Superhero Media: Dragon Ball - Episode of Bardock

Ok, this is gonna be a quick one, as Episode of Bardock is all of twenty minutes long, and there's not much to it. Somehow not dying along with most of his species and his planet, Bardock is flung back in time to the era of Freiza's grandparent, Chilled, somehow before the sayains or tuffles evolved? But there are some slug aliens I can't remember the name of and they have healing goo, which is somehow linked to the healing tanks the Frezia army uses? Ok, so diving into the lore and "science" of Dragon Ball is always a bad decision, but the origins of the Sayian race and how they came to work for Freiza come up often enough that it still kind of bugs me. Turning briefly to my ongoing theories on the generation of the Frost Dynasty however, I will note that Episode of Bardock supports my concept of each new generation being more powerful than the last. 

So Bardock is the first Super Sayian, huh? Well that's pretty neat, and does tie in with the idea that certain Sayian families have a monopoly on the power, at least in the main timeline. Think about it, aside from Broly, only those of the Vegeta and Bardock lineages have ever ascended to the level of Super Sayian in the main universe. Interesting, huh? I'm sure there's a fan essay to be had there for someone more committed to that sort of thing than I. In a twenty minute special, however, Bardock only gets to be Super Sayian for a few minutes, which is more than enough time to defeat Frost and hopefully not create a time paradox because I assume King Cold has already been "born"? I mean, the Time Patrol does pick Bardock up in the games, so there had to have been some kind of shenanigans along the way. 

Probably the best description of Episode of Bardock is "non-essential", there's nothing in it for any but the most die-hard fan, who plays all the games, watches all the programmes and probably even plays at least one of the card games. I myself had some "Mysterious Masked Sayian" in one of my Dragon Ball Super CCG decks back when I played, so the character is around if you look for him, but isn't currently essential to the main story. Then again, the short run-time of Episode of Bardock makes it perfect to get a little taste of DBZ in a short period of time, and at least the animation is decent, even if the story is pretty poor. As for me, it's on to bigger and better DBZ outings.