comedic turn. Not all the time but for the good majority of it. The bit with the alien coming out of nowhere plot wise which irritates me to this day, Krang's fandom of a soap, and Shredder letting one of his henchmutants sit on his lap to steer. Why not just let him take the wheel if he would do that?

The humor is what worked. Shredders line was hilarious as was Krang watching soaps.

I just don't understand why they didn't at least attempt to match his voice.

I have not seen this episode in a little over 20 years. A pleasant rewatch.

Compared to my original BBC 1 VHS recording, the only noticable difference was the ending bit where April wondered how to explain the missing news van to Burne. After strangely-voiced Raph suggests "Tell him the intergalactic antique collectors grabbed it..." the end credits quickly start up. The uncut version I just watched today shows Leonardo adding that Vernon would back up the story and reveals Vernon trapped in an old car (maybe the one Bebop was admiring earlier). Nice little bit for me. It was like watching a deleted scene I never new existed.

Decent episode. I hadn't watched it in years and it was fun to rewatch. I liked that Shredder was protrayed as somewhat of a threat, but the ending could've been written better.

I thought there were some good dialogue between Shredder and Splinter in limbo.

Splinter: There are still a few lessons that the student can learn from the master.
Shredder: And a few that the master will never learn.

Interestingly enough, this episode spawned part of the plot of one of my fan-fics, where the sword turns up on Earth again in the collection of the Metropolitan amuseum. Shredder tries to steal it, along with the Pack from Gargoyles who arrived at the same time to steal the same sword. It is later used by Demona as part of a plot to summon monsters to destroy the city.

I really enjoyed this ep, even though Raph had that annoying alternate voice.

The BBC did that a lot, cutting things out.

And the title itself, which the BBC changed to just "The Sword of Nowhere".