1. Duryodhan and Arjun both ask for Krishna's help, and both receive it [Episode 63]
Krishna is the incarnation of Vishnu, who is right at the top of their pantheon of gods. As a prince of the Yadavas he also has a "divine army" of a million soldiers under his command. Duryodhan and Arjun, as representatives of their opposing factions, arrive to ask Krishna to side with them. They arrive on the same day, and find Krishna having sleeps. When he wakes up, he says he will have to help both of them, and proposes that one can take his million soldiers, and the other will get
"I, alone. Unarmed. And I won't take up arms in the battlefield."
He gives Arjun the choice, because Arjun is the younger of the two.
Arjun rejects the army and chooses Krishna, which pleases Duryodhan because it means he gets the million mannys. He can't believe his luck that Arjun didn't choose it and leaves, smiling smugly. Both sides think they have gotten the best out of the arrangement, at least until Duryodhan tells evil uncle Shakuni the outcome - he is quick to tell Duryodhan how bad this is for them.
Arjun knows that, even unarmed, Krishna can still take part in a battle as a charioteer, and he wants him to be his charioteer.
2. Duryodhan tries to arrest god [Episode 65]
Evil Duryodhan's next foolish action occurs when Krishna comes to the court of Hastinapur as a peace envoy, in one last, desperate attempt to avoid war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Krishna speaks to the assembled princes and elders, and in making the case for peace over war he makes the sort of speech that Captain Kirk would be proud of.
Duryodhan not only rejects Krishna's proposal, he also insults Krishna and then calls for his guards to arrest him.
Even surrounded by soldiers, Krishna doesn't stop smiling. He manifests his divine weapon (as previously used to cut off the head of Shishupal) which is enough to frighten the guards, and then becomes giant and glows with divine light. Duryodhan has again forgotten that Krishna is the avatar of the god Vishnu, and cannot be arrested as easily as all that. We don't even need to see what happens next, the story cuts straight to the next bit...
3. Karna gives away his divine protection [Episode 65]
Karna is another character who has sworn an oath that would later come back to harm him. His oath is that if, after he finishes his daily religious worship of the sun god (who is actually his divine father), anyone asks him for a favour, he will always grant it. The god Indra knows that the sun god gave his son divine protection that makes him proof against any weapons, even divine weapons such those possessed by Indra's own son, Arjun. So Indra disguises himself as a mortal manny and visits Karna at the right time of day to ask him for a favour and have Karna be oathbound to grant it.
When asked to give up his divine shield, which takes the form of a golden
"I am proud to be the only man from whom Lord Indra himself is asking for something."
and then takes a knife and cuts away his vest and earrings.
Indra is so impressed with Karna's actions that he offers him a boon. Karna asks for the "Shakti" weapon to use against his enemy, and Indra is now compelled to grant this - so he has saved Arjun from one power of Karna, only to then arm him with another.
4. "Karna, I am your mother" [Episode 67]
Kunti reveals to Karna that she is his birth mother, and that he is therefore half-brother to the five Pandavas. Since the Pandavas are his sworn enemies, this revelation goes down about as well as you'd expect.
At first Karna suspects a trick designed to make it impossible for him to fight and even kill those he thinks to be his own family members, but Kunti's tears convince him that it is true. Since he has already sworn to kill Arjun or else die in the attempt, he cannot now promise Kunti that he will not do this, but he does promise her that he will not kill any of the other Pandavas so that, whatever the outcome of his duel to the death with Arjun, Kunti will still have five living sons at the end of the war.
5. Sage Vyasa blesses the king's charioteer [Episode 68]
Sage Vyasa visits the blind King Dhritarashtra on the eve of the war to offer him a unique blessing - "divine sight" with which he would be able to see all that occurs in the forthcoming battle from the safety and comfort of his palace. Given that Dhritarashtra knows that many of his relatives, inclusing his own sons, are likely to die in this war, he considers that this would be more of a curse than a blesssing. And given that Vyasa holds Dhritarashtra responsible for failing to stop the war, perhaps he even intended it as such.
With Dhritarashtra declining the offer, Vyasa instead gives the divine sight to Dhritarashtra's loyal charioteer, Sanjay, so that Sanjay might narrate what unfolds to Dhritarashtra.
Since Vyasa is not just a character in Mahabharat but is also the great author of the Mahabharata, this is an extremely meta power for him to be able to bestow: Vyasa enabling Sanjay to tell a tale within the tale told by Vyasa.
6. The armies assemble on the battlefield [Episodes 69-75]
Episode 69 begins with the two opposing armies travelling to the battlefield, to the tune of a ten minute musical number which lists all of the named characters who will be fighting on both sides - that there are so many characters might explain why the song needs to be so long!
You could be forgiven for expecting that this means that the great battle is about to begin, but it will be another six episodes before any fighting actually starts. There's still a lot of character development to come, plus the backstory of Prince Shikhandin (the reincarnation of Princess Amba, calling back all the way to episode 5) and the framing of the rules of war by Bhishma. Not to mention the single most significant event in the whole story...
7. Arjun and Krishna, at Kurukshetra [Episodes 72-74]
With the armies facing each other and battle about to commence, Arjun suddenly despairs at the prospect of having to fight and kill his elders, his teachers, and members of his own family. He refuses to fight until Krishna makes a long speech to convince him of his duty, and then the two of them debate philosophy until Arjun is persuaded to take up his bow again.
Occupying almost three full episodes, this dialogue is known as the Bhagavad Gita and is considered sacred by Hindus. It would not be right for me to make fun of these deeply held beliefs of millions of mannys (even though I do not subscribe to them myself, being a cat made from socks) so I will confine myself to discussing the way this vital portion of the Mahabharata is presented in this TV series, which I think could subjectively be described as being either "ridiculous or ridiculously awesome" depending upon the tastes of the viewer.
Occupying such a long, continuous stretch of the story, the viewers' attention needs to mostly be held by what Krishna and Arjun are saying, but there are some attempts to make things more visually interesting by occasionally cutting away either to Time, the all-seeing Ceiling Cat-like narrator of the series, or to Dhritarashtra and Sanjay who, thanks to the divine sight bestowed upon Sanjay, are the only other characters able to witness and comment upon what Krishna is saying to Arjun. This is used to strongly contrast Dhritarashtra against Krishna since the king hopes that Arjun will not fight, because then the victory of his son's army would be assured.
The importance of this section to the overall story can be seen from its prominent inclusion in the title sequence of every episode. The credits are shown over a series of paintings depicting events from the story, and the majority of these are of Arjun and Krishna, with emphasis on the moment when Krishna reveals his cosmic manifestation to Arjun.
When the time comes to show this event in the series, they pull out all the stops to do it justice, and attempt something much more ambitious than when Krishna last revealed his divine power back in episode 65 by becoming giant and glowing.
Judge for yourself whether their reach exceeded their grasp with this bit of SFX, but either way it certainly makes for an unforgettable moment:
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