Space Sentinels (TV Series)

This animated series of thirteen 20-minute episodes was released in 1977 by Filmation Associates, perhaps better remembered for such classics of animation as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Star Trek - The Animated Series. A short while later it arrived in the UK, only to pale into woeful insignificance alongside the roughly coterminous Battle of the Planets. The animation is of typical Filmation quality, including their usual extensive re-use of footage. Many shots are limited to a sliding cel layer, flashing lights, or a single voice-synced element. However what animation there is, is adequately executed, and if nothing else the cloud backgrounds are impressive. Between presumably entertaining scenes of the heroes' everyday lives (which they curiously spend in costume, in their spaceship base), wherein they nurse injured birds, argue over dietary requirements, and that sort of thing, the stories pit the Sentinels against a wide variety of adversaries; intelligent robots gone AWOL, time-travelling ne'er-do-wells, ancient Egyptian deities, super-powered bad guys, wildly-reproducting alien vegetables, etcetera. A few stories explore the Sentinels' origins, such as that of Morpheus, a would-be Sentinel turned megalomaniac.