Thread:Sonicisawesome2448/@comment-995426-20160128044156/@comment-995426-20160203224213

It's true that Spike didn't have much else to do. But one thing to notice about Spike is his emotional expressions in various scenes. Fortunately I have. :) Spike's emotions were more subtle (or nonexistent) in earlier episodes, but more abundant by the end of season 1.

This is deeply romantic body language&mdash;like a relatively G-rated scene between lovers. But in other moments when he looks or talks about Raph's brothers, his expressions look more primal and insecure in addition to disdainful. It's like Slash feels personally affected by the threats the other turtles pose to his Raphael.

As for the show being a cash cow, there's something to consider. The 1987 TV series was "toyetic" in a really bad way&mdash;it was written first and foremost as an advertising medium for Playmates Toys. Practically without exception, every character or monster that appeared on the show was planned in advance based on Playmates action figures that had already been made and were ready for shipping to toy stores. But there was a cost to this kind of mercantile motive&mdash;the show's writing, plot and character development weren't very good, and lots of times it was clear the showrunners didn't care about those things at all as long as the toys sold well. I mean, lots of cartoons are similarly merchandise-driven, but a "toyetic" show is one where selling merchandise appears to be the only priority, and everything else is written and produced on the cheap with advertising as the primary goal.

Now, the 2012 TV series is merchandise-driven as well, but it wasn't so obviously toyetic when the show started. The product tie-ins (toy action figures, toy vehicles, etc.) were relatively more subtle, because there was more focus on actual story, character development, etc. But it didn't take long for TMNT to become a massive merchandise-licensing empire for Nickelodeon the way it had once been for Murakami-Wolf-Swenson with the 1987 TV series. Season 2 still had lots of good plots, but there were more episodes written first and foremost to market a new toy, involving a really lamely-written plot to find an excuse to make it happen&mdash;Mikey Gets Shellacne being a notable example of this. Season 3 doubled down on this and had far fewer good plots as a result, but then started to pander to now-adult 1987 TV series fans who were toy consumers when they were preteens, and the show was milking two merchandise markets. The problem was, these particular fans actually liked the less serious, more shallow tone of the 1987 TV series, and they constantly demanded the 2012 TV series become the same way&mdash;"I like things I remember when I was little." So instead of having more complex plots with complicated interpersonal relationships between characters, the show started writing most of the characters as a lot more one-dimensional, with very fast and easy plots that forced them to do whatever the writers wanted, even when it didn't make any sense, as long as the adult 1987 TV series fans would squeal and cheer and buy nostalgia merchandise of their own. I feel all these things have gradually ruined the show, making it so much harder for my friends and I to enjoy it as we once did.

And no, Amazing Adventures no longer exists in the same universe as the 2012 TV series. Upon launch, Amazing Adventures shared the same backstory as the TV series up to that point, but now exists as its own separate canon, and is free to introduce characters and storylines that contradict the TV series. That means nothing new on the TV show is guaranteed to be shared by Amazing Adventures, and nothing new in Amazing Adventures is guaranteed to be shared by the TV series.

It really was necessary for Amazing Adventures to be allowed to do this. The previous 2012 TV series-related comic book series, New Animated Adventures, had some fairly good writing, but its stories were not only considered non-canon to the TV series, but Nickelodeon still forbade New Animated Adventures from running any stories that risked contradicting the TV series. This means the characters usually never did anything that made a difference in the wider setting, and always fought against lesser villains (like Dogpound and Fishface) that were no longer considered critically important to the TV series plot. They were not allowed to fight major villains like Shredder or Kraang Prime. So, no surprise, New Animated Adventures ended up being a collection of lots of unconnected stories that was never allowed to carry any serious plot arc. In a real sense, New Animated Adventures was not allowed to have a canon of its own&mdash;every new story existed as if it was the first, based entirely on the TV series, and not allowed to contradict it.

Amazing Adventures no longer has those restrictions, and the first thing they did was introduce the new major villain Tetsumi Onamota, who was like a brother to both Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki. But since this new villain affects the balance of power in this particular TMNT universe, he is exclusive to Amazing Adventures, and he doesn't (and won't) exist in the TV series. This also means Amazing Adventures is free never to destroy the Earth, never go into outer space, or anything else season 4 has been doing.

As for Karai again, yes, she developed a lot more respect for Leo. But respect is not the same thing as romantic attraction. Karai was a complicated character, and she ended up having a lot bigger things to worry about than whether she had a chance with her mortal enemy who then became her stepbrother. She's a whole laundry list of complicated. And honestly, if the writers had tried to force her into an easy romance plot (the way they later did with Mikey+Renet and Raph+Y'gythgba), I might have lost some respect for the show and its writers. You can't hurry true love&mdash;it takes time and real chemistry, and can't just magically be done in just 30 minutes without insulting the audience's intelligence.