Thread:Sonicisawesome2448/@comment-995426-20160128044156/@comment-995426-20160203051039

Well, I think Slash did want to be Raph's partner in terms of love, but there were particulars about it. Consider: Spike delighted in Raph's ninjutsu, Spike watched Raph constantly (even obsessively) for years, Spike took great personal satisfaction in watching Raph fight and hit people. When Slash mutated and proposed being partners, Slash seemed to imply that being Raph's "new partner" elevated him above Raph's brothers, because in his mind, the two were inseparable and most deserving to be partners. And when Raph and Slash were alone together, Slash's behavior was strikingly intimate&mdash;sharing personal space, holding Raph from behind, caressing Raph's shoulders, and giving the tenderest smile when Raph offered to help Slash gear up. All this appeared very gratifying to Slash, with all the little hints suggesting that it was perhaps a not-so-G-rated way. Slash seemed completely in love with Raph. Then Slash wasted no time also going obsessively, possessively axe-crazy. All in all, a ninja training session or mission would have otherwise been the perfect way to put Slash in the mood. And of course, nothing went entirely the way Slash planned. Slash obviously felt hurt and betrayed by the time of Newtralized, but the other reveal at the end of Slash and Destroy was that Raph was heartbroken and kept pining for Slash even after all that had happened. Yes, they were in love: Slash and Destroy had a nasty breakup, Newtralized had a makeup but also an "I need to be alone for a while," and The Invasion had Raph's heart still aching for Slash.

And yes, ultimately, Nickelodeon has been running TMNT by corporate committee. It would be nice if they had a long-running consistent myth arc, but they really don't. It's a cash cow to them now, and it has become dominated by a desire to morph back into the 1987 TV series. If I'd wanted to watch the 1987 TV series, I'd just watch the 1987 TV series. XD The 2012 TV series initially promised to be something new and fresh, but now it no longer really pretends to be.

This is why I've switched to reading Amazing Adventures since I stopped watching the show. The writing is better (at least for most of the stories), and it's not produced by Nickelodeon&mdash;it's produced by IDW, who also has their own far better-written IDW TMNT comic. Amazing Adventures has been revisiting older plot points and characters from the 2012 TV series that the TV series itself has long since left in the dust and thoroughly neglected. It also has better slice-of-life stories.

Anyway, bringing back old writers is not really a silver bullet for making the series better. Writers have a certain freedom of creativity, but they have to submit to Nick's rejection of anything they write. Nick ultimately makes decisions that a story is going to lean in a certain direction, or that certain story elements are not to be considered relevant. That can happen when a committee steers the plot. Consider that Gavin Hignight wrote Slash and Destroy (which I think is the absolutely best 2012 TV series episode), and also wrote Newtralized to give Slash and Destroy's story some continuation. Then the next episode he wrote was...Race with the Demon.

As for Leo and Karai, it's hard to say how far they could have gotten, because all the circumstances around them kept sabotaging Karai. Oroku Saki went to unbelievable lengths just to keep her under his control. That said, it's still hard to know how far they could have gotten, because it was never clear whether Karai had any feelings for Leo. She found him entertaining and fun, but she got bored easily and had a hint of a slutty side (having been trained as a kunoichi in the not-so-virtuous way). Before she learnt of her origins, if she had been given the chance, she might have used and then unceremoniously discarded Leo when she decided he was no longer fun. Once Karai learnt who she really was, it was still clear enough she hadn't yet formed the bonds of close family with the turtles as much as she'd tried to do with Splinter. I mean, I think she came to trust them, but they weren't her blood siblings and they didn't grow up with her, so she hadn't had enough time to get closer with any of them, really, before she no longer had full control of her faculties. It might have been nice had Karai not turned into a mentally unstable snake or become brain worm-controlled, and she and Leo had had a chance to explore their own chemistry without so much interference, but things happened the way they did. If Karai had expressed real romantic attraction for Leo, then what ended up happening to her might have felt even more tragic, but in the end all we really knew about Leo and Karai was what we knew in the beginning&mdash;that Leo was infatuated with her.