By the third instalment of ThunderCats, the pulse is beating a little less urgently. Berbils is, at best, a competent twenty minutes or so of work, and at worst, the sort of thing you watch with one eye while wondering if the animators had their second coffee that morning. The new arrivals, the Ro-Bear Berbils, wobble onto the screen like mascots from a rejected breakfast cereal. At first glance you expect them to be the comic-relief stooges who exist only to fall over, but Leonard Starr resists the easy gag. They are not simply squeaking clowns, but earnest little mechanised Quakers who bring with them both a moral compass and a much-needed food supply for our human-feline heroes.
If the episode itself never threatens to linger in memory, it is partly because the Berbils would later become so familiar that their debut has the feel of déjà vu. Still, some useful machinery is cranked into motion. This is where we first see the ThunderTank, and where Tygra whips out the architectural blueprints that will one day be the Cats’ Lair. It is also where the ThunderCats begin the slow crawl from refugee status towards something like civilisation, complete with allies, rations, and a workforce that volunteers for servitude with unnerving cheerfulness.
The early episodes, one suspects, were shackled by their obligation to build foundations. As a result, action is stacked up like plates at a buffet. In Exodus, the Mutants attacked in space, then again on Third Earth. In The Unholy Alliance, the Mutants popped back up, only to hand the baton to Mumm-Ra. Here in Berbils, we are treated to both Trollogs, Giantaurs and locusts. It’s as if Starr felt the audience would only stay put if assaulted from every angle. Later episodes would learn the wisdom of giving us just one story at a time, thus sparing the viewer the sensation of being force-fed two desserts and a steak at once.
And yet there are pleasures. Snarf and Lion-O are beginning to establish themselves as a double act worth hearing, with exchanges sharp and amusing enough to pass for wit rather than just plot filler. Lion-O himself is starting to look less like a boy in a man’s body and more like the man the boy might become. Starr even toys with us narratively, dangling the prospect of a Trollog bloodbath before pulling Lion-O back into restraint, thus suggesting a moral growth unusual in a programme that otherwise solves most problems with lasers and magic.
RoBear Bill: “Thank you, Lion-O. And please, thank your friends again too.”
Lion-O: “They're your friends too, RoBear Bill.”
Meanwhile, Mumm-Ra, that caped compendium of ham, surprises us again. Instead of dissolving into the usual tantrum, he retires to his sarcophagus almost grinning, as if defeat were simply another form of entertainment. A lesser villain wants only to win; Mumm-Ra, like the best operatic baritones, relishes the fight itself.
So no, Berbils will never make anyone's top five list. And while Berbils isn't a stand out, it at least slots in. And in a series still laying down its mythic railway track, that counts as progress.
Next time: “The Slaves of Castle Plun-Darr”
