BRIEF STORYLINE: Baxter Stockman and Shredder fail again in their attempts to destroy the turtles. Shredder contacts Krang for more help. Krang allows mutants Bebop and Rocksteady to go through the portal to Earth. Krang has more news, he needs someone to go back to the Technodrome, so Shredder takes no time in sending the annoying Baxter back through the portal. Unknown to anyone, a fly also passes through the portal as well. Krang cruelly throws Baxter into the Disintegrator Chamber, and the fly squeezes through as well. A large blast of energy happens and the DNA of Baxter and the fly merge together. Baxter is now half human, half-fly, and now becomes Baxter the Fly! He breaks out of the Chamber, and somehow signals the portal and returns to Earth.
April gets sent an odd looking bouquet of flowers. There is no evidence of who sent her it, but she assumes the turtles have delivered these flowers. She goes to their lair, convinced the flowers were the turtles. As soon as Splinter sees the plant, he is alarmed and grabs it off her, and throws it away. Splinter worringly asks if April had sniffed the flowers and she replies "yes". She faints immedietely afterwards. Splinter explains all when the turtles returns to the lair, that April was sent a rare Doku plant, originating from the Far East, whose scent can lead to death! Splinter needs the leaf of a Gazai plant to make an antidote. The turtles then hurry to a nearby plant nursery that specialises in rare, exotic plants. However, Baxter the Fly is onto them, and attacks them, who are partly to blame for his misfortunate accident. The turtles escape his fury and head back down to the sewers, and the quest for the Gazai plant goes on...
Baxter the Fly then targets the other figure of blame, Shredder, for revenge. Shredder manages to convince Baxter, that it's really the turtles who are fully responsible for his mutation. Baxter then goes back to his previous goal of destroying the turtles.
It's a severe race against time to save April from death, as the turtles must find the Gazai plant. Where can it be? Shredder, Baxter the Fly, Bebop and Rocksteady stand in their way!
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: A commendable episode, and quite an important one too, as we see the handing of the Shredder's minion's torch from Baxter Stockman to Bebop and Rocksteady. Baxter was never really Shredder's assistant again. The episode starts well, including Shredder and Baxter on top of one of the twin towers in another failed mission and the scene when Shredder gets rid of Baxter through the portal to Dimension X on the ship of junk.
Krang's cruelty leads to Baxter almost vapourizing in the chamber, which is very well animated, with a nice effect of Baxter vapourizing. Good high-impact action when the turtles come across Baxter the Fly, and nice choice of viewpoints, such as a close-up of Baxter's body swooping down to reach the turtles with his laser gun.
The struggle between Shredder and Baxter on top of a skyscraper, along with the "replacements" Bebop and Rocksteady is not up to much action-wise, and weak, whic leads to Baxter getting fooled by Shredder to ally with him again.
Another unique viewpoint we witness is what Baxter see through his fly eyes, different from human vision with the picture he sees multiplied and smaller. So it gives you a feel that Baxter is a nasty predator for the turtles.
One of the coolest scenes we see is Donatello escaping with the Gazai plant and giving Shredder a flying karate kick. The action just seemed to be more hard-hitting in earlier seasons like this!
Other highlights of this episode is Bebop and Rocksteady not knowing what a cretin is, Shredder's nickname for them. A good long chase sequence, as the turtles climb up a building to get to the Turtle Blimp, and leads to the blimp pilot car schreeching back to Earth in a very good cliffhanger. The final battle is sharply edited as Baxter is zapped by the Electrode posts and disappears.
The episode ends in memorable fashion with the somewhat strange comment Michaelangelo makes, referring to the Gazai plant he has diced up as a new ingredient for his pizza, with "gazai in your eye"!
"ENTER THE FLY" GETS A: 3/5 RATING.
