In a nut-shell Defenders of the Earth follows the adventures of Flash Gordon, the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and Lothar as they battle Ming the Merciless who wants to take over the earth (thus the clever title Defenders of the Earth). Joining our heroes are their teenage children. Flash has a son named Rick Gordon, the Phantom has a daughter Jedda, Lothar has a son LJ (Lothar Junior) and Mandrake has an adopted son Kishin. Kishin is the youngest of the children being in his early teens while the others are in their late teens. As with most 80s cartoons the team also has a "cute" animal sidekick. In this case we get Zuffy an alien creature from the planet Mongo.
Now if you are a child of 80s TV animation - like myself - then you may remember coming home and having new cartoons to watch every afternoon. This was possible because large numbers of episodes were created in short spans of time so that you could have one for each day of the week. At the time this seemed great, you had a new adventure almost every day. Sadly the drawback to this method of entertainment is that the show's crew had to jam through a large number of episodes every week to meet the deadlines. So instead of crafting consistent well thought out stories, these shows churned out material as fast as possible, good or bad. The end result of this is a very inconsistent set of stories featuring a stagnate cast with little to no characterization. Of course this is nothing new when you're talking about action/adventure cartoons from the 80s.
As with many action/adventure cartoons the key to quality lies within the shows writing. Unfortunately due to the situation I described in the previous paragraph DOE (Defenders of the Earth) suffers from a very mixed bag (yes I will be using that phrase a lot in this review) in terms of story. Most of the 65 episodes from Defenders are stand alone episodes. This is typical of the genre from this time period, but DOE does have a couple multi-episode arches (there were a couple 2-part stories and two 5-part stories) that proved to be pretty enjoyable compared to the one and done stories that comprised the rest of the series. As a whole though the writing quality was immensely varied. Some episodes were pretty respectable and I felt that the stories stood the test of time rather well. Then the very next episode would be so unbelievably stupid that even a young child would find it insulting. But what makes these episodes so unwatchable isn't just the silly plots, it's the bad story structure. All too often the writers would fall back on lazy plot devices and ridiculous character decisions to move the plot along. I lost count of the number of times that the heroes simply asked their super computer (Dynak X) why something was happening, or had it calculate a cure for some evil disease and the computer had all the answers. Other times the story relied upon characters simply forgetting something very important or doing something asinine like pushing a button on the Defenders secret weapon (despite being specifically told not to). I could go on all day with more examples, but I think you get the idea.
As it was the standard of the time DOE also has a handful of PSA (Public Service Announcement) episodes. Now as a rule I have never liked PSAs but I try to keep an open mind when watching these old cartoons. That said DOE's PSAs were - once again - a mixed bag. The "don't do drugs" episode was actually really good. It showed how the pressures of teenage life (not just peer pressure but the pressures of responsibility) can lead to problems with drugs. The story even touches on how parents who don't take the time to listen to their children can contribute to this. On the opposite end of the spectrum the episode about teenage drunk driving was egregious. All the teenage drinkers are portrayed as fall down laughing party drunks and the black-and-white message that drinking underage equals death was exceedingly preachy. At no point does the episode handle substance abuse in a realistic fashion or touch on the dangers of alcoholism and drunk driving to anyone who's not underage.
Our next mixed bag involves the shows characters. Flash and the other established heroes each have episodes that delve into their pre-existing mythologies, and this is a good thing. However they only total a half-dozen at best which isn't really a lot considering there are 65 total episodes. I would have loved to have seen more stories involving Flash's early adventures on Mongo, or an episode dedicated to how Mandrake and Lothar first meet, but apparently the producers needed to leave room for story gems like frozen dinosaurs getting thawed out by Ming to destroy mankind (and I thought Jurassic Park had spotty science).
As frustrating as the adults are in this series, it pales in comparison to the disappointment that I felt in regards to their children. The frustration is not with how bad the teen heroes are (well with the exception of Kishin, he was pretty bad) it's actually with how much potential they have and how the writers never fully tap into it. Rick Gordon is a little vanilla but at times the writers would touch on things like his occasional jealousy or the difficulty that comes from being the son of the legendary Flash Gordon. These brief moments of characterization opened worlds of possibilities, but due to the rapid production pace writers never had a chance to do anything with it. Jedda (the Phantoms daughter) is equally - if not more - frustrating. Unlike the shows other characters Jedda is not trying to step out of her fathers shadow, but is actually preparing to step into his shoes (due to the fact that she is next in line to take up the mantle of the Phantom). On the rare occasions that we got to see this side of Jedda develop it was truly a treat. Sadly the show's writers would all too often abuse Jedda by portraying her as a vapid, brainless plot device who does the dumbest things to further the story. LJ was the most underused of all the young heroes. In the few episodes that revolved around him (I can only recall two LJ centric stories) we got to see a brash, arrogant and even chauvinistic youngster who was far too cocky for his own good. These are great character flaws to explore but unfortunately it never happens. Kishin is the weakest of the bunch. Basically he is just the prototypical "left out" character due to his young age. Kind of like Speed Racer's little brother who would stow away in the trunk of his race car, Kishin would ignore orders to stay behind and follow everybody else into danger.
The show also messes up the interpersonal relationships between our younger heroes, specifically in terms of romance. Early in the series it is alluded to that Rick and Jedda have a mutual attraction. However this theme disappears, re-appears, disappears etc. Sometimes they're into each other then at other times they would fall for some stranger they just met, Jedda being the worst offender in this regard. There was at least a half dozen episodes where she would fall for some guy that she had only known for a matter of minutes. Rick was also guilty of this on at least two separate occasions further confusing the budding romance between him and Jedda. Now I don't expect there to be some epic romance here (nor would I want one) but you need to be consistent. Even the 80s cartoon GI Joe understood this. You knew that Fint and Lady Jay were an item and you didn't see them hooking up with other characters whenever it was convenient for the plot.
On the bright side the voice acting in DOE is pretty good. Each voice is distinct and they were mostly recorded as an ensemble allowing for the actors to better play off of one another. The music from the series is also decent. Like most action/adventure shows the in-episode music is recycled throughout the series but it wasn't as noticeable as other shows. I would also like to call out that I absolutely love the series opening theme song. I don't know if it's the catchy lyrics or the electronic keyboard but there is something so 1980s about this that I can't help but feel nostalgic every time I hear it.
Rounding out the production of this series is the animation. DOE was animated in Korea, a very common practice these days but back in 1986 it was still kind of new for American produced cartoons. So how did it come out? Well as you may have guessed it's a ... (wait for it) mixed bag. When the studios "A" crew was working on the show the results were pretty good. Well they were good for a show using minimal animation (minimal animation is the technique where you use fewer in-between drawings than is necessary to fool the human eye into thinking it's seeing movement. Thus the movements of the characters are often jerky and unnatural). When the good crew wasn't working though you got the "B" crew, and these guys were bad. The animation not only suffered from the minimal animation technique but also suffered from off model characters, goofy gesturing and terrible disproportion. The difference between the "A" and "B" crews was so vast that you didn't even have to look hard to tell which you were watching, it was as clear as a Hollywood teenagers complexion. In one exceptionally odd situation there was an early episode in the series where the animators actually used the wrong model sheets! They ended up using early character designs instead of the finalized designs. Lothar is wearing an unusual jungle costume, Jedda's hair is way too long and Ming is actually the wrong color (he supposed to be green and they made him blue). You can view the original model sheets on the DVD special features and see that this is indeed what happened. The fact that the shows producers even allowed such a big oversight to air is shocking.
To sum up Defenders of the Earth is a lot more bad than it is good. Sure the potential was there but even viewed through my rose colored 1980s animation glasses I have to admit this was not the best show from the decade. It's not the worst mind you, but it falls well short of the better shows like Galaxy Rangers, Dungeons and Dragons and GI Joe. On the plus side the DVD set is really nice. The packaging is beautiful and you get some really cool special features. My favorite is that each episode has a couple bullet points calling out interesting facts about the show. They even point out the bad things like poor animation and silly plot holes. If you have never heard of this show you should definitely stay away, but if you watched the series as a youngster and you don't mind a little pain then it might be worth your time to check it out.
