Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-2239501-20160424224018/@comment-995426-20160428045417

Indeed. But I think the rehashed plots are more a sign of recycled writing or the writers being pressured to maintain a status quo. After all, the castaways on Gilligan's Island couldn't be rescued, or there would be no more show.

But you're right that this is really lame&mdash;Karai's status quo ought to eventually change in a timely manner, as should all the characters in an organic well-written progression. I mean, the show has confirmed that one season equals one year, and yet the turtles are still 15 or at best 16, when they should really be at least 18 by now, and April should be 19 or 20, and Casey 20 or 21. The Mirage comics allowed the turtles to age naturally, then collapsed the series' title to "TMNT" when they could no longer be called teenagers, which is why the 2007 film and Mirage TMNT volume 4 preferred only to call themselves "TMNT". The beauty of the collapsed acronym is that it could also stand for "Twentysomething Mutant Ninja Turtles" or "Thirtysomething Mutant Ninja Turtles."

This show has been heading into unholy 1987 TV series formula where the characters never age and never mature, and they can boiled down into one-dimensional character profiles with no real depth or change.