The Games

The Galactic Guardians review their past battles, conclude that they should do the unexpected and use their position, and set out for the games on Rintor. Spinwit, running late, answers a distress call from an asteroid that proves a Mutant lure, and three creatures set on him while the others wait for him. At the games, the first contest has each team guarding its own exit while trying to escape; the Guardians plan a surprise, but the Mutants post a man outside the hatch and win it. A second contest follows, then a final hunt for a hidden golden ring, and the Mutants end up beaten. Caz is offered pills and is told to say no.

Caz says someone offered him pills that would make him feel good, and the closing lesson is that anyone offered pills should say no, then tell their parents or someone they trust; you have the power to say no to drugs, and He-Man adds that Caz can talk it over with Drissi or with him.

What happens to a team that has just agreed to do the unexpected when the other side springs the unexpected first? "The Games" lets the Galactic Guardians learn that lesson the hard way, and the irony of it, that their own maxim is turned against them in the first contest, gives the half hour its shape. The opening reuses footage from an earlier story, and the talk afterward turns to a plan to tunnel under the enemy, which one Guardian likes, while Flipshot is reminded that the Mutants will not give them time out when they meet at the games.

The reviewing of past battles is the point of the opening scene: the Guardians conclude that they should do the unexpected and take advantage of position, and Flipshot is told that this matters most when it comes to the games. It plants a rule the rest of the script can test. Then comes a small comedy interlude about Spinwit, who has been delayed on an assignment in another galaxy and has lost a day repairing his gyro, and who is only just on time for the rendezvous when a mayday arrives from an asteroid.

Spinwit is the best thing in the episode. He answers the distress call because a Galactic Guardian has to, finds no ship, and is set upon by three asteroid creatures, while the Mutants who staged the call say that one less Guardian could change who wins the games. Spinwit, who talks of making repairs with his tool kit once he has lost his attackers, and who remarks that he senses a new dance craze in the making when his spinning comes in handy, turns what could have been a plain ambush into a character piece. His friends, meanwhile, assume an ion storm is blocking his signal.

In plain words, the story is about the unexpected move, which works best for whoever makes it first. The first contest sets the Guardians and Mutants in a chamber with two exits; the Guardians may leave only through the roof and the Mutants only through the floor, and each team must guard its own exit while trying to escape. He-Man plans a surprise, shooting a snare line to pull his friends toward the hatch, while Slush Head asks what the signal word is and is told by Flogg to shut up. Yet the Mutants win, because someone is posted outside the hatch, and when Flipshot cries foul he is told that the hosts did not say it was forbidden. The Guardians have been outplayed, and the script treats that fairly.

The weakness is the middle. The second contest is introduced in a few lines, the winner being the first team to get all members across, and it passes with a few remarks as the teams cross, so the sequence that should lift the tournament feels like a bridge to the finale. The final contest, a hunt for a hidden golden ring, is better, with a Guardian reasoning that if you had something important to hide you would keep it close to you, and suspecting the hosts, Roika and Maldon, of holding it.

Skeletor's blast shakes the hosts, the Mutants trade blame, and by the end the Mutants are beaten and the Guardians accept an invitation to a victory celebration.

The closing safety lesson is a serious one. Caz says he is confused, because someone offered him pills that would make him feel good, and he is told to talk it over with Drissi or the speaker, to say no, and to tell his parents or someone he trusts.

Verdict: a lively, well-paced chapter of the final run, kept aloft by Spinwit and a lesson the Guardians have to relearn on the spot.

1. Edit history: The He-Man wiki says the opening scene reuses footage from The Sheriff of Gorn City, showing the defeat of Tri-Lock and The Ugly Bunch.
2. Continuity: Meliac, Tri-Lock and The Ugly Bunch all appear only in that flashback here, and the He-Man wiki lists it as their last Jetlag appearance.
3. Edit history: Per the He-Man wiki, the background cel of the Mothership bridge is missing at one point, leaving the Mutants floating over a plain purple background.
4. Edit history: The He-Man wiki spots a continuity slip in the first challenge, where Skeletor is pulled down from the top hatch and then briefly seen standing inside it again.
5. Behind the scenes: The closing moral has Caz offered pills and He-Man telling him to say no to drugs, according to the He-Man wiki.
6. Voice cast: Mark Hildreth voices Caz and Ted Cole voices Slush Head and Spinwit, per the He-Man wiki cast list.
7. Continuity: The He-Man wiki points out that Adam of Grayskull does not appear in this story, and a separate wiki page disambiguates it from the Filmation episode of the same name.