For those that didn't follow the series to its conclusion back when it was on, the green machine stopped Shredder and Krang back at the end of Season Eight, but with that duo out of their way, the turtles found a new foe in an alien ruler by the name of Lord Dregg. Season Nine ends with Dregg being exposed to the world as an invader rather than an extraterrestrial philanthropist, like he appeared to be.
Unfortunately for the turtles, Season Nine introduced a new problem in runaway mutations that turned the four heroes into huge hulking and mindless monsters, but at least they gained a new friend named Carter who seems to have some mutation problems of his own. Well, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Final Season has to not only wrap up those storylines, but do it in eight episodes.
Needless to say, a lot happens in those episodes. Not only does Donatello develop a demutation ray that is supposed to fix all five of them, that would be the turtles and Carter, but it doesn't quite work on Leonardo. When the problem of their extra mutation is out of the way, Dregg decides to enlist the help of Shredder and Krang to stop the turtles. When Dregg frees the villains, the duo turns on Dregg and decide to put in place their own plans.
Unfortunately, it seems that all of this plays right into the alien's plan as he eventually captures the turtles and the series' earlier enemies and plans to not only steal their abilities, but their life force as well.
With the help of one of Donatello's machines, Carter calls for help from some friends from the future so that they can get the turtles from a few years back. The idea is to not only have some more fighters to help with the problem, but to also help rejuvenate the present-day Ninja Turtles when they are broken out of Dregg's cells.
What follows is a few episodes where two sets of turtles run around doing twice as much damage, not to mention plenty of jokes between each turtle pair about how they think alike. This is usually apparent when past-Michelangelo talks to present-Michelangelo.
Like I said, a lot happens in eight short episodes, but the series wraps up nicely and puts a pretty little bow on the overall storyline. That's not all Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Final Season has to offer though. It not only contains interviews with three of the cartoon series' animators, but bonus episodes that were not included in the Season Five DVD release. These would be the episodes "Once Upon a Time Machine" and the hour-long special "Planet of the Turtleoids." The first of those episodes had Krang finding a hole in time and sending Shredder to the future in order take control from there. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, along with their friend Hokum Hare, followed and teamed up with their much older, and out of shape, counterparts.
The other episode, what I believe was one of the last episodes I watched during the series' original run, has a race of alien turtles coming to Earth and trying to get help from the inhabitants to save their golden city of Shellri-La. This episode also introduced new characters like Groundchuck, a mutant bull; Dirtbag a mutant mole; and Chrome Dome, a robot Shredder builds.
Overall, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Final Season is a good DVD to wrap up one of the most iconic cartoon series from the 90's. Part of me feels like the show probably went on a couple of seasons too long, but 10 years is a nice round number. Fans who have been collecting the DVDs, or waiting for the last season to be released before diving into this collection, need wait no longer.
