BRIEF STORYLINE: Raphael is analysing a videotape of previous scuffles thanks to Donatello's new invention, the TurtleCam. Donatello notices a figure in the shadows featuring in the tapes. Raphael realizes he has seen the same face at their last 2 or 3 adventures. They decide to look for this strange person. In the meantime, in outer space, an alien warlord named Dregg sends his army minions, Techno Gangsters to Earth. Dregg's sidekick Hi-Tech, leads the army. They plan to rob the entire Earth's gold for Dregg's "master plan".
The Techno Gangster's spacecraft lands on Earth and blast their laser guns at the Federal Reserve Building, all of this unknown to the turtles.
The turtles luckily discover this new threat and fight them. However, things get in a muddle as the mysterious person arrives in his motorcycle and gets in the way of the turtles winning, to their annoyance. The Techno Gangster's escaped, and the turtles failed to find out the identity of the stranger in the end.
At the turtles home lair, another obstacle gets in the way as Donatello exclaims that their mutagen is becoming unstable and he is clueless what the result of this could be!
Before Donatello could go into details about this new mutagen crisis, the Intruder Alarm sounds and dash into the sewers, and discover the mystery man sneaking about!
The turtles fend off the stranger's suprisingly good martial arts moves, and soon learn he is a teen called Carter and is looking for sensei Hamato Yoshi, so he can master the technique of the Foot Clan.
To the turtles shock, Splinter agrees to enlist Carter as a willing student, but only if he can obey the "Code of Ninja Honor", no matter the temptation to go against its teachings and rules.
On Dregg's domain of the Dreggnaught spaceship, he digests his first failure on Earth in his stride and reconstructs his "master plan". This time he intends to use the less technogically advanced Earthling's weapons onto themselves.
Taking place at the Capcor skyscraper, April is present at the unveiling of a vision for the future of law enforcement. They are 2 robotic cops, "The Intimidators", who can detect criminal activity. But Dregg, somehow makes them change into unlawful killer robots.
April gets in contact with the turtles who leave Carter at the lair with strict instructions not to mess about with anything in Donatello's lab, especially the unstable mutagen. The TMNT get down to business to the Capcor skyscraper.
Michaelangelo uses the TurtleCam, which directly links to the sewers, so Carter could see the action from their POV.
Oh no, the turtles are flailing against "The Intimidators", Carter accidentally spilling unstable mutagen onto his hand and still bungle up the turtles attempts to thawrt Dregg and the robots. Dregg is winning, how will Carter and the turtles deal with Dregg now on Earth in his huge floating platform on the verge of conquering the Earth? Also there's the danger for Carter and the mystery of the powers of this new villain, Lord Dregg!
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: Quite an interesting and significant episode. Being that, it involves the first appearance of Carter, Lord Dregg, Hi-Tech & the Techno gang. It doesn't get off to a great start, but way the episode begins, it starts with a unique viewpoint from the perspective of Donatello, of him going up the stairs, with a close-up of them descending.We then see our first peek at Dregg in space, the new major villain. A good opening between him and Hi-Tech. Dregg has a decent serious, prominent sinister voice but unlike Krang, it isn't as strange or as funny as his. The thing is, he sounds TOO serious. There is no balance of humour now from the bad & good sides now. It's all depending on Raphael and Michaelangelo now.
The mystery of the motorcycle riding, black helmet unsolved to the turtles adds intrique to this storyline.A good fight follows, between the turtles and the Hi-Tech gang, who are stealing gold from the bank.However as this storyline progresses, it gets silly because the man behind the black helmet is Carter, and likes and respects the turtles, kicks Raphael during that same fight! If it was accidental, they should've made that more clear!
One of the more awsome moments include the discovery that even though the turtles mutated all them years ago, another mutation could be due! Their mutations are becoming more unstable. This story however, takes a more centre stage role later on in this season and in the 96 Season more prominently(See my reviews for Season 10, 1996 when they are ready!).
The Capture of the black helmet mystery man "thug" who we find out is Carter, is badly edited, not very badly, but to some degree. The man is Carter, who become's the turtles new friend and accompanies them for many episodes to come. This quite big change made some TMNT fans cringe, while some would see it as a good thing, or some will just not care and are "hardcore" to the old-style TMNT animation where April would be hanging out in the sewers with them. Splinter seems to have been maybe trusted Carter a bit too fast, allowing him to learn Ninjitsu.
The crime-stopper robots called the Intimidators, seem to go haywire just like that ED robot from the Robocop movie in the same type setting of an office in a skyscraper. Stay tuned for another Robocop comparision later on in this season. It's one of the better moments though, but the action is...a mixed bag, with the ending improving on the beginning. One cool piece of action is Raphael throwing his Sai( 1 Sai that is) into a mini- laser, exploding it into nothing. The editing of the turtles finishing of Dregg and Hi-Tech is decent in every way.
Carter does bring an excitement to this episode, first being an enigma, then splashing mutagen on his hand causing him the burden of mutating into this yellow hulk with a mohawk, every now and again. His story and our knowledge about him progresses faster here than most of the other eps he appears in.
One humorous quote for you folks, from Raphael, near the end as two of the turtles falls on top of him, "You guys gotta lay off the pepperoni"! By the time of the ending, which is badly edited, you soon know that Carter will be staying around.
"THE UNKNOWN NINJA" GETS A: 3/5 RATING.
