Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20150425050906/@comment-995426-20150503230119

Midnight Lullaby wrote: ShellBrain wrote: Gilgameshkun wrote: In all honesty, season three is increasingly boring to me. The subplots of teenage angst and coming-of-age (particularly the romantic subplots) were one of the things that made the series interesting, and now they get the rare blips at best. I mean, Donnie may not actively make a fool of himself over April as much anymore, but now the show barely addresses that at all. Casey's character seems increasingly wasted, as if the show is trying to make excuses to keep him around at all. The first and second seasons were not so obviously cynically toyetic, but this third season is blatantly so. What I liked about this show was that it was TMNT with sitcom and romantic comedy elements and a stronger sense of continuity from one episode to the next. Now these latest episodes seem so...disjointed from anything, as if the show is gradually sliding into 1987itis. Even the Shredder and his stock plot of mind control have gotten much duller. And come to think of it, Bradford and Xever seem more and more to have vanished from existence/relevance ("Chuck Cunningham Syndrome"), and Bebop and Rocksteady are not really an improvement. I wonder if these are signs the show has already jumped the shark. That's how I've been feeling about it too my friend... I said it a while back, what with the excessive monster of the week episodes we got at the beginning of the season... This season has been very weak in terms of good writing, there has only been a limited few episodes which, for me, have kept the same hardiness as season 1 and 2 episodes (the really good ones). It feels like they don't have a clear cut picture of what they want to do with this season anymore and it feels like they're stalling now... stalling for what, I don't know... but even the whole Kraang plot was briskly dealt with, and it feels like they just didn't have any good ideas to occupy the space its left open. This latest Shredder storyline feels like it doesn't carry any real weight, we know the turtles will save Karai, I mean, this latest episode has shown us the brain control scheme will not work... I was honestly hoping for a better build up, and perhaps even Shredder controlling all of new york's inhabitants and mutating them into an army of mutants... however, this would be such a big event, and its pretty clear his intentions are merely to win Karai over to his side. The KRaang plot, being resolved the way it was, I was honestly hoping it would end with the turtles being trapped in dimension X for a while, you know, something along the lines of them making the ultimate sacrifice to stop the Kraang, leaving them trapped (albeit temporarily) and then maybe we could have explored more of the mysteries behind the mutagen, maybe see more of Dimension X... but nope, it was all wrapped up fairly quickly and as of yet, there's no indication that the Kraang will come back. Though its pretty obvious the KRaang are still out there, operating in the background... I guess that was my big problem with it, they wrapped up what was being set up as  HUGE ordeal (all of new york has been mutated and transported to Dimension X) but then it was resolved, but resolved in a way that didn't quite feel fully resolved, because they didn't defeat the KRaang, they only saved the people and through deus ex machina shifted all the Kraang back into their dimension, but is that really the end of it... Then they threw us into this Shredder mind control arc, which like I said, doesn't really feel like it holds any weight... Honestly, I was hoping this latest episode would be the beginning of perhaps the turtles stuggling to get Slash, Rockwell and Raphael back, keep it going for a couple of episodes... but alas, that too was simply dealt with... Guess all in all, its a kid's show... I just wish it didn't feel like that so much. Lately, with this latest season, it does feel WAY too much like a kid's show... before, seasons 1 and 2, they felt like an older audience could get some good storytelling out of it... it was accessible and not too childish... this latest episode did feel like a good one to me (this was a better quality episode), but that being said, a lot of this season has felt very childish, more so than the previous seasons. All in all... I recomend the IDW 2011 teenage mutant ninja turtles comic series, it delivers on intense stories and mature content. Long winded rant over. I agree with this. This show is great, but it has flaws. Even though it would be awesome if there are more deeper and darker plotlines, I don't expect. it. I accept the show for what it is. I'm not quiting the show because of its flaws. I still enjoy watching it. And yeah IDW comic series is amazing!

Yeah, the show is slipping pretty badly lately. I'm already tired of Bebop and Rocksteady, and was relieved they didn't appear again in this episode. The Mutanimals (sorry, not going to call them "Mighty Mutanimals" every time&mdash;it's just corny) were halfway interesting as a team when they were first introduced, but now it's like all the color from each of the characters is being systematically drained to deliver us facile one-dimensional half-hour commercials. Slash was introduced with depth and angst. Leatherhead was introduced with depth and angst. Leatherhead and Mikey's three jump-into-arms embraces in one episode was a treat, but Mikey never beats around the bush to show us what he wants, so as long as they have each other, we don't expect much else from them except that they're sweet together. Raph showed us discreetly how much Slash's absence has affected him, and now it's like "LOL fist bump". Raph used to bare his soul to this guy with strong tender emotions, and was fantastic in the sheer character development it delivered. Now we had an episode today that centered around both Raph and Slash (along with Rockwell) and showcased Raph's emotions as a plot device, but they totally dropped the ball on further developing their relationship or individual personalities in any way. The way they didn't even try to anger Slash to get the worm out, sort of highlighted to me the obvious&mdash;they're no longer giving Slash any kind of personal drama unique to him&mdash;practically none of what happened to him couldn't have happened to any other ally. I don't want glorified screen merchandise bait&mdash;I want character-development-driven drama like we had in the first two seasons. I was excited at first that they were going to give Slash and Leatherhead each more air time, but with this episode's plot, I kinda wish they had waited for something with more substance. The episode had a few fun scenes, but the plot...just sucked&mdash;it diminished all the characters involved.

Anyway, I've already read some of IDW. Not bad. But I kinda wish Peter Laird would finish up Volume 4 somehow. And my main interest these days is Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden.