Episode of Bardock is a spin-off that doesn’t need to exist. Breaking pre-established rules from the Dragon Ball canon while ruining the point of the superior Bardock Special, this OVA is essentially a fanfiction with next to no merit.
The original Bardock special emphasized how ordinary and insignificant Bardock is. Although granted the power to see the future, he dies while having no impact whatsoever. He wasn't the hope to save the Saiyan race from Friezaa but merely an ordinary individual who strived to make a change but accomplished nothing. In a franchise of extraordinary individuals, Bardock is effectively special by not being special. Episode of Bardock completely strips this tragic tale that the original Bardock special established.
Rather than die by the hands of Frieza, Bardock is transported to the past, without explanation, to the origin planet of the Saiyans where Frieza’s ancestor, Lord Chilled, rules. The whole scenario comes off as contrived with no basis for how the time travel occurred or why exactly Bardock landed on that particular planet. The OVA attempts to build a relationship between Bardock and some child inhabitant of the planet, but this relationship involves nothing more than the child providing Bardock with food. That the child’s injury results in Bardock’s transformation into a Super Saiyan is downright ludicrous. While Goku and Vegeta required utmost training and psychological pressure to transform, Bardock achieves this with no training, talent, or potent stimulus. The weight of the Super Saiyan transformation is lost completely in this special, becoming merely a convenient tool for Bardock to overcome Lord Chilled. There are no impressive fight tactics or meaningful plot developments in the entirety of this special. Given no meaningful characterization, Bardock becomes nothing but a generic hero in a franchise where vapid overpowered characters are the norm. The entire OVA comes off as an attempt to make Bardock special for the mere fact that he’s Goku’s father in the most uninspired fashion possible while stripping away the tragedy of the original Bardock special.
To make matters worse, the special heavily contradicts the Dragon Ball canon. At the end of the special, an attempt to tie to the canon is made when Lord Chilled is determined to warn his successors about Bardock the Super Saiyan. However, this idea fails both in regards to Dragon Ball’s time travel mechanics and the clues about the origin of the Super Saiyan provided in the series. Firstly, Dragon Ball’s time travel operates under parallel universes, by which travelling to the past doesn’t affect the present an individual came from but instead forms a new timeline. Any changes made to the past affects the new timeline, but the original is left unchanged. Consequently, Episode of Bardock makes no sense as the reason Frieza feared the Super Saiyans. The current timeline would be unaffected and thus the time travel could not serve as the reason for Frieza’s destroying of the Saiyan race and fear of the potential Saiyans could have. Furthermore, the term Super Saiyan wasn’t mentioned in the special at all, so it would be implausible for Chilled to spread this term to his ancestors. As Saiyans hadn’t existed at the time, there would be no way for Chilled’s descendants to recognize them, and the Saiyans wouldn’t be aware of this legend if it arose from Chilled. This goes against not only Frieza but also the Saiyans themselves holding notions about the legendary Super Saiyan. The special also makes it appear that Bardock is the actual original Super Saiyan, but this fails as it was said the Saiyan in legend was said to have become a Super Saiyan in his transformed state (as a Great Ape/ Oozaru).
Episode of Bardock is possibly one of the worst official fan-fiction works in the anime medium. It is a vapid work that fails at nearly everything it does and merely breaks that which the Dragon Ball franchise had established. There’s nothing of interest here. In terms of even entertainment value and action, the original Bardock Special completely overshadows this disappointing OVA.