Featured TV on DVD Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete First Season

October 4, 2014

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete First Season - Buy from Amazon

This is the fourth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series and the third animated series. Season three has already started airing on TV and the first season was previously released on three separate volumes, while I reviewed the first DVD release from Season Two. Yeah, it's a bit of a mess. Since this DVD has been released previously, the real question is whether or not it is worth the double-dip? Or if it is worth picking up for those who missed it the first time.

The Show

I'm not going to review every episode, since this entire collection is a double-dip and I'm going to concentrate on the overall value of the box set vs. the individual DVDs. In fact, I'm just going to cut and paste the basic plot from the previous review.

The show has mostly the same setup as the earlier TMNT shows. There are four turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. They were normal turtles that were mutated and now live in the sewers with their master, Splinter, who was a man who was mutated into a rat. In the first part of the first episode, April O'Neil and her father, Kirby, were kidnapped by Kraang, who along with Shredder (and to a lesser extent, Stacy Hirano, his adopted daughter) are the main bad guys in the series. However, a lot of the series also deals with the freak of the week, which isn't surprising, as one of the main elements of the show is mutations.

Like I said, this is the fourth TV show in the franchise, while I think it is the ninth or tenth incarnation in total. It started as a comic, there have been four TV shows, an earlier live action movie franchise, animated movie and new live action movies, while I've heard some argue that the toyline should be considered a separate incarnation as well. (I may have missed one or two incarnations. Was there an Anime series?) In my mind, the first movie is the best out of all of these, although I might make some enemies saying that. The original cartoon has a lot of fans, but having recently reviewed a bunch of the seasons, I can safely say it lasted too long and the last few seasons were weak. So far, I think this edition of the cartoon is better than the average of the original. The voice acting is good, the animation doesn't look as cheap as it did with the original, etc. It isn't as dark as the original comic or the 2003 animated series, but it is still entertaining.

The Extras

The DVDs are the exact same ones released previously, so there are no new extras. There is a booklet included in the box set that has select imagery from The Ultimate Visual History.

The Verdict

If you own the previous DVD releases, then there's no reason to buy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete First Season. If you choose to wait, you made the right call, as the four-disc set is $13, which is about 60% less than buying them individually.


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Filed under: Video Review, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sean Astin, Jason Biggs, Kelly Hu, Nolan North, Rob Paulsen, Kevin Michael Richardson, Mae Whitman, Greg Cipes, Hoon Lee, Keith Silverstein