Thundercats (ep1*8) *SPOILERS*

[Captain Qwert Jr]

The Good:

• The Wall of swords, and the colorful villagers.
• The Drifter. Exposition and theme in an amusing wrapper.
• The Initial sword exhibition. When the most powerful weapon known is the Sword of Oppression, a sword-centric sub-culture would be the result.
• The Duelist. Conventional casting, I know, but a good look, and I liked his smooth voice.
• Lion-O's strong characterization. I've read some idiot reviews that describe Lion-O as Brash. He's not. He a quiet hero, even when he was seething in "Ramlak Rising". His boasting in the rock-cutting tourney was quiet. He was only goaded when his one sore spot (Daddy, not foolish pride) was touched, and he regretted it 30 seconds later.

The Bad:

• Sadly, the gravitational pull of cliched plotting compels him to make the stupidest decision, as if he were a brash douche-bag.
• So the Duelist never actually knew about being flexible in a sword fight? How did he win against those superior swords? He was clearly very skilled.
• When did Tygra learn magical-techno engineering?
• Cheetara: "Our King is being hunted by a vast army led by a Magic-techno-mummy thingy(?) Should he be going off alone?"

Panthro: "He'll be ok, as long as he doesn't show off his Sword, identifying himself as the prince, and thus calling down every mercenary, villain, and lunatic in the area to kill him for it. "

​

Tygra:"Also, if he dies, I'm King, so Fuck 'im"

​

The Ugly:

• The Drifter: "Lion-O, what are you doing!?! 'willows are weak'!

Lion-O: "I'm still Trying to figure out the hidden wisdom of your words!"

The Drifter: "What wisdom? It means your younger, stronger, and faster! Overpower the bastard!"

Lion-O:"Oh, yeah"

And so he did. Almost put this in the bad column, but I cant deny it's practical advice. To paraphrase something a college friend who was into martial arts once told me: If your opponent out-weighs you by 30+ lbs, he's going to kick your ass.​

• So Mumm-Ra also brought Toucan people with him in his pyramid. Useful for finding his Fruit Loops in the morning, I guess.
• As someone who has been to that village many times over the years, I can tell you all that Lion-O had to do to avoid this mess, was smash all the barrels in town, and loot all the treasure chests on the rooftops.

 

[OmahaStar]

It was entertaining, but I'm wondering where they are going with this ... they seem to be meandering and I hope there's a destination.

 

[OmahaStar]

Looks like this may be the last new episode for awhile. Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy (among others) have a listing for the new Thundercats: Season 1, Book 1 dvd set coming out on the 18th of October, for around 12-15 dollars. It lists eight episodes, up through and including Duelist and the Drifter, for a total running time of 176 minutes spread out over two discs.

The only special features I've seen listed are subtitles, but it's still more than a month out. I'm sure we'll see more listed soon.

 

[Captain Qwert Jr]

^^^ I had a feeling it would be, 8 episodes is almost long for a Basic Cable "season". I had seen 15 named episodes on the web (which I can't find at the moment), and was kind of hoping that all those would be shown before the year was out.
26 has been ordered, and 52 is the limit for most CN series.

I have avoided passing my Divine Judgement on the series, and most of the individual episodes due to it arc nature (Except, of course, for the appalling 1 hour primere)
I have been surprised in the past, by other series which seemed to make odd, out of place first steps, that turned out to be part of a larger, more original dance.
Also 1st seasons are just klunky in general.

For the record, I thought this was a very likable episode.