Dragon Eye of the Beholder part 1
First thing
of note, the opening credits. Yeah, there’s a reason you tend to avoid opening
credits in an opening episode, this gives away far too much that’s going to be
set up in the next 20 minutes.
We open in
prison, it’s feeding time and we’re introduced to one of the prisoners, Dagur,
the Bezerker Chief, he was the leading antagonist in Defenders of Berk. The
inhabitant of the nearby cell complains and Dagur uses his cunning to beat him
up. He is given a package, inside of which is the cell key which he uses to escape. There may be
guards but Dagur is clearly skilled and manages to take them out. Pretty sure
it’s Outcast Island he’s on, a major location from the previous series and home
of Alvin, the semi-reformed antagonist of Riders of Berk.
Speaking of
Berk, lets cut to our favourite Berkian, Hiccup, doing some flying with
Toothless, the animation is decent for TV quality but not at level of the films
for obvious reasons. He somehow falls despite usually being clipped to Toothless' saddle and
Toothless’ tail doesn’t seem to fold in, Toothless manages to catch him.
So, we cut
the usual Hiccup narration which gives us some character insight, it’s been 3
years since Defenders of Berk, so we’re close but not quite at 2 yet, Snotlout
is now a weapon’s tester, Ruffnut and Tuffnut have become pranksters, with
their usual sadistic style. Fishlegs is teaching young children and oh my god,
what have they done to you, Stoick? This new animation style isn’t very kid to
Stoick, I think it’s the hair, it’s also the voice as they have Nolan North
rather than Gerald Butler. He’s good, but the difference is noticeable. They
got Gobber’s actor right, so that’s something. And Astrid is struggling to get
a word in as Hiccup has noticed something, it turns out to be another Loki
prank courtesy of Ruff and Tuff.
Astrid
catches up and remarks that it seems like they’ve explored everywhere now and
she’s taking leave of their journeys to join the berk guard. Given that she’s
one of the main characters you can tell how long that’s gonna last.
Two Berkians
named Bucket and Mulch fall victim to another of the Nut’s pranks, but it seems
whilst hiding underwater to scare them they’ve picked up a straddler, Trader
Johann, he’s exactly what the name suggests. Hiccup is about to talk to his
father when Tuff and Ruff bring him in, he tells them about Dagur’s escape and
how he wants revenge on Hiccup.
Hiccup
briefs the riders, but they don’t have a lot to go on, thankfully Johann soon
awakens and reveals that on his ship, is a map to a ship graveyard in a fog
bank on the edge of the archipelago. It’s a place where Johann stores his
wares, apparently. He also warns them against boarding a ship called the Reaper
as it’s filled with booby traps.
The riders
decide to fly together, fanning out upon arrival. Dagur doesn’t appear to be
here yet, so the group decide to steal Johann’s wares to stop Dagur from doing
so. Unfortunately Meatlug had earlier scared some eels and the Dragons are
scared off. They’re not small eels either, what have they been eating? Toothless manages to save Hiccup but the eels
begin dragging the ship down, Astrid falls into the water and scares off the
eels, with Hiccup coming to get her out.
With the
eels gone, they revert back to their plan, whilst Hiccup, the only one with a
dragon, decides to go to the one ship they were told not to visit. Ruffnut and
Tuffnut find jewels and gold, and begin stuffing it in Ruff’s mouth the carry
it home. Fishlegs stumbles upon books, scrolls and maps, much to his
excitement. Snotlout finds hair… and then uses it to impersonate some of the
others…
…
Back with
Hiccup, he is saved by Toothless from a booby trap, gets his metal leg caught
in a bear trap, finds cages filled with dragon bones and sets off some arrows.
They find some kind of telescope which will be the crux of the plot moving
forward. Hiccup grabs it, with more traps being set off, but he ant Toothless
avoid them as they get to the surface, only to find Dagur waiting for them.
It’s revealed he managed to capture the others, he takes the telescope.
He departs
but when Hiccup tries to pursue, he fires a catapult shot that scuttles the
other ship, leaving his friends to drown, ending the episode
It’s a
pretty good start, setting up ongoing stories and giving you an insight, less
about where the characters are going but where they currently are.
Rating 8/10
Dragon Eye of the Beholder part 2
Hiccup
naturally goes over to save his friends but it’s revealed the cage they’re
locked in is dragon proof, making matters worse is the eels have made their
return, Toothless provides them with cover fire as the others call for their
dragons. The ship tilts to a 90 degree angle, stopping Hiccup’s attempts to
open the cage. The falls opens it for them, but now they’re hanging on to avoid
the eels, the dragons arrive just in time to save them.
Hiccup
orders the others back to Berk as he rather easily tracks down Dagur and
recovers the telescope. Why he didn’t order a full frontal assault if he could
do that I don’t know. They take the telescope, now named the Dragon eye to
Gobber, who has no idea what it does. But they do discover it has defences that
prevent it from being tampered with, first a blow-dart, and second some
paralysing gas, both of which affect Tuffnut.
They take
him to Gothi, a minor character who was present in the movies but didn’t really
have a character. She a mute who talks through her staff. She cures Tuffnut
then notices a keyhole on the device matches a bite-mark she got. Wanting more
info, Gobber prepares her some Yak Noodle Soup, her weakness.
She was part
of an expedition on Glacier Island searching for pure water for its healing
properties. They were hit by a snowstorm and were attacked by a dragon, a Snow
Wraith. It killed her fellows but not her for some reason. Hiccup asks Gothi to
help him and she eventually concedes.
They arrive
at Glacier Island and a snowstorm soon hits. Meanwhile Gobber is performing
some comic relief as the village healer. The storm worsens and the snow wraith
attacks. It appears to see by body heat. Toothless uses his sonic attack that
he never uses in the films to scare it away but noticing how things went down
gives Hiccup a plan.
They
construct decoys and have Toothless set them ablaze to act as a decoy, it seems
to work until Hookfang lights up and traps them inside an ice cave, Toothless
and Hiccup make it out before they collapse, and hide within the flames. Gothi
also somehow got out and begins whacking the snow wraith with her staff, to
Hiccup’s confusion.
Hookfang
provides a rescue for the others as they surround the snow wraith, it flies
away but Gothi tells Hiccup she got a tooth on her staff. They return to Berk
where I’m sure people are happy to have Gothi back. Inserting the tooth doesn’t
seem to do anything at first, but later the telescope lights under Toothless’
flames.
The defeat
of Dagur came perhaps a little too easily but it doesn’t entirely negate what
is a pretty strong episode.
Rating
7.5/10
Imperfect Harmony
Hiccup shows
his discovery to the other riders, Fishlegs in particular finds it interesting,
as it contains symbols they don’t recognise and islands beyond the archipelago.
Hiccup shows it to the chief and his council. Spitelout objects to this being pushed
further fearing that the consequences would find their way to Berk but Stoic
advises that there’s no way they’re going to stop Hiccup so they might as well
support him
And support
him they shall, as the Riders head off and fly for many hours, through a storm
(briefly) and into the new world, they hear a strange sound and the dragons are
being pulled towards it. The island seems lovely but when they wake up, they
find that the sound has stopped but all their dragons are gone.
Toothless
soon finds them and is anxious to show them something, even attempting to drag
Hiccup along by his foot, although it detaches before he can go very far.
Hiccup and Toothless are about to fly up and investigate when the others are
attacked by a Thunderdrum. They scare it away and it’s decided they’ll approach
on foot.
They
discover a bunch of dragons in the clearing, all encased in amber. They soon
realise the new dragon, who they name the Deathsong, uses its call to lure
dragons to the island, where he captures them in amber and then eats them. They
find their dragons but the Deathsong finds them, only Hiccup escapes and he
falls down a hill into the path of the Thunderdrum
Hiccup
manages to work out that because the Thunderdrum is partially deaf, it’s immune
to the call of the Deathsong and uses that as a weapon against him. With the Deathsong distracted, Hiccup needs to free the others, the amber seems to
harden when cooled so Hiccup uses the remaining monstrous nightmare gel that
Snotlout prepared to soften it up. He lights it up, freeing both man and
dragon.
Hiccup
manages to lure the Deathsong away from the island into a less populated one.
The trio fly away, with Astrid suggesting they need a base out here as it’s too
far to go back to Berk.
It’s a good
introduction of a new dragon, the first of many we’ll see over the course of
the next few seasons
Rating
7.5/10
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