BRIEF STORYLINE: Burne Thompson sends April into his prestigious head office to register her a new news story. There's some strange behaviour going on at Cybertech Laboratories where "some weird character hanging around". Mr Thompson is sure he must a friend of "April's turtles". April is unhappy with this judgement and assures him, whoever it is, is no friend of the turtles. She goes right there with a handy mini-cam.
Lower down, in the turtles lair, Donatello is showing off his new fabulous invention, the Super Pizza Maker. The other turtles are amazed by the speed of it's pizza-making. However, when it upgrades to high gear, the machine malfunctions and explodes causing loads of pieces to fly everywhere in the room. One of them bruises Leonardo. During this, April contacts them from Cybertech Labs via her Turtle Com. The bad news is Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady are up to their old tricks again. Splinter decides to join the turtles. April secretly films Shredder and the 2 cretins from high up on the rafters. However, she loses her cover, and Bebop and Rocksteady travel up the ladders to go get her.
The moment when the 2 mutants have April cornered, the turtles and Splinter are here to rescue their fair maiden. The turtles deal with the 2 mutants, and Splinter handles punishment to Shredder. However, Bebop and Rocksteady run free fro the turtles grasps and go crazy with the laser guns, causing Cybertech's computers to malfunction. At this same moment, Splinter and Shredder are thrown into these transporter platforms. Rays of energy hit them causing pain and an enormous transformation - Splinter's mind is in Shredder's body, and Shredder's mind is in Splinter's body, all this unknown to everyone else at the scene. So it's evil Splinter and good Shredder now.
Evil Splinter thinks this is his chance to eliminate the turtles and find out the trail to their lair and destroy them at the least unexpected of times. Good Shredder has to be convincing to a concerned Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady. Will either side find out their ally is not really with them, outside of their own bodies? Ah, the old switcheroo trick, eh?
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: Average episode. It gets off to a spluttering start with flimsy editing. Unusual to see April and Irma appear first in an episode. Makes a change. Despite the lack of quality, a quite funny line from Irma as April hastily has to to leave, "hey, i haven't finished complaining about men yet!".
Michaelangelo's twist (or massacre)on the language of English comtinues, with a funny "primo to the extremo", when he sees Donatello's new pizza-making machine. I think the primo he is refering to is the one that it is German for "brilliant". There's not-so-solid editing when the pizza machine is going out of control.
When Splinter is injured, but wants to go with the turtles on another mission to stop Shredder, and Leonardo shows concern towards his sensei, you know something bad is going to happen to him. It's predictable.The action at the warehouse with the strange-looking device is quite good. A good addition of originality when Shredder and Splinter get the bodyswapping laser drilled into their head, they use a split-screen, a nice effect. However, the editing isn't greatly smooth.
The "bodyswapping" storyline has been done tons of times, in films and on Tv. However, it's interesting and amusing to see how the 2 voice actors James Avery(normally voice for Shredder) and Peter Reneday(always voice for Splinter) give their interpretation of Shredder and Splinter.
It doesn't take long for the guy on both sides to realise Shredder and Splinter have changed. Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady have the funniest reaction. Bebop and Rocksteady are surprised Shredder says "thank you" to them, and Krang thinks he has gone strange. Also Bebop doesn't realise the significance of him telling "Shredder got hit by some funny laser". One of the better scenes is when Krang check's the new good-guy Shredder's brainwaves. Throughout the episode we hear Splinter/Shredder's thoughts in the other one's head. The real Splinter thinks he can match Shredder's brainwave with his mind powers to not be detected. That seems illogically impossible. But this is a cartoon and the Obi-Wan Kenobi-style mind tricks prevail.
It seems even though it's Splinter as Shredder, he still can't bear Bebop and Rocksteady. Quite sad for them who must feel unloved. The action between the turtles and Bebop and Rocksteady in the alleyway is average. One silly thing or error is the way the turtles react to the transportation module appearing. They act like it's the first time they ever saw it, but they have seen it before in previous episodes this season.
When the turtles are forced to train because of evil Splinter, there is at least one very bad edit in this action scene and not very good at all. There's another silly moment, when good Shredder is surprised to see Bebop and Rocksteady following him into the warehouse, when Krang told good Shredder to take them with him. Duh! The action at the end is quite pleasing, especially when Michaelangelo throws his Ninchukas at Bebop and Rocksteady, which knocks their laser guns out of their hands.
The editing at the end for our green heroes is bad but intriquing at the very, very end when Splinter, back to his normal self, orders the turtles to do housekeeping duties just like the evil Splinter did, confusing the turtles. Don't worry folks, it was the real Splinter. This episode in general, is a little disappointing.
"THE OLD SWITCHEROO" GETS A: 2/5 RATING.
