BRIEF STORYLINE: The turtles most triumphantly win a trip to Europe. However, the ride across the Atlantic Ocean is unattractive and unappealing, as they end up in a crate containing the Turtle Van. Once they arrive, they head for Paris, the capital of Paris, home of the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Meanwhile, Krang has constructed a giant electromagnet to yank the Technodrome free of the Dimension X asteroid they are marooned on. The game plan is, to use the Eiffel Tower as a giant antenna. The turtles and Splinter tour the somewhat different looking Paris sewers, which wasn’t exactly their dream tour of Paris. Funnily enough, April, Vernon and Irma are in Paris to cover the Bastille Day celebrations. Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady wire up the Eiffel Tower and switch on the electromagnet.However, things go wrong as the Tower pulls in everything except the Technodrome!
This causes mondo havoc. Can the turtles save April and friends from the heavy pull of the electromagnet? Can they destroy the power generator switch to stop this fierce, feisty mayhem in France? Or will the turtles turn to the “laissez faire” policy (feel helpless and do nothing)?
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: A Respectable introduction to the “turtles in Europe” episodes. Some of the adventures are more obvious or straightforward in these ones considering the country they are in. This is one of the obvious ones as they are in Paris and the Eiffel Tower plays a large part in the storyline. What’s good about this episode is we see the animator’s perception of Paris, with the nice looking backgrounds that are part and parcel of this cartoon. The start and endings both perform well, but it’s really some of the action scenes that are the weakest.
The “Le Magnifique” moments of this romp include when the turtles reach the Paris gallery and ponder over the world famous statues and paintings such as Mona Lisa, the turtles getting sea-sick while on the boat to Europe, the turtles coming out the Paris sewers then discovering that metals are attracted to the Eiffel Tower and the final test of character when the Eiffel Tower is getting towed away to Dimension X and Shredder seems victorious. Cowardly Vernon and the turtles pretending to be Notre Dame gargoyle statues are other highlights.
The worst or least quality moments include Splinter defeating the turtles in the Paris sewer when they are training, the turtles on the search for what is going on with metallic objects using a compass which gets knocked out of Donatello’s hands, which is badly edited. Also, there’s the Shredder escaping the rising Eiffel Tower. Not the best or the worst episode.
"TOWER OF POWER" GETS A: 3/5 RATING.
