Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20151111163045/@comment-995426-20160310015300

Did I watch silly cartoons? Sometimes, casually, yes. The ones I ended up liking tended to have more easter eggs and a certain daring, socially-aware humor. Rocko's Modern Life was one such cartoon.

Splinter is one of those characters that really never should be downplayed. He shouldn't be overplayed either, as if all good and happiness hinges on him. But season 3 was neglectful of him.

There's something irritating about April's supernatural powers always being a deus ex machina again and again and again. She needs more balance.

And yeah, Baxter Stockman started out as an over-the-top villain, but both Mirage, 2K3 and IDW fleshed him out into a deconstruction of a colder, more depraved evil. He wasn't just evil because the story said so&mdash;he was evil because of the chilling and shocking examples of how petty and depraved and savage he could be. As Honeycutt said in IDW, "the purer evil." That deconstruction is important to understanding and respecting his character design as an antagonist.

I just cannot respect what they did to this version of Raphael over season 3. He used to be one of the deepest, most complicated characters, and had some of the best, most cutting lines. Season 3 turned him into one of the shallowest. Season 4 made it worse, costing the last of my respect for him. It's harder to respect a caricature than it is to respect a character. At that point, it's no longer fun&mdash;it's just...facile.