Ehhh...in a franchise this big, *nothing* is going to be the "definitive" take, not even the original Mirage comics. Nothing can, on its own, capture all the forms that TMNT has taken over the years.
That being said, the 4Kids series is my favourite of the TMNT cartoons, and I'm head-over-heels in love with its best parts.
Not all of it was good, of course. There was a lot of filler, some boring arcs (the one where the Turtles all get transported to different places, ugh) and after season four, well...yeah. Season five was a "normal" season to be sure, but it had a ton of problems and was overall unpleasant.
Yet that can't cancel out that a lot of it was damn good. I liked most of the characterization (from new and established characters), the atmosphere, the plotting, etc. I didn't mind The Shredder as an Utrom, or the attempts to bind together separate aspects of the Mirage universe.
Most of this worked like gangbusters, and I'd grab a DVD set anytime.
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