Story - Lee Yuro, Linda Yuro, Teleplay - Lee Yuro, Linda Yuro, Robert Lamb

Tom Sito

With She-Ra banished to the sixth dimension and forced to enact real-life arcade games thanks to an evil spell of Shadow Weaver's, and the other major members of the Great Rebellion captured, who is left to save the day? I hope you're sitting down and aren't in the middle of drinking any fluids that you could spit out in shock; because today's three courageous hearts belong to none other than Broom, Madame Razz, and Kowl!

Princess Adora (She-Ra), Queen Angella, Glimmer, Bow, Frosta, Castaspella, Broom, Madame Razz, Kowl

Shadow Weaver (mysterious girl)

various villagers, Spritina the Twigget, pink ghosts, Salistica, polar beast, librarian, tentacle monsters (darklings), Horde soldiers

wagons

It's everyone's favorite day of the year - the annual Trickster Competition, held at Castaspella's castle in Mystacor! What's that? It's not your favorite day of the year? You've never even heard of it? Well you're clearly not in the know with what's cool in Etheria, so you'll have to stand in the back of the castle hall with all the peasants! From there, you can watch as the rebellion's greatest compete in feats of strength and magic. Ready to show off their talents are Queen Angella, Glimmer, Bow, and Frosta. Outside in the open air, however, stand Broom, Madame Razz, and Kowl, who may be considering testing their mettle within. A mysterious young girl, happening upon the trio, quickly demolishes them with a few insulting words about their lack of ability and courage, then dashes off. Princess Adora wanders outside just as the girl leaves, in time to hear how utterly demoralized Razz and her friends have become. Surely, announces Razz, they're useless, and shouldn't bother to even go inside! Even Adora's inspiring words, that true strength comes from the heart, can't convince them to stay, and the trio head back to the rebel camp.

Deciding she can buck up her friends' spirits later, Adora goes ahead and changes to She-Ra, then makes an impressive leaping entrance from a window into the main hall of Mystacor. Before she can perform whatever feat she's been planning, however, the mysterious girl from earlier approaches Castaspella and asks modestly if she can try out. The generous Casta agrees, and the girl waves her hands, casting a spell that quickly puts all the rebel leaders - including She-Ra - to sleep. Uh oh - that's no girl - that's Shadow Weaver! Cackling as she reveals her true identity, Weaver recites another spell that opens a hole under the prostrate She-Ra, declaring that our heroine is being sent to the "sixth dimension" - never to return!

Back in the Whispering Woods, the napping Kowl and Broom are awakened by the panicked Twigget, Spritina. She was on hand to witness the disaster at Mystacor and explains to the pair, along with an alerted Madame Razz, that all the rebels are captured, and She-Ra banished! Broom urges Spritina to try to remember the exact words of Weaver's banishing spell, and from the Twigget's clumsy recollections, Razz is able to guess that the magic words came from a "nameless glowing book." The best place to find such a thing, she decides, will surely be the library in the Valley of the Lost. It's a dangerous place, and the trio will have a long and treacherous journey to reach it; but as they see it, there is no other choice. These "three courageous hearts" are the only hope left for the Great Rebellion!

The trio's course leads them through the Freezing Mountains, where Razz's mixed-up spell saves them from a menacing polar beast by shooting them down a steep mountainside atop a conjured bed (instead of a sled). Having braved this danger, they reach the library, where an elderly librarian guides them to an ancient section of the building called the "inner library" that no one's bothered to search in centuries. It's a mess! There are piles of books everywhere, and dust coating everything. Our friend Broom can't have that - and a good thing, too. His sweeping of the floor uncovers a glowing book on the ground, which proves to be the "nameless" one they were looking for. But can Madame Razz read the ancient, dead language in which the book is written, and cast the spell correctly to get them to She-Ra?

And where is She-Ra, anyway? In the sixth dimension, where she's had to avoid electrified doorways, irritatingly loud pink ghost blobs, and a creepy stalker who calls himself Salistica. His name was part of Shadow Weaver's banishment spell, and he seems to be the ruler around here. Having spied on She-Ra as she used a hollow tube to direct the spray of a waterfall onto the ghosts and send them packing, he reveals himself to our heroine and invites her to a meal. As they sit at table, he explains that to get out of the dungeon-like place, she must complete the "third level," after which he will give her a key. He then vanishes with an evil laugh that is less than reassuring. With no other options, She-Ra moves onto level three, where she has to hop on floating platforms like some kind of Italian plumber, avoiding some tentacled blobs that look like rejects from the House of Shokoti (look it up, MOTU friends!). Having invented and championed the Etherian women's pole vault event to escape the creatures, she reaches the exit - but the jealous and sulky Salistica has changed his mind about giving her the key to the door.

That's okay - She-Ra has a key that she carries around everywhere. It's called her foot. She spin-kicks the giant iron door, knocking it down and frustrating Salistica no end. However, on the other side of the door is just more of the sixth dimension, and Salistica jeers that there is no escape - he plans on building a level four and five, and on and on, so she'll never be able to stop playing. Luckily, our heroine is saved from the lure of addictive gaming by our courageous threesome, who choose this moment to break through into the place from Etheria. Yes, it turns out that if she really tries, Madame Razz can recite a spell without screwing up any of the words! The friends have a joyful reunion, with She-Ra marveling at the bravery of her rescuers, and Kowl assuring her that it's a small return for all the rescuing She-Ra has done for them.

They fly their way out of the hole-like portal and somehow end up back in Mystacor instead of the Valley of the Lost (convenient), where a pair of Horde soldiers are waiting for a transport to carry the still-sleeping rebels to Beast Island. She-Ra soon convinces the troops they'd be better off elsewhere, and once they retreat, Razz works a mostly accurate spell to awaken the sleepers. The day is saved! As a reward for their brave deeds, Madame, Broom, and Kowl are announced the joint winners of the Trickster Competition, in a lovely award ceremony in which Castaspella drapes gold medals around all their necks. A nervous Kowl, who for some reason finds this public rite more horrifying than his adventures in the Valley of the Lost, collapses in a faint, to the great amusement of his friends.

• Mysterious girl (to Broom and Razz): With you two entering, everyone is sure to have a good laugh.
• Mysterious girl (to Kowl): And what feats of strength are you going to do, Mister Kowl? Well from what I hear, when the going gets tough, you get lost. (laughs, jogs off)
• Adora: Remember, the only true strength comes from the heart.
• Shadow Weaver: You are entering the sixth dimension. You fall into a place beyond time and space, never to return! (laughs, sighs)
• Madame Razz (loudly, and with renewed confidence): I can lead you! (immediately falls over on her face) / Kowl: We are in big trouble.
• Kowl: Who are we fooling? We can't save anyone; we have no strength! / Razz: Remember what Adora told us? "True strength comes from the heart." Now, if we believe in ourselves, we can do it!
• Kowl: You can read this ancient language? / Broom (aside): Uh, Madame is pretty ancient herself. / Razz (annoyed): I heard that.
• She-Ra: You risked your lives to save me. / Kowl: Just like you have risked yourself - time and time again - for us. But let's get out of here! I've used up my courage for the next three years!

• She-Ra runs at the viewer, bug-height: About to try to leap through a video-game-style electrified doorway; and later, as she runs through a doorway
• She-Ra spin kicks the viewer: To break down Salistica's iron door

One partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)

5:40 - Loo-Kee was being particularly sneaky today and trying to slip one past us. Usually only seen in still, establishing shots, today he sweeps by in a panning shot leading into the rebel camp of Whispering Woods. He can be seen high in a puffball-topped tree, in the lower portion of the screen, looking off to the right in the direction of the pan. (Loo-Kee will use this same hiding place in several further adventures: 67022, 67031, and 67043.)
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee attempts to convince us that we are already just as courageous as today's unlikely heroes. Remember that time you learned how to swim, or ride a bike? See?!

Hordak-less episodes in Season 1

• This is the only POP script given to us by the seemingly familial team of Lee and Linda Yuro (brother/sister? husband/wife? not sure). They are aided in their endeavors by MOTU/POP veteran Robert Lamb. You may remember him from such films as "Into the Abyss" (MU083), "Not So Blind" (MU101), or actually yesterday's episode, 67019's "Enchanted Castle."
• We return to Mystacor, site of yesterday's story (67019), and what you could be forgiven for thinking is just the continuation of that episode's big banquet and celebration. We're in the same cavernous hall, with another extra-long table lined with rebel big shots (and the less important rebels/villagers forced to stand in the background). But it turns out today's meeting is instead "Mystacor's Annual Trickster Competition," as Castaspella explains. You'd think that would make it some kind of prank-call contest, but it seems to be more of a talent show.
• Demonstrating a feat of strength, Broom shows himself capable of lifting Madame Razz with one twiggy hand! I suppose not all that surprising when you consider his regular duties involve carrying her around everywhere.
• Madame's Magic: In return for having been lifted without her consent, Madame briefly sprouts a flower out of the top of Broom's head.
• Our featured Twigget for today is Spritina, the only one of the little forest folk who appears to have been available to attend the Trickster Competition. Her first line, spoken in reaction to Shadow Weaver's appearance on the scene, sounds as if it's spoken by the wrong voice actor, or the correct voice actor pretending to be a boy instead of a girl. Her later dialogue sounds more typical.
• Kowl avoids capture: It's been a while since we've touched on this sub-category (67014). Kowl has appeared in a couple of episodes since then, and he hasn't been captured in any of them; but the real reason I created this sub-category was for occasions on which pretty much all the other good guys get captured, but Kowl gets away. This episode I feel fits the trend, since by leaving the Trickster Competition early with Razz and Broom, Kowl avoids being put to sleep with all the other rebels, and is thus around to help rescue them.
• Razz declares that the way to save everyone lies in the "Valley of the Lost." We were introduced to this Etherian location before, back in 67003. It was where Hordak wanted to transport the entire Whispering Woods, and for a very good reason: according to him, it's a place from which no one and nothing ever returns! Not exactly a hot vacation spot. We'll see this valley returning in later episodes, with ever increasing inconsistencies in treatment - the next time will be in 67044's "The Rock People."
• The basic outline of this story reminds me very strongly of MU019's "Quest for He-Man," in which Skeletor manages to ambush our title oaf, give him amnesia, and magically send him off to a distant and very strange alternate dimension. Here, Shadow Weaver does all those same things to She-Ra, omitting only the amnesia bit. Also as in MU019, three unlikely friends head off to attempt to rescue the lost main character - in the MOTU episode the party consisted of Cringer, Orko, and Ram Man.
• To plan their unlikely rescue, our three "courageous" adventurers spend some time looking at a map. We've seen rebels huddled around maps before in the series, but they're usually on too magnified a scale to be very informative or interesting to me. This one is a little more intriguing than usual, since it shows larger land masses and oceans (and is also decorated with a cute little spouting whale). As Kowl gestures over the map, he names one geographical feature, "the Freezing Mountains."
• She-Ra's visit to the sixth dimension continues to evince strange similarities to He-Man's trip to Trannis in MU019. The first living things He-Man met were some bouncy little pink critters called schminivits. They couldn't speak, but made noises and bounced all over and around him. The first living things She-Ra meets are some wispy little pink creatures that can't speak, but make a lot of noise and crawl all over her. On Trannis, He-Man eventually met a villain named Plundor, who was a pink bunny man. She-Ra's enemy, Salistica, also wears pink and also has pointy ears - though he's much stubbier in stature and, as I eventually realized, is more similar in character to another He-Man villain...
• The "polar beast" that Razz and her compatriots encounter, who seems oddly ill-suited to his surroundings (being gray-pelted rather than white), is a very familiar bear-like creature that we've seen before, on Eternia; it was the "grazzler" from which Fisto saved a young boy at the beginning of his origin story, MU070's "Fisto's Forest." (Thanks to Wiki Grayskull for refreshing my memory on this one!)
• Madame's Magic: To save herself and her friends from the polar beast, Razz conjures a "bed," when what she really wanted was a "sled." In the end, it seems to serve them just as well, if not better - often the case with Madame's spells.
• Salistica's talk of "third levels" and getting a key sounds very video-game-like. She-Ra's dash through a fluctuating electrified door at the beginning of her adventure also felt very much like an obstacle you'd encounter in a platform-style video game. Ah, it calls to mind one of my favorite He-Man villains, the great Negator (MU054, MU093), who also liked video games... You never can't not miss Negator!
• The tentacled, ball-shaped monsters She-Ra encounters on the third level are another very familiar creature, and I didn't need Wiki Grayskull's help to identify them: these are identical to the "darklings" employed by the evil witch Shokoti in the memorable second part of MOTU's only two-part story, "House of Shokoti" (MU041). Continuing the video game theme, the hopping chase She-Ra engages in to avoid them is reminiscent of the classic arcade game, Q*bert.
• Swiss army sword: Extending the range of objects her sword of protection can change into, today She-Ra converts it to a pole, so she can pole-vault her way over the darkling clones.
• Thanks to the Horde soldiers, we get another reference to Beast Island, which is clearly Hordak's go-to prison for rebels; it's been used to hold them in 67002, 67012, and 67014, and had its name dropped in 67016.
• Madame's Magic: It's a big day for Madame! At the end of the episode, she casts what I believe is her fourth spell of the day and rouses the sleeping rebels by accidentally "shaking" instead of "waking" them.
• She-Ra endures another adventure without her beloved steed by her side. Also missing from today's story is Hordak, marking his second absence in a row.

• Just wanted to note how thoroughly and concisely the disguised Shadow Weaver manages to wreck Broom, Razz, and Kowl. It only takes her like three sentences to completely demoralize all three of them. I think she's discovered a hidden, non-magical talent! Perhaps she should go into the recording studio and lay down some diss tracks on all her haters.
• Weaver puts everyone to sleep with her hand-gas spell... Everyone who's a main character in the series, that is. In the background, we see the entire regular population of Mystacor still awake and standing. You guys going to do anything to put a stop to this nonsense? No? Well, no wonder you didn't rate any chairs!
• I appreciate the appropriateness of Madame Razz being able to interpret Spritina's mispronunciation of Shadow Weaver's magic spell. That's her wheelhouse, right there!
• The grunting, howling sounds made by the weird little pink ghosts that She-Ra meets are quite horrendous. Whoever recorded them sounds like they peaked their microphone doing it.
• Our trio gets in terrible danger up in the Freezing Mountains; or rather, they get themselves into a glaring plot hole. Razz and the others are stuck at the top of a tall mountain with supposedly no way to get down, and a polar beast at their backs. Oh no! If only there were some way they could... fly! Like, on a magic flying broom! Like, the one that is standing right next to Madame, that she's constantly flying around on! Also, Kowl can fly... he does it all the time. Come on, Yuros! You at least could have added a line of dialogue to give some flimsy excuse for avoiding the obvious escape method, like "this cold weather makes Broom unable to fly"!
• Maybe it's just because he reminds me a little of Negator, but the villain Salistica really grew on me. He's a bit of a creeper, but I appreciate his love of video games, and I particularly like the way he teleports away by fragmenting into geometric shapes - very cool, and not a method we've seen used before for magical vanishings.
• Using the Valley of the Lost in today's episode, IMO, was another mistake by our writers. No one gets lost there, and - contrary to how it was billed in 67003 - leaving the place is so easy that Razz and the others' return journey is instantly accomplished through an illogical portal switch-up.
• You have to enjoy the irony of the two Horde soldiers claiming that Mystacor's castle gives them "the creeps," and they would much rather be in the Fright Zone.
• Castaspella's most impressive magic today is her ability to get the prize medal onto Razz's neck, somehow passing the small strap through the brim of Madame's gigantic hat.
• Broom's most impressive feat, perhaps more impressive than when he lifted Madame in the episode's beginning, is being able to keep his own medal on his virtually non-existent shoulders. He's a broomstick, for god's sake! How does he do it?
• Continuity error: The answer is, he doesn't. In the final scene where She-Ra is laughing with her three courageous rescuers, Broom's medal abruptly disappears.
• This episode had some problems, but it falls into the category of a magical and fantastical adventure, which I've found is my guilty pleasure in watching this series. I say "guilty" because you'd think the main purpose of most She-Ra stories should be the Great Rebellion attempting to free Etheria from the evil forces of Hordak - right? I mean, that's what the lady says in the beginning. But I like these side stories because they feel much more like He-Man episodes.