Thread:Sonicisawesome2448/@comment-995426-20160128044156/@comment-995426-20160202095412

I haven't seen the new episodes. I've just heard people talking about them constantly. XD

Raph never specifically said he wanted a relationship. He just acted like he did. Again, cold-reading and attention to detail.

I said "mated," not "married," though I wouldn't have ruled that out as a possibility. More like they were emotional soulmates. It's telling that the very first thing Slash wanted was to be Raph's partner, and used very sensual, tender body language during these scenes (caresses with his hands, the smitten way he smiled, etc.). Raph had similar feelings, but until this moment never actually thought Spike could become a real partner on such equal terms, which is why he seemed both cautious and eager at the same time. Again, cold-reading and attention to detail. (I'm not going to say I'm always automatically 100% right, since these are my opinions and there's certainly a margin for error, but I form impressions that are informed by my own knowledge and life experiences.)

Yes, they gave the most basic reminders of Raph and Slash's connection in Battle for New York, but the way they handled it made it seem like the writers were bored. However, in retrospect, I don't necessarily find this surprising when they keep rotating the writers, directors, etc. The same writer did both Slash and Destroy and Newtralized, but there are tons of episodes he didn't write. Writers often inject their own will on the story, shifting tone in little ways.

As for the retcon, in Annihilation Earth, Bishop said the Utrom Tribe left the Kraang. But in the details I've been hearing for The War for Dimension X, this has been changed to Kraang defecting from the Utroms and then telepathically enslaving most of their race. Either the Kraang can first, or the Utroms came first, and these two episodes can't get their facts straight just 8 episodes apart from each other. At that point it's not so much a different in writers, but a difference in editors, because they would either have had to overlook a big continuity error, or changed their minds after the fact. ...And shows do this all the time, and they're called retcons ("retroactive continuity"). Problem is, if a show does it too much, it can frustrate viewers who are trying to keep track of the details.

I can understand really intense episodes having lighter episodes surround them to cushion the effect. But it's entirely possible to write a lighter episode while not making characters go so radically out of character. I mean, it's been suggested that the main characters were dealing with post-traumatic stress in Beyond the Known Universe, but you would think there would have been more of a sign of this. Instead, it was all about how awesome their new gear was, or how hot (and again, 1987 series fanservicy) April's new jumpsuit was. The fluff-to-story ratio was too off-balance, and the last thing I wanted after Annihilation Earth was an episode where all the characters are holding the idiot ball (that's a metaphor).

Ahh, I see. Yes, Leo and Karai didn't get that far and you didn't mean to say they had. As for Raph, he did get a lot of character development in the first two seasons. Tons of it. In season 3, for the most part, he was very, very bland, and the major plots he did get actually hurt him as a character (especially Dinosaur Seen in Sewers). And as Yoshimickster suggested, showrunners can often let details die if they neglect them for long enough&mdash;that they have to follow plot points while they're fresh, or that sense of plot relevance risks getting lost. And Raph's season 3 was whole lot of plot waste. There's also the "fleeting demographic rule," which holds that most viewers don't have a good memory of what happened on a show two years prior. This rule is routinely exploited in the entertainment industry, allowing them to recycle plots, retool characters, etc., and most viewers don't even notice. I'm not that kind of viewer though. XD But with the fleeting demographic rule, Raph's wasted season 3 had a way of resetting his character to a clean slate, allowing the writers to drastically retool him (which is exactly what they ended up doing).

It's often very different for comic books (including the various TMNT comics). Comic readers can have long memories, especially considering a story may update only about 30 pages per month. I keep hoping for that kind of continuity in a promising TV show, and am frustrated when that doesn't happen.