So I just finished watching Thundercats and I wonder what the writers would have done for a fifth season. Its clear that they kept renewing them for 20 episodes and they didn’t know if they would be renewed or not which is why Season 3 and 4 both work as a finale yet leave it open enough that it could continue, heck Season 3 worked much better as a season finale since its the one that wrapped up most storylines.
This isn’t a “What would you have wanted to see in S5” thread so lets try to keep it realistic based on the stuff they had already established and not a wishlist.
Obviously its clear that Mumm-Ra would have returned once again, the setting would have likely been mostly in New Thunderra like Season 4. We would have likely gotten another 5 parter establishing the new status-quo. The Mutants/Lunataks would both have likely gotten at least one episode each where they escape yet again and are caught at the end of the episode. Over the course of Seasons 2,3 and 4 the Ancient Spirits of Evil had a much bigger role in every season with S4 being the one where they were very active in, it wouldn’t have surprised me if that role increased again in Season 5, in fact I would have loved that.
I agree season 3 final episode worked put much more as a series finale than season’s 4, not only because of what you pointed out, but also because every TC, including Jaga, was on it.
For a 5th season (I always exected there to be a season 5) I expected Pumyra and Tygra to finally join the others in New Thundera permanently.
Also, I wanted to see the mutants and lunattacks again, and maye a new kind of recurrent villain.
I noticed in the episode where they were filming themselves Cheetara says it was to record for future generations and to show what they did on Third Earth. Obviously this was a setup for future storylines and procreating was on their minds.
Edited to add: Sorry I forgot to contribute what I would have liked to have seen in Season 5. I often thought there were more Thunderians out there that survived. One way the writers could have introduced more people was to have a couple of military groups who were out exploring the Universe or something when Thundera exploded.
I hate when a show I enjoy not only gets cancelled but gets it on such short notice that they don’t have time to put together a decent finale. Kind of like how FOX did to Dark Angel. After that [bleep] I blocked FOX from my channel line-up for years. Fringe is the first new show I’ve watched on FOX since then (I didn’t start watching Bones until after Fringe started).
This was set up in the S3 finale and its what S4 was about, other thunderrians definitely survived and were coming back to Thunderra. Now we didn’t meet a ton of new thunderrians but they did start that storyline.
Well Thundercats doesn’t really fit this though, for the most part in the 80s a cartoon would get a one season run but it was 65 episodes or some huge number like that. They knew very well that when making the shows and the reason so many 80s cartoons didn’t have finales is because the networks didn’t want one, they wanted to be able to re-run any episiode in any order and for it to not matter and the storyline to not really ever end unless kids stopped watching. Only because Thundercats was so successful it got a second season, they made more episodes. Then they got a third season order and the writers probably realized that this was likely the last season so they tried to wrap most things nicely really, the Mutants and Lunataks were captured, Thunderra was re-formed, Mumm-Ra was vanished and Third Earth was safe, it was a perfect series finale. Of course they got another season so Mumm-Ra came back and they had a few more adventures but at the end of the season Mumm-Ra is defeated once more. So Thundercats did get a finale for the most part. Thats not something most 80s cartoons outside of some very specific ones got to have the privilege of, heck even in the 90s a lot of shows didn’t get a proper conclusion.
Perhaps they would have shown more episodes in which the ThunderCats interact with Thunderians as they rebuild their society. Perhaps another traitor like Grune would have risen creating a new enemy for the ThunderCats and perhaps this enemy would have convinced some of the Thunderian people to follow him/her instead.
There are only 2 seasons. That’s why the WB DVD boxes are Season 1 Vol. 1&2 and Season 2 Vol. 1&2. And I don’t think they would have had another season.. I think The Book Of Omens is/was intended to be the last episode. Not as lets say Dungeons & Dragons, where the last show of the season doesn’t wrap up anything and the next season gets cancelled. After Book Of Omens the ThunderCats story came full circle and was finished.
Actually, I agree with ButterflyBoy on this one. He (I believe) researched the topic extensively here a few years ago. Dates on the scripts and in the end credits confirm that the series’ latter half (Season 2) was produced over the course of three years in discrete batches of 20 episodes each (minus the Movie). Also, WB has zero connection to the original production; we have no reason to trust their DVD Season breakdowns.
