Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “Into the Woods”

I didn’t know Chris Griffin was a guest star this season?

Spoilers Below

Well, without a week off, Season three of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started last night. And to be completely honest, I felt rather disappointed in it. One of the major themes I picked off of this premiere is that change is inevitable. I am not so sure that some of the changes were warranted.

One of the major changes from last week / season is that Leo’s voice actor changed, again. From Jason Biggs, to Dominic Catrambone, and now to the voice of Chris Griffin himself, Leo has been a revolving door for voice actors. This season, Seth Green dons the blue mask, but I can’t help but think Chris Griffin is Leo when I am not watching the screen. The writers played it off in the script where Leo suffered damage to his throat, as well as the rest of his body. I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem with this change if the writers weren’t so blatant about making sure the viewers noticed the change. Also, it was three months between the end of season two and the start of three, and the only mention of Splinter was that he is either missing or dead. We didn’t even get a teaser at the end of the episode, just a tease of The Creep in the jar.

At least a major chunk of the season is going to take place on the O’Neil farmstead. It should be familiar to anyone who saw TMNT movie from 1990. They hide out there when they get their asses handed to them by the Foot, and April’s antique store burns to the ground. In fact, this series has a lot of parallels to the movie universe. I swear, if the series goes back to feudal Japan, I am burning Viacom to the ground. Anyway, the turtles are regrouping after losing New York to the Krang and Shredder, where they get attacked by a Swamp Thing-like mutant that came about from the mutagen elixir Donnie made for Leo.

On the topic of The Creep, this thing was a cheap mashup of Swamp Thing and Jason. All we needed was Swamp Thing’s mother under the mutagen, and I probably would have given up. I may be hard on “Into the Woods,” but the first two seasons have been very solid. The writing was there, and the nods to pop culture was definitely there. “Into the Woods” just felt like the writers just wanted to jam in as much Swamp Thing and Jason references, even jamming the two together when The Creep put on Casey Jones’s goalie mask.

I just wasn’t feeling this episode at all. Everything from Seth Green’s “introduction” to the series, to the overstuffed antagonist in The Creep all just felt jammed in. I was hoping for more of a look into what happened to the city in the months since the Turtles left the city. There are so many questions left unanswered, I think the series dropped the ball for the first time. Hopefully, next week will give the viewers more answers than what was given to us this week.