BRIEF STORYLINE: The turtles and Splinter are in London, visiting their British Museum. They get to see such lovely sights as portraits of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table.
Back in Dimension X, Krang is getting curious with a long range scanner and discovers a rare metal that is deep down below a ruined castle in England. That metal belongs to King Arthur's legendary sword, Excalibur.
Shredder arrives, steals the sword and discovers it has the ability to raise ancient knights from the dead and can transform new modern, England into old, medieval England. Shredder becomes so greedy, he doesn't care about Krang, and will rule England by himself.
Shredder uses the sword on the turtles, and it proves to be a tough challenge for them. Unfortunately, Bebop and Rocksteady also kidnap April and Irma, and Shredder wants April to become his Queen of England, to recreate a royal monarchy feel, as the new head of state.
Will the turtles find the sword's/Shredder's weakness, and get MEDIEVAL on their butts?
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: A rusty, weak episode, but it is interesting where this storyline goes, and the settings which becomes more rapidly like medieval London, rather than modern London.
The English setting does make for some funny humor, as Shredder with the Excalibur sword, makes Bebop and Rocksteady knights, calling them Sir Bebop and Sir Rocksteady, which leads to both mutants mimicking their new titles, talking all polite in posh English accents, "After you, Sir Bebop!". The humour is actually really the only brightspot in this episode.
It does look all silly with an old man such as Merlin walking around with the turtles in a big wizard's hat, but he does come out with some funny lines, or is the making of potential funny lines, like his baffledness of the modern world. In one scene, he says there is a "foul smell" and Raphael replies with "that's the air". This hints at maybe the true fact that pollution now, has affected the air these days. Other funny quotes include, "i'm 1900 years too old for this", after running along with the turtles.
There's quite an original twist to the medieval jousting sport, that only the Ninja Turtles would do. Michaelangelo faces Rocksteady, not on horses, but on surfboards on water! Donatello also faces Bebop on a horizonatal log, where crocodiles lie in wait down below. However, none of the action scenes are well edited to give the fights any justice.
Another unintentionally funny thing about the episode is how ridiculous and rough the map of Britain looks on the Technodrome viewing screen. We get some of the classic Shredder-Krang funnies, when Shredder pleads with Krang to open up the portal back to the Technodrome. Shredder promises not to betray Krang, and give Bebop and Rocksteady a bath!
The ending is poor, with bad sound effects of the Medieval Camelot castle returning back into ruins, and with Michaelangelo falling asleep spontaneously, suppoesedly "dreaming of pizza".
"SHREDDER'S NEW SWORD" GETS A: 2/5 RATING.
