However, one of the primary shows I reme-
...
...okay, just making sure we're actually doing this.
Mighty Max was awesome in the day, and I'm reminiscing, so join me for the ride.
We open in what's either the largest lake ever or somewhere in the ocean. A large oil freighter travels under the moonlight, when suddenly a tentacles emerges from the inky darkness of the sea and lands on deck, quickly pulling the freighter down.
Current Casualties: ...well, hold on, maybe they got life boats out somehow. I'm going to hold off on this for a bit, because we only ever really see one person on deck...but someone has to be steering and others have to be below decks...
We'll come back to this.
We jump cut over to cartoon football, where the only acceptable way of dealing with whoever has the ball is to pretend you're in the WWE and jump onto them chest first with your arms raised up like you're the world's most acrobatic mugging victim. It seems Max is trying out for the football team, and a "special play" sends him running down to the end zone just in time to catch a long pass and fall through a portal.
So, um, does everybody know he's the mighty one? Because the guy who was about to tackle him (and wound up smacking his head on the goal post) might wonder where he went...as would the rest of the team and the coach, for that matter. Also, why does Max wear his hat under his football helmet?
Max winds up in Scotland, and Virgil admits to diagramming the play that the coach implemented. A great evil is rising in the world (see what I did there?) and Max is needed to defeat it. Minus his football gear, of course, that will just have to stay behind in Scotland, because schools have extra money floating around, right?
It's also a bit disturbing that Norman and Virgil keep around a spare set of clothes for Max to change into.
Our heroes plunge into the large body of water where the oil tanker was...and float aimlessly. It seems "destiny" forgot to mention that their ride was going to be dragged below the surface of the sea. Fortunately, an oil tycoon in his own private experimental submersible stumbles upon them and picks them up, no questions asked.
No, seriously, an oil tycoon, who happened to own the missing oil freighter and other oil freighters that went missing, owns an experimental submarine to use to search for sunken ships.
And it looks like this:
And it has enough juice to taser a shark as big as it that tries to smash it in two.
Oh, and the tycoon isn't willing to rule out aliens stealing his oil, so he comments that if he finds nothing, he'll just have to build a spaceship and look in space.
I can't tell if this is awesomely ridiculous or ridiculously awesome.
Now, if you're thinking that "any oil tycoon willing to build an experimental submarine and/or spaceship is off his gourd," you'd have the same thought process as our heroes...but there's not really anywhere they can go for the moment, so they play along.
After some time travelling along the bottom of the ocean (take that, James Cameron), they come upon an entire ship graveyard at the bottom of the ocean, and the tycoon is quick to point out which ones belong to him. He's angry enough to "give whoever did it what for", but it seems all the money in the world isn't going to help when the tentacles surface again and grab the ship.
Oh, right, the count. Well, a quick Google search seems to indicate that the average crew of an oil tanker is about "20" and while the tycoon does identify two ships, I'm not going to count the one we didn't see go down.
Current Casualties: 32
Remember how last time I complained the body count wasn't jumping enough? That'll teach me.
So it turns out (big surprise) that the ship is being attacked by a giant squid. Fortunately, Max is able to trigger the massive electrical attack before they end up crushed, but while the tycoon thinks that'll be enough, Virgil is quick to point out that creatures that size tend to have complex nervous systems allowing for rapid recovery. Sure enough, two seconds later, we get stock footage of the submarine being caught again.
So in other words, the last action scene was pointless.
The squid is now completely resistant to electrical shocks (Pokemon lied to me, that was not "super effective") but Max is able to come up with a brilliant plan: Throw the submarine into reverse and high-tail it out of th- wait.
Can submarines do that? I- but- that- ...oh, right, "experimental."
The guys try hiding the submarine in a tanker that already sank, but (and I kid you not) the squid is able to punch through it like a hammer through a soda can. And it smashes apart what looks like a Spanish galleon simply by plowing through it. Must be rotten wood.
Finally, the good guys are able to take shelter in a cave. They seem to be stuck since they have no idea if there's another way out, but the sudden arrival of land (again, do things like that exist in the ocean?) tells them it's time to explore...especially since it's not just land but an underground city. Filled with squid people.
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| I fully expect Zoidberg to show up any minute now. |
Oh, right, the episode. So the tycoon starts accusing the squid folk of sinking his ships, and the squid folk respond appropriately: shoot ink and run. The heroes follow, and they are led to an old temple where the ruler cowers behind a throne. Max tries to establish relations, and it turns out that the squid people speak English because of course they do.
Okay, to be fair, they do address this in the show. Apparently all that junk people throw away makes its way down to the bottom of the ocean (when it doesn't create new land masses between us and Japan) and they've spent generations figuring out our language from bottles, cans, and other debris like some horrible Rosetta stone.
Of course, we're dealing with squid people here, so I think I can suspend my disbelief that far.
It turns out the squid people have been prisoners in their own town for almost a millennium. Max tries to talk the squids into facing the giant monster head on (large, bulbous heads at that), but the squids have possibly the best counter-argument I've ever heard:
"But it'll eat us."
...you just can't really fight that logic.
However, it turns out the squid is attracted by light. This leads the tycoon to think he can simply get away by turning off his lights and piloting blind. At the bottom of the ocean. In a cave system. Fortunately, Max is able to get aboard before the only possible escape vehicle leaves them all behind, but isn't able to stop the tycoon in time to avoid plowing into a wall and collapsing the opening into a giant cave opening, allowing the giant squid to enter.
So, yeah, Max and the tycoon are stuck under a pile of rubble. This leaves it up to Norman, who is able to get the squid's attention (as it crawls across the land? Say what?) with a "street lamp" (read: luminescent fish in a glass container) and lures it back out to the water where it crashes into the wall and winds up freeing the submarine.
Max starts piloting the submarine over to the oil tanker, figuring they can blow up the tanker and take the squid out with it using the submarine's electric shock. I have no idea if that would work or not, but somehow I doubt Mythbusters would be willing to investigate.
The squid overtakes the submarine, but the sudden appearance of the squid people attacking it (you all knew it was happening) gives Max and the tycoon (I'm still not sure what his name is) enough time to get to the tanker. They trigger the electric shock as the squid shoots down, there's an explosion....and, well, somehow the sub survives. The squid people are free! ...to, um, meet other humans, become exploited, and have their home destroyed, I guess?
The sub surfaces back at the, well, surface, and fortunately there's a portal right off the side allowing Norman, Virgil, and Max to high-tail it while the tycoon protests because he'll need their help to confirm the story actually happened. Oh well.
The episode ends with Max giving some biological data about squids and giant squids and how they make keen hunters. Good stuff.
The Good:
While I'm not quite sure it's "planet-level" in scope, it was pretty cool to see them face a rather gigantic monster. The introduction of the squid people felt a bit forced, but it's not like this show hasn't gone into Cthulhu-level weirdness before, and introducing those weird mind-eating things from Dungeons & Dragons isn't that big a leap.
It's a fun little adventure underwater, just not too imaginative (as evidenced by the title card).
The Bad:
I found myself questioning "wait, how would that work?" a lot in this episode. I'm not sure how durable submarines are, but the one the good guys were in took a real pounding with little to no permanent damage.
The only real problem is that the action was limited to a submarine going forwards and backwards while battling a squid, the only real "combat" came from Norman waving a lamp post around and Max getting into a scuffle with the tycoon over whether they fight or flee. While I approve of any action, seeing a teenage boy beat up the world's most stereotypical oil tycoon who isn't from the Middle East just isn't that entertaining.
Overall:
Not great, not terrible...it just didn't really contribute much besides showing how there really is no corner of the world where the "Mighty One" isn't needed. There was no character growth, no real story besides "show up, freak out, save the day" and half the story could have been omitted. I think we'll get into something better next time.
Next time we have ocean zombies. Oh, and the return of Tim Curry.
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