Season 4, one of the most daring seasons of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, has been released on DVD. Well, most of it, anyhow. This set also contains the infamous banned episode, “Insane in the Membrane”.

Check out my full review for a break-down of the episodes!

And, of course, there’s “Insane in the Membrane”, the infamous banned episode. “Insane in the Membrane” was banned from US television for being so dark and grotesque. The plot has Baxter Stockman clone a new body for himself, but things go wrong, and he starts to decompose alive. The visuals are incredibly gruesome and pretty gory for a “kid’s show”. There’s even a scene where, after Baxter’s arm rots off, he reattaches it to the elbow with a hammer and some nails. But there’s more to the episode than just the excess gore. It’s a deep character piece for Baxter Stockman, looking into his troubled, lonely childhood where his only source of inspiration and compassion was his Mother, who died when he was still young. It’s very moving and adds an extra dimension to the villain who was previously just an annoyance. Definitely one of the strongest episodes in the set, if not the whole series; made me completely rethink my opinion on the character.