Darkness on the Edge of Town

	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Season 1; February 8, 2003 - November 1, 2003; List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes
	Episodes: Things Change; A Better Mousetrap; Attack of the Mousers; Meet Casey Jones; Nano; Darkness on the Edge of Town; The Way of Invisibility; Fallen Angel; Garbageman; The Shredder Strikes, Part 1; The Shredder Strikes, Part 2; The Unconvincing Turtle Titan; Notes from the Underground, Part 1; Notes from the Underground, Part 2; Notes from the Underground, Part 3; The King; The Shredder Strikes Back, Part 1; The Shredder Strikes Back, Part 2; Tales of Leo; The Monster Hunter; Return to New York, Part 1; Return to New York, Part 2; Return to New York, Part 3; Lone Raph and Cub; The Search for Splinter, Part 1; The Search for Splinter, Part 2; Season 1 – Season 2 – Season 3 – Season 4 – Ninja Tribunal – Fast Forward - Back to the Sewer

“Darkness on the Edge of Town”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) episode
Season Code:	S01E06
Episode:	6
Original airdate	March 15, 2003
Written by	Marty Isenberg
Supervising Producer	Lloyd Goldfine
Producers:	Gary Richardson
	Frederick U. Fierst
	Al Kahn
	Norman Grossfeld
	Thomas Kenney
Supervising Director	Chuck Patton
Story Editor:	Lloyd Goldfine
Episode chronology
"Nano"	"The Way of Invisibility"

"Darkness on the Edge of Town" is the sixth episode of the 2003 TV series. It first aired on March 15th, 2003. It had 1.68 million views on the 4Kids website as of 2007.

Appearing in Darkness on the Edge of Town[]

Major characters[]

Minor characters[]

Foot Ninja and Foot Technicians
Police officers

Species[]

Objects and vehicles[]

Locations[]

Episode[]

Voice-over introduction[]

Donatello: "My name is Donatello, and right now I'm learning just how long I can hold my breath. That vibrocannon is seriously messing up the East River, if this keeps up, the whole South Street Seaport could go crumbling into the water. I'd be fascinated by the technology, if I wasn't otherwise occupied."

Oroku Saki training with his foot soldiers.

Don 5 — Don helps his brothers during a fight with the Foot.

Plot[]

The Turtles are in their lair, enjoying some extreme sports when the lights go out. Splinter suggests they go topside to investigate the problem. The Turtles notice that their whole side of town is out of power. Taking this opportunity, the boys take their extreme sports to the surface under the cover of darkness. While passing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they noticed some Foot Ninja breaking in. The Turtles followed them into the museum.

Once inside, they discover the Foot are trying to steal a sword. The Turtles try to get it back, but the Foot manage to escape with it after blasting them with the bizarre sword. Shortly after, the police arrive, forcing the Turtles to flee. They manage to grab an insignia from one of the Foot's uniforms. When they show it to Splinter, he immediately recognizes what it is. However, he chooses not to tell them and forbids them to look into further, before he goes into his room to meditate on the matter.

At Oroku Saki's palace, Saki is training with some Foot Ninja, whom he defeats with ease. Hun then enters and presents the sword to his master. The sword gives off a strange vibration that requires all, but Saki, to wear a glove when carrying it. After examining it, Saki tells Hun to bring it to the Foot Tech Division.

Meanwhile, the Turtles are hanging out in the lair when another power outage occurs. Donatello is able to track it to South Street Seaport. Reasoning that they were never told to not investigate the power outage, the turtles go to see what is going on.

Once there, Donatello introduces his brothers to his latest inventions: Night vision goggles and a mechanical flying Wind glider. Donnie tests it out and notices a cannon-like device using the sword as a power source as he flies over the East River. Once activated, the device vibrates and emits a beam that pushes water away, exposing the river's bottom. The Turtles decide to shut down the device. Unfortunately, Don gets too close to the beam and crashes into the river. He swims to the surface and lets his brothers know he's okay. Meanwhile, Leo, Raph, and Mikey run into Foot Ninja on the docks, as does Donnie when he finally gets out of the water.

As the Turtles battle, the Foot Technicians sweep the river bottom with the beam. When they found what they were looking for, they hauled it away in a helicopter. The technicians attempt to shut down the cannon, but the Turtles interrupt. A blocked laser causes the cannon to go out of control. The laser strays away from the water and the vibration causes nearby buildings to shudder violently. Don is able grab the sword using the metal Foot Ninja glove, but the laser begins to overload. The Turtles manage to escape from harms way as the platform the laser was on breaks and falls into the river where it explodes. Just then the police arrives on the scene, but not quickly enough for the boys The Turtles bring the sword back to the Lair where Splinter concludes that it is best for it to stay out of the wrong hands.

Saki is angry with his two technician when they return. The mechanical body they brought back is proof that his long-time enemy is in the city, but at the cost of the Sword of Tengu. The technicians explain that they were attacked by four strange creatures. Saki holds up the thermal image of the turtles from the Mouser, and the troops agree that they were the ones who took the sword. As the technicians are taken away by Hun as punishment, Saki vows to get rid of these "freakish thorns in his side" permanently.

Notes and errors[]

Despite airing over 18 months after the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers can clearly be seen in the city skyline as the Turtles run down the dock towards the cannon.

The Twin Towers in the background.
When Splinter jumps over the table, his smaller table wooden object disappears. In the next shot, it appears again.

Trivia[]

The episode is titled after Bruce Springsteen's album of the same name.
First appearance of the Sword of Tengu.
This is also the first time the Turtles are seen using human-powered vehicles; Mikey on a skateboard, Raph on inline skates, Don on a foldaway bike, and Leo on a foldaway kick scooter.
This would also appear to be the first time that Leo's attempted any kind of joke except for occasional dry humor. "Keep that flame away from Mikey. He scarfed down a whole chili pizza for dinner."
Many fans perceive that Donatello (and later also Leonardo) should not be able to wear the the glove required to remove the Sword of Tengu from the cannon due to the Turtles' hands having only three digits whereas the glove has five. However, a hand with only three digits could easily fit into a glove made for five, simply leaving two of the glove's digits empty. The misconception likely stems from the fact that the Turtles' fingers are drawn to appear much larger than human fingers, which would likely make their hands incompatible with the glove if taken as fact. As this is a stylistic choice on the part of the show though, it does not make for an error in logic per se.
The phrase uttered in this episode, "Let's Turtleize them!", was also used several times in the 1987 TV series.

External links[]

"Darkness on the Edge of Town" at The Official TMNT Web Site (archived)