whats the deal with baxter & alien robot se4
 

anyone notice how baxter went from a scientist n season 1 and by season 4 he was dumber than rocksteady on his worst day (im pretty sure rocksteady could tell the difference between april and vernon- see son of return of the fly II)
also i never really understood his relationship with that alien robot. what are your guys thoughts on his "progression" through the series?

In reality, Baxter was generally a smart person, but I feel shortly after he was a fly turned out to be a mid-life crisis moment in some episodes, hitting a low in Landlord of the Flies. But then by his final episode, Revenge Of The Fly, Baxter is probably as formidable as he was since Return of the Fly, where he gets more desparate about accomplishing his goal only to have his plans thwarted. He even strands Shredder and his mutants in the Technodrome. This was thanks to getting his robot computer back absent in Landlord of the Flies. Using his new weapon to transform humans into various insects was thanks to stealing a sample of Krang's mutagen.

Finally, I feel that Bebop & Rocksteady's gradual dumbing down may have persuaded Shredder to give Baxter second chances at various points.

Its obvious the mutagen was deteriorating his brain. He started losing his memory a lot and couldn't remember whether it was the Turtles or Shredder who double-crossed him.

In Season 7 he says, "Then I will get my revenge on the Turtles...for whatever it was that I was mad at them about!"

I actually liked his computer friend, it helped him out and tried to take over the world.

If Baxter was losing his memory as a fly, it obviously took time. He still had his scientific knowledge in his first episode as a fly when he helped Shredder create that wormhole designed to put the turtles out of phase with the world, so they would be invisible ghosts.

As for the alien computer, I could be wrong, but it probably came from the alien spaceship that looked like a temple in Bye Bye Fly. That episode ended with Baxter and the alien ship ending up in limbo, and that ship had a computer that could talk just like the one in Seasons 4 and 7. Where was the computer in Landlord of the Flies?

The alien computer was from the temple that got destroyed in space, he only had a chip left. Was the computer not in Season 5 at all?

That's a good question. If I hadn't seen Revenge of The Fly, I would have assumed Baxter lost him or ditched him.

When he was human yes he was smart, but when he was turn into the fly... His brain was getting smaller and than he was push into Demation X and he was loney and didn't have anyone..no friends and no one to talk to..so he made that computer to be his friend.. Rememeber when shredder said, if your once a human and became a muation..your mind makes you crazy and your memories will be gone. Than Mikey pointed out that if you use the wrong ooze..you become stupid..

Splinter was a mutated human and he didnt loose any iq points. And I understand where the computer came from, I just watched revenenge of the fly part 2 and I just thought their relationship came off a little weird- codependent.
So baxters decreasing mental capacity was something intentional? a side effect of the mutagen? I always just assumed the writers thought kids liked stupid mutants.

Even in the first episode, "Enter: The Fly", Baxter was easily convinced by Shredder that the Turtles were his enemies and not Shredder. He was even convinced that they were the ones who turned him into a fly, so I think the deterioration happened rather quickly.

Also, I always assumed that "Landlord of the Flies" happened out of continuity with the rest of the "Fly" episodes, since there is no computer friend. Plus, where Baxter is at the beginning of "Revenge of the Fly" could very well be where we left him in "Son of Return of the Fly".

Mutagen or mutation, because Baxter's mutation had zilch to do with Krang's mutagen and everything to do with a disintegrator unit malfunction.

Was that ep written by David Wise? Wise wrote all the eps with Baxter's computer friend, so perhaps that one ep in Season 5 was written by someone else?

damn guys your so right, i forgot his origin had nothing to do with mutagen, that adds up, thanks for the input

you know to think about it....they didn't use ooze on him, he was going to cooked til the little fly landed on him. now i can remember.

and the splinter thing, i'm sure they would think if he became stupid would ruin everything...he's just old lol

I still don't see why Splinter acts old in the OT... he's around the same age as Shredder...

im going to have a marathon of the baxter eps to get a better sense of the characters continuity. anybody know all the eps he's in?

Enter: The Fly (Season 2)
Return of the Fly (Season 3)
Bye, Bye, Fly (Season 3)
Son of Return of the Fly II (Season 4)
Landlord of the Flies (Season 5)
Revenge of the Fly (Season 7)
(Where was Baxter in season 6?)

Thar she blows.

But don't forget human Baxter as a setup before his fly transformation, in A Thing About Rats from Season 1, and then every Season 2 episode until Enter: The Fly. Like I've said, since Bebop & Rocksteady were still quite formidable until late in Season 2, this caused Baxter to be considered "more idiotic" than B&R were at the time, and thus why Shredder decided to replace Baxter as his henchmen. However, that robotic computer did try to help Baxter bring some of his memory back, as without his robotic friend, it left his IQ to deteriorate. And, that Season 5 episode was written by Gordon Bressack, thus making the episodes with Baxter's Computer exclusively a David Wise thing.

There's one moment in Landlord of the Flies when the bad guys had the turtles cornered in the car wreck on the bridge, Baxter told Bebop & Rocksteady: Fire at will! Then they thought one of the turtles was actually named Will. They said, which one is Will? I know there's a Leonardo, a Raphael, etc. Clearly, Baxter was still smarter than Bebop & Rocksteady at that moment.