The Magic Falls

Skeletor sets two schemes running on the same clock: while King Randor holds one of his open audiences for Eternian citizens with a grievance, Evil-Lyn disguises Kobra Khan so he can slip into the palace, and Skeletor drains Orko's magic to keep him out of the way. Racing to undo the damage before the audience ends, Prince Adam and a powerless Orko set out for a waterfall said to restore what Skeletor took, only to find the way blocked by a cave guardian called the Gatekeeper. Neither one can get past it alone, and the episode's real lesson, as Man-At-Arms puts it afterward, is that combining two different abilities can do more than either one could manage by itself.

Man-At-Arms: "On their way to the Magic Falls, Adam and Orko discovered not only the secret of the Gatekeeper, but an important lesson as well. In the Gatekeeper's cavern, Adam was too far away to grab his sword, and Orko, without his magic, wasn't strong enough to pry it loose. But when they worked together, they combined their strength and got the job done. You don't have to be the biggest or the strongest when you help one another." (Orko is juggling eggs) Orko: "Cooperation. It's almost as good as magic. Oops!" (One egg has landed on Man-At-Arms' face) Man-At-Arms: "Sometimes, better."

John Erwin as He-Man/Prince Adam and Beast Man

Alan Oppenheimer as Skeletor, Man-At-Arms and Gatekeeper

Linda Gary as Evil-Lyn and Queen Marlena

Lou Scheimer (credited as Erik Gunden) as Orko, King Randor, Kobra Khan, Trap Jaw, Attak Trak, Town Crier, Magic Falls door, Royal Guard and Old man

Erika Scheimer as Cloaked woman in crowd

"Cooperation... it's almost as good as magic."

― Man-At-Arms

Take away a character's one trick and see what's left. That's the test "The Magic Falls" runs, and it runs it on the show's least-trusted regular. Orko spends most of his screen time as a punchline generator, so when Skeletor clamps a magic-draining device onto him and switches it off, it reads as more than a plot device. We're watching the episode ask whether there's a character underneath the sound effects.

The setup is pure Skeletor opportunism. King Randor is holding one of his open audiences, the day the palace gates open to any citizen with a grievance, and Evil-Lyn glamours Kobra Khan to look like one of them so he can slip inside while Orko is busy being neutralized elsewhere. It's tidy scheduling: two plots on the same clock, Kobra Khan easing toward the throne room while Adam and Orko race the opposite way, toward a waterfall that's supposed to undo what Skeletor's device did. The deadline is the same for both. Only one of the two plots ends up mattering.

That's because the Kobra Khan half never finds a complication worth dramatizing. He gets disguised, he gets inside, and the episode mostly just waits for Orko to come back and chase him off. In between there's not much beyond Man-At-Arms and King Randor standing around a hallway. A villain this patient needed a scheme with moving parts, or a scene where the waiting itself became the tension; "The Magic Falls" supplies neither, and an open-audience deadline that could have carried real stakes never goes much past a simple need for speed.

Where the episode earns its keep is the cave. Adam and Orko's route to the falls runs through a guardian the show calls the Gatekeeper, a reused monster design put to good use in low cave light, and the obstacle isn't a fight so much as a physics problem: He-Man's sword sits just out of reach, and Orko, magic-less, can't boost him the way he normally would. Neither one can solve it alone. The episode doesn't dwell on the point; it just shows two characters pooling what little they've got left and getting the job done, which beats the hallway stand-off back at the palace by a wide margin. It's also exactly what Man-At-Arms spells out over the closing narration: you don't have to be the strongest to help someone, only willing to show up.

J. Michael Straczynski's script knows what it's for and gets there efficiently. That's also its ceiling. The Attak Trak legs of the journey fill scenery more than they build incident, and once the falls do their work, Kobra Khan's unraveling happens almost instantly, as though the episode remembered its second plot only in time to close it out. Skeletor's scheme is functional at best. What actually holds "The Magic Falls" together is Orko's half of the story: a character built for comic relief, briefly stripped of the magic that makes him comic relief, finding out what he's good for regardless. Man-At-Arms gets a juggled egg in the face for his trouble, a fair punchline, and proof the episode never quite forgets to be funny even while it argues its case.

1. Behind the scenes: Script was approved July 3, 1984. The comical looking bird that interacts with Orko was designed by Harry Sabin.
2. Continuity: The cloaked woman who speaks to a disguised Evil-Lyn at the beginning of the story has the exact same facial features as Princess Adora. A statue of Skeletor that previously appeared in Song of Celice is visible in the background at Snake Mountain. The character model for the Town Crier was originally used as Tauron in Orko's Favorite Uncle and will be seen again as Nazghal in the She-Ra: Princess of Power episode Darksmoke and Fire. Kobra Khan's human disguise is a character model previously used in Dree Elle's Return.
3. More continuity: The animated sequence of He-Man beginning to spin was previously used in A Bird in the Hand. The design of the Gatekeeper is a reuse of the animation model of Zagraz, the Comet Keeper.
4. Animation errors and goofs: When Evil-Lyn returns to Skeletor's throne room, for a split second the background plate of his throne is visible without the council table, revealing an unfinished chair and brush strokes. Skeletor, Evil-Lyn and Kobra Khan are standing outside of Eternos looking toward the Royal Palace. The next shot is a reverse, but now part of the royal city is behind them instead of in front of them. Skeletor mispronounces Kobra Khan's name as 'Kobla Khan'.
5. A Straczynski-scripted magic-of-place script, with the show's resident comic relief carrying the episode's real stakes. Orko loses his one trick for most of its runtime, and what's left over is the point.