Thread:Fire Eater/@comment-1741760-20141016153715/@comment-1741760-20141016203034

Well, hopefully Nickelodeon will pick things up soon. It used to be one of the Big Three for animation (the Big Three is what I call the three major animation networks I watched growing up; Nickelodeon, Disney, and Cartoon Network). Nick had their great 90's cartoons like Hey Arnold, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, etc. The success even went into the 2000s in my opinion with Early Spongebob and FOP, Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, Invader Zim, and Avatar. Half way through the decade though, somehow things went south. After the great reception and box office hit of the first Spongebob movie, they kept him on even when the quality started to go after many of the production crew left (and that wasn't just Hillenburg; creative director and writer Derek Drymon, as well as Greenblatt were also under the impression the show would end and left the show). Plus, they made a lot of other bad decisions like greenlighting Fanboy and Chum Chum, Sanjay and Craig, and Breadwinners, turning down opportunies like the Modifyers and Adventure Time (the latter of which would come back to bite Nick as CN's biggest hit currently), canceling shows that were doing well (Making Fiends, The Mighty B). Aside from that, they had to resort to ratings traps, such as building up an ordinary eleven minute episode (Best Day Ever) to be something big, as well as two TV movies and many more specials of Spongebob that could have filled out an eleven minute episode (The Clash of Triton could have actually been a season five short). Also, they must have noticed the success of Spongebob and FOP, so they tried to make the Jimmy Neutron spin-off Planet Sheen. All it did was give Sheen a ticket to Flanderization and spit on the childhoods of many. Don't get me started on The Last Airbender. All of this gave the network a bad name, and resorts to pandering to the 7-12 demographic, and everything here has damaged the network.

However, I'm willing to give some of the new shows (as well as future episodes of Spongebob) a chance. I have a lot of respect for Hillenburg, Bartlett, and Greenblatt, and they all played a great part in some of the good Nick shows. I'll check out Bad Seeds and Sky Rat for some of the season and watch it more if I find it good. Also, Season 9 of Spongebob is actually okay (if you take away Squid Baby, Little Yellow Book, and Spongebob You're Fired). Not exactly good yet, but it's an improvement. Aside from Plankton's Pet, there's also Safe Deposit Krabs where it actually displays Mr. Krabs' cheapness well in my opinion, and in Patrick-man, you can see what Patrick means in his stupidity in the episode, and actually gets punishment for it. All of this is also in Mr. Enter's Top 25 Modern Spongebob Episodes review.

I agree wholeheartedly that Mike is a bad character and has done more harm than good for the show. Those last three episodes were also bad. I'm not fond of the Bold and the Bootiful, but Sundae Muddy Sundae and The Final Wreckening were both slaps in the face to anyone who ever cared about the show. And I was just starting to like Courtney too, but Sundae Muddy Sundae ruined all of her development she got in the season. That said, I saw enough of her in the season to stop hating her and start liking her. If it weren't for SMS though, she would probably be one of my favorites.

The good news is, Pahkitew Island definitely wasn't as bad as TDAS, and it's actually in my top 3 favorite seasons. I will admit though that they messed up with Dave, but that's pretty much the one of two things I can take away from it. Plus, it leaves an opening for a future season to work on redeeming Dave and fixing that. Of course, I won't hold my breath. The other is that a lot of the characters are mostly one-note characters (Leonard, Beardo, Topher, Rodney, Max, Ella), but this one doesn't bother me as much. Pretty much every cast of TD has some. B and Staci were this for season 4, and even in the original cast there was Eva, Katie, Sadie, and Justin (in his first season). Besides, Max pretty much served as comic relief, and I actually found him pretty hilarious. I don't know, I guess I like the Large Ham type. XD Also, while one-note, Topher and Ella managed to get some storylines. A good thing about the season was the interactions. Shawn and Jasmine have great chemistry as a couple and in my eyes makes up for the Sky/Dave thing. Amy and Sammy have a great plot with each other with the Good Twin, Evil Twin type, and Sammy actually stands up for herself in (dare I say it?) one of the few good episodes by Ed. I also liked the island being mechanical, and Scarlett turning out to be evil and exploiting the island in one of the most intense episodes (Yeah, Scarlett Fever is one of my favorite episodes). I also liked the nod to Survivor in that they have to find their own food and build their own shelter. Of course, this is just my viewpoint.

And yeah, there has been a lot of episodes that can be atrocities (of the top of my head are Ocean's Eight - Or Nine, I See London, The EX-Files, Picnic at Hanging Dork, African Lying Safari, The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean, Moon Madness, Sundae Muddy Sundae, The Final Wreckening, Hurl and Go Seek, and Lies, Cries, and One Big Prize). However, what Total Drama episodes do you think could be Admirables in your opinion?

By the way, did you know that Nick canceled a second Hey Arnold movie because of the negative reception of the first? The second would have been about Arnold trying to find his parents and Arnold would have finally finished the conversation with Helga after she admitted her crush on him in the first movie. Many people are actually petitioning for the second Hey Arnold movie to be released, to the point where Nick is considering doing so do to the amount of fan interest.