How should the 2003–2009 animated TV-series continued post-season 4?
 

In general, most people agree that seasons 1–4 of the 2003–2009 animated TV-series were the best. After that, the opinions differ (Ninja Tribunal, Fast Forward, Back to the Sewer). So how should the producers instead allowed changes, but keep making the series interesting?

Maybe more stores with Mirage characters that were not seen in the cartoon and some episodes based on mirage issues, and of course, some mor eoriginal characters and plots

Japan
 

I thought they should do a more ordinary mission to Japan.

So the whole plot of the Mystics freeing themselves, and then the introduction of the Tribunal in the season 4 finale were all great, but they completely bungled the whole thing once season 5 started.

First mistake was the 4 human acolytes, or at least the fact that they didn't stay dead. Boring waste of screen time. There was already an abundance of characters, and some episodes had a few of the turtles only having 2 or 3 lines.

Then all the inconsistencies and continuity errors that they overlooked. Splinter knew about Utrom Shredder the whole time, Demon Shredder looked and talked exactly like Utrom Shredder even though he was entombed thousands of years before Mortu and Ch'rell got to Earth, and for some reason they had Yoshi kill Demon Shredder, even though they never met.

And dragon turtles. Get rid of all that crap and the dragon turtles and it wouldn't have been half bad.

FF was fine, they just wrote a handful of awful episodes. BttS would have been better off without the "cyber" gimmick

I at least liked the series ending with a April O'Neil-Casey Jones wedding.

Yeah, I'm glad BttS happened. We definitely needed a season "back home" after the future stuff.

Maybe there should've been a season with international travels across the Earth?

I don't care for BTTS but everything else was great. I don't think they should've done stuff differently except perhaps in that last season.

There was no need for a Cyber Shredder in BttS, or really a cyber anything.
They should have had BttS just be more down-to-earth and not as fantastical as FF or ninja tribunal, just to wind things down. Taking down gangs or crooks like they used to in the early, early episodes. Maybe a splash of the Foot Clan every now and then.

A less over the top version of the season 5 story than what we got, after that, maybe adapt a few stories they didn't get around to? The second run of Tales was on, what? 20-30 issues by the time Fast Forward aired? Seems like they would have made for some decent filler episodes while working out the kinks on how to proceed after the whole Demon Shredder biz, just experiment a little with what they missed and go from there.

But if they had to go ahead with Fast Forward, they shouldn't have rushed it the way they did and certainly not follow it up with another rushed season that barely continued anything. I mean seriously, Serling and kinda sorta Viral? That's all they chose to continue with? At least have an episode where they go back to take down Darius, it would at least have been better to give the main plotline from Fast Forward a quick resolution than to have an episode dedicated to a WoW parody or a jab at the Green Lantern.

The thing is they ran out of Mirage stories to adapt anyway. Volume 2 was already adapted via Bishop and we had cyborg Baxter all throughout the series.

Everything else was either guest stories from Volume 1 which would have never made it into the show anyway, and most of the Tales stories are just one-shots. All they had to adapt was Volume 4, and I don't think anyone had a burning desire to see those stories in animation.

For the most part 2k3 ran out of material, hence the rebranding in the last two seasons anyway.

Very good point. There were a few random Volume One stories they didn't do, plus CC and Radical (and all of Tales Volume 2), but certainly nothing to base an entire season arc around.

There was the Image run... but you'd never see Volume Three retold while Laird had any say.

They should have done a true "City at War" arc last half a season at least or a whole season. They barely even touched city at war and could have easily revisited it after Shredder/ch'll was exiled/imprisoned

They also could have done a season surrounding bishop and Mutants that he finally creates, maybe could have brought in some OT mutants.

They could have also done a battle nexus arc that revolved around Team Battles instead of individual battle.

Also instead of Fast Forward they could have done a season where the "Same as it Never was" is the actual future and the turtles have to fight in the future or fight in the present to prevent it.

There is a lot of things they could have, but I think the writers got burned out.

They lost the privilege to do City at War with their first dumpster fire.

More Bishop is cool. But after FF, we knew he was gonna go legit eventually.

Peter would never allow FW mutants.

Eh, one tournament arc was enough.

Yes! Some actual stakes in the future would have been nice.

I didn't mind Fast Forward at all, Id only want Btts to be replaced by something else. I liked the concept of season 5 and enjoyed the actual season but would've preferred it was executed differently. Seasons 1-4 I don't have a problem with, I thought they were all great.

Let me clarify, I was talking about replacing Fast Forward and Btts with one of the above mentioned ideas. So Bishop would never be a good guy, but I doubt if Peter Laird would go for a OT mutant army of sorts.

As for the tournament arc I just love battle nexus.

We already had a whole Bishop/mutants arc. And as said we'd never get the original cartoon mutants anyway, you had to wait till PL was out of the picture which is why IDW and Nick use them.

The Battle Nexus already got several follow-up episodes with Michelangelo defending his title, and then the Ultimate Draco arc tying into it. Another entire tournament on top of that would have been overkill. I mean these all sound like redundant ideas.

As for City at War, the whole series was filled with Foot Soldier fights anyway. It isn't much different than what we got in Seasons 3-5 regardless. The whole Mystic Foot versus Karai's Foot in Season 5 was basically that too.

Maybe the turtles should go in separate ways around the Earth for longer times?

Which would be kinda redundant. We've seen them all separated before and spending an entire arc over this when they're all main characters would be odd.

I think this thread just proves that the 2k3 series ran its course. Most of the ideas presented here are either redundant or just slight alterations of things they already did.

The original series had various solo-adventures during seasons 4-5.