Season 3: Main Issues
 

You know, when looking back at the show when it began, tons of promised potential. There's stories, there's references, there's comedy, a little something for everyone. Nearly everyone defends the first two seasons, and it's hard not to see why. Then we get to season 3...

I'm not going to beat around the bush with anyone who's said it, but season 3 is probably the weakest season of the show. It does have some stuff I personally like, such as the mutations of Bebop and Rocksteady, my favorite episode of the season of Casey vs the Underworld, and incredible animation. Following an epic season 2 finale that can be considered the best episode of the series, you would expect some emotional development and great plots. Karai mutated, the Kraang triumphant, the disappearance of Splinter, and other plots offer great potential.

Then, things take a dive depending on what you personally like. There's a lot of filler, the most in a season by far. It could be the characterization of some characters, especially Raph with a thread that sums it up with his treatment. Furthermore, it could even be the lack of potential of some episodes getting expanded upon into two parters, rushing some plots more. To say the least, it can be jarring to some but others can like what they want with the show. (we are humans, makes sense)

Though it had some positives going for it, season 3 to me personally is by far the weakest of the entire show at least until we proceed. With season 3 finally concluded, time to beg the question: what are the worst elements of the entire season? Also, if you could, how would these issues be improved to make it better in quality?

Between Arrow and TMNT, I'm now leery of any new show's third season. :tlol:

:lol: Oh my gosh, YES!

Hey, I'll take TMNT Season 3 over Olicity Season 3 all day, every day!

(Before you read this, realize I haven't seen the season finale yet, so, forgive me if I'm missing something).

How to improve the issues? Well, first off, you said it yourself, take the opportunities given to make two-parters. I fully agree, though, that Season 3 is definitely the weakest the show has to offer (still puts it miles above Nickelodeon's other programming, however).
It starts off at the farmhouse. Perfect opportunity for character development for each character, right? Well seeing as how this show seems to think character development = status quo, no such luck. We barely scrape the surface of what's considered to be development, with the only substantial episode in this first part of the season being Buried Secrets, and the writers seem to have forgotten all about April's mom, anyway. So, instead of getting something that could propel the show further in quality, we instead take a step back with more filler (and more horror movie references. Because we need a lot of those in TMNT)

Then things started to pick up with Vision Quest. Could've and should've been a two-parter, especially considering all the filler we got beforehand, but it was great nonetheless. Return to New York and the subsequent episodes seemed to be picking the pace back up. And THEN Battle for New York happened. The one episode that should feel grand, over-the-top, even, just felt kinda meh to me. It was at this point I began to question the overall quality of the season as a whole. Luckily, Casey Jones VS The Underworld came about and I fully enjoyed that one.
And then we got what I call the "weak midseason", which Season 2 got, too. Basically, it's the time right after the midseason finale and right before things really start to pick up again where there is a significant drop in quality. Episodes like The Noxious Avenger and Clash of the Mutanimals should've worked, but didn't. Again, they came off as "meh" to me. Filler was getting too real, and it was getting increasingly obvious how Raph is mishandled in this season. The last episode of this doldrum of the season is Turtles in Time, making this longer than the one we had in Season 2.

And now I am freaking loving this season. Tale of the Yokai felt like a return to what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is supposed to be. Not a bunch of filler. It's supposed to be a tale on how life is, at best, bittersweet. And that episode hit it unbelievably well.
Subsequent episodes have been tremendously good. So, what the hell happened? It's not like the past two seasons where you can clear-cut point out their quality, both of them being overall great seasons with only one or two mediocre episodes. But Season 3? A rollercoaster of quality, easily traced back to the many unnecessary filler episodes that exist within the show. Some episodes that were filler could've been dedicated to Splinter healing after being separated from his body, or the Turtles finding their true strengths and learning how to overcome their weaknesses, or the Dark Raph arc that was wrongly teased at us and we never got. This season could've benefited a lot from the writers just taking a step back and looking at what they already had, realized that they had opened up some threads that they need to tie (and this season, in more than one occasion, has had the opportunity to do so), and do just that. It could've benefited, of course, by a couple more two-parters, and a lot less filler episodes. Finally, I would've taken a slightly different approach with Battle for New York, but that's just me.

Whew. That was a long one. But basically, those are my opinions on the state of Season 3. Hopefully, Season 4's new ideas can bring some fresh blood to this show. But for now, all we can do is hope (and watch the actually spectacular episodes that, even though I have bashed this season into oblivion, are really good and are quite a few in quantity).

My two biggest issues with season 3 were Karai and the balance between the turtles screentime.

Karai's plot was interesting, but after the show kept putting her into instances were she's no longer her own character and cannot act of her own accord, it started to drag and get frustrating.

I like what the season did with Leo. I like how they gave him an arc; Leo's had some great episodes/moments this season. The only problem is that they didn't allow the other turtles to keep up. Mikey, and moreso Donnie and even moreso Raph felt like the show ignored them in favour of Leo. It's nothing against Leo, I think he was well done for the most part, but the lack of balance just annoyed me and made it frustrating to watch the other turtles.

The only issues I had were the Northhampton arc being just filler and Raph getting a lack of episodes . This season was about as good as season 2 except for the first few episodes.

Season 3 wasn't bad per say, it just had really some questionable writing decisions. Bad episodes individually are when they have such poor direction in trying to tell what happen or comes across as unintentionally offensive and to me that was "A Foot to Big" because those last two minutes really put such a bad taste in my mouth that almost make me quit the show altogether.

If you can watch Northampton in a bubble without knowing what happen by taking some key scenes out from the Creep episode and just gave a throw away line on how Leo broke his leg, like he became injured during a training session, this episodes would be consider pretty awesome and a breath of fresh air but it happen at a time when they really should have focus on dealing with the aftermath. What should been a good maybe solid three episodes of character arc wasinstead of a five minute montage of exposition from April.

I don't want to keep ranting "Why Northampton doesn't fit between season 2 and 3" so I turn my attention to the better part of season 3.

In light of the episodes when they return to New York, it got better mostly because I was just so happy to get out of that damn forest. The atmosphere of "Return of New York" arc so what I sort of envision for North Hampton. Highlights of it was whenever Shredder or Karai were involved. Kraang were growing tiresome and at that point they just like a dragon for them to slay and to save the day.

After that were some fillerish episodes. Most of them were to introduce new characters that we would see later. The one that stand out to me as the best was "The Noxious Avenger". Aaronardo said that episode was meh but I love that episode because holy **** stuff was actually happening in the background or at least not off screen like everything else!
Bebop and Rocksteady were talking, actually having very foreshawdowy conversation of "We should take over the Foot" and that better been a goddamn foreshadow because I actually like those characters and I want more interesting stuff happen to them rather for them to just fight turtles on the weekly basis until the end of ****ing time. If the show plot progression and character arc wasn't so zig aged or just ignored all together then I wouldn't think much about this episode.

My enjoyment of this show is heavily dependent on what new information did I learn about the characters, how will this effect the show, and how will the characters will change after being effect by the recent event in this very episode? So far with its track record of the mind serum arc it was handle above average. B+. There was such a great payoff to all of it in "The Fourfold Trap" and even though what Donnie work on in the end didn't matter, there was a sense of conclusion.

Now with yet another devastating event, will this show do the right thing with its characters and let this stick with them in future episodes, because you can't just write them as oblivious to what had just happen? IT'S WOULD BE TERRIBLE WRITING!

Season 3 was mostly the same exactly quality as the first two seasons. Northampton could have been condensed by about 3 episodes though.

I think one problem though is the writers don't exactly move on from status quo. Karai is lost/brainwashed/missing about a million times and it never ends. The Kraang always come back no matter how many invasions we go through. I don't get why they don't move on from that.

In the same manner, Shredder and his mutants don't really do anything other than hunt the Turtles anymore. Would love to see Shredder do something else for a change.

Main issue? The writing.

There's a clear compensation from interesting character dilemmas/dynamics and dialogue being developed to resorting to good old 80's references as a shield to fool the older audience into thinking the show speaks to them as well.

There's like no banter between the Turtles or rather; very mediocrely written exchanges between the characters.

The one grin I had in a long time was Donatello's sarcastic remark in the Season Finale when Leo asked why the invisibility booster didn't work on the Triceratons "Oh, let me just text them and find ou- I DON'T KNOW!" - more of that please! Those were the kind of lines that harkened back to Season 1's ingenious characterisation through simple exchanges.

Everything else from the animation to the actual narrative has only gotten better though.

It was. Until the very end.

(Sweet One Piece sig btw :tgrin: :twink: )

Too Soon? :lol:

100% agreed. Loved, loved Leo's arcs and they were well done, but still wish they'd balance it out a little more.

Karai was also frustrating as I really loved her character before but now she is just a perpetual and enigmatic damsel in distress. I really hope she just goes rogue so she can be her own person again, allying with either group seems to shortchange her now.

As someone who also a Karai fan (Hi by the way) I would love to pieces if the writers did their version of Zuko Alone with her as the focus and her realizing that revenge won't end with Shredder but will continue to live on in a circle of violence. Kind of like themes with "City at War" but none of that story structure.
The plot with her would be her leaving the Hamato family to find soldiers to build an unstoppable army despite Splinter protest at the idea.

"This our fight, Miwa. If we make other people involved, it would become their war."

I agree that there were alot of issues with this Season; the main ones were that there was too much filler and certain arcs just went nowhere!

The Northampton Arc should have been shortened down to at-least 4/5 episodes. The only episodes I actually liked were Within the Woods, Buried Secrets, Eyes of the Chimera and Vision Quest (which should have been a 2-parter). Everything else seemed either dull or just wasted potential (I'm looking at you, Punk Frogs)

I have no problem with the Return to New York arc; the introduction of Bebop and Rocksteady, Karai's mental state deteriorating, the formation of the Mighty Mutanimals (good line-up by the way) and the defeat of the Kraang! ALL PERFECT (though it would have been cool to see Kraang Prime)

Here's where things start going wonky for me. I feel like the aftermath of the Kraang Invasion wasn't fully explored. Though to be fair Casey Jones VS The Underworld did come rather close. The episode not only introduced Hun and expanded the Criminal Underworld, but I loved the opening few minutes when Casey was explaining how bad New York was at that point.

However after that episode, all we had were introductions to fan-favs like Mondo Gecko and Muckman (that could've been introduced later on); the rather stupid Karai-Mind Worm arc, and fillers that went from average to just awful.

The Renet story turned out to be actually one of my favourite stories in the Season, as Tales of the Yokai had the right combination of history and tragedy (however, like "Vision Quest", I wish it was a 2 parter)

Now I rather liked the final 3 episodes; as it introduced us to the Triceratons. However there are 2 nick-picks I have:
1. I'm not really happy about Nick's version of Agent Bishop. Don't get me wrong I'm glad they acknowledged the Utroms, but why make Bishop one! Why not introduce Mortu instead (an Utrom ally from the 2K3 series).
2. The Ending; like others on this page, I'm not happy with the upbeat ending; YOUR HOME-WORLD'S BEEN DESTROYED! Just have the glum faces of the Turtles, one of them asks the Fugitoid who he is and he says "I'm Professor Honeycutt" then cut to black!


To summarize; this Season has been one non-stop roller-coaster of stops and starts. I hope Season 4 picks back up with the Turtles in Space arc. Looking forward to Mona Lisa, Lord Dregg and Armaggon; and I'm hoping (considering their status in Turtle-Lore) they get some pretty epic stories and character development!

I know this has been tread upon, but in condensed form, season 3 had way too many filler episodes, and a lot of the big moments were cut short. They could have cut out some of the filler episodes to expand the vision quest/RTNY, instead of just running with so many episodes that ultimately amount to nothing (A Foot to Big, that one with the mutant car, etc. etc.)

They could have cut out some of the filler to give more character development and allow the high points of the season to not feel so rushed.

I think for me it was the idea that they showed us so many cool things that were coming up in season three and then they were all pretty much duds.(Dark Raph being the biggest one for me)

Way too much filler and not near enough emotional moments that connected the characters. No one talks about important things! Everything that is interesting and dramatic is brushed aside with a line or off screen. That sort of thing ruins it for me.

Before the last five episodes, the only things I took away from season three were the Mutanimals coming together and Bebop and Rocksteady's mutation and partnership forming. The only thing I took away from the Hampton episodes was Leo's healing, although I did really like In Dreams.

I like season 3. More fun for me than season 2.

Yup or at least half of it arguable better then season 1. Season 2 just had good stand alone episodes but for the life of me, I just can't remember what happen storyline wise.
Something..something..April...or something. http://i.imgur.com/nDaxxYI.gif

Season 1 was smaller, personal and essentially building up the establishing main traits of key characters but it was far less complex then the later half of season 3.

First half of season 3 is basically season 2 with a different setting and Leo's broken leg for continuity reasons. http://i.imgur.com/abtor4B.gif

I think the main problem they started to suffer in season 3 was two fold, specifically;

Plot fatigue

and a lack of space


Some plot elements carried from season 1+2 were definitely starting to get long in the tooth and needed to either be concluded or change dramatically. Capritello triangle being probably the prime candidate here - although Karai's arc certainly was starting to suffer plot fatigue by the end of the season. The apparent lack of significant developments on these plot threads started to make any mention of them feel a bit tiresome.

The lack of space was perhaps the worse problem. Season 3 had plenty of good ideas, but not enough time to develop them, or a lack of will to dramatically change the make up of the show. For all the faults of the hype around Dark Raph, that development - brief as it was - 'could' have been a major upheaval and very interesting to follow.

Its the missed opportunities like that which held the season back most I think.

That said, I think Season 3 had a lot going for it. Although it was not without problems, the vast majority of episodes were generally very good quality, and the animation and fight choreography has improved significantly.

Say what you will about season 3, but I've rarely seen better presented fight sequences in comparable shows and certainly not to the same consistent standard :)

The beginning of season three was where I had the most problems with. Leo had just been injured and the writers just felt like doing episodes based off horror stories. As opposed to fleshing out the characters, like Leo trying to get better and back on his feet, Mikey taking a newfound liking to drawing, or the turtles spending more episodes practicing for their fight against the Kraang and Shredder, we just get a couple episodes of Ciro and Bradon's love for old movies and insistent references. It just goes back to (which Matt brought up earlier) the identity problem I had with this series during season 1. This is when they didn't have a balance of what this show is trying to be.

The other problem I have is the Karai story arc. I know they want this to be a tragic story but I feel that they want to keep her as a mutant just to prevent her from having any screen-time or maybe they don't want her to take the focus away from the turtles. Even though she coughed up something that was mind-controlling her, what's next for her?

Maybe it just me but Karai feels important to the show as Zuko was to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Both characters start out as an antagonist and switch sides but didn't do so right away. Both had a little of an arc before joining them of where they started questioning themselves and wonder if everything that they were taught was wrong.

Now the real reason why I brought this up because when Zuko join the Gaang (Aang and the others) in the last season of the series, he served mostly as an ally to most of the characters by going on individual missions with each one of the group. There was a episode with just Zuko and Aang, A two parter with Sokka (which is my favorite) and even Katara despite the fact she was only one that still didn't trust him.

With that in mind, it's possible the reason why they been postponing her joining the turtles because they really want to save the arc of Karai joining the turtles for very last season of the series. Probably serving the same role like Zuko which is to serve as ally, who knows Shredder inside and out, and to stop Shredder once and for all. From the look of things, Raph is probably going to be the Katara of the group.

This is a really good idea in the end run, but it's going to end up with stagnation for her as a character until the final season. I just feel something needs to happen with her arc before the final season, since there's going to be at least 5.

Sigh. If were up to me, I would just let her join them already to save it from seasonal rot. There is a lot of character conflict and inner conflict potential that you can do with her character. Do writers really think that everything going to be fine and free of tension? She's a snake and her dad is a rat. What do you think?!:x

The Northampton arc was made of filler: they could have cut it down to about 4 episodes and saved us the load of filler. I liked how eventually even the characters had enough of the weird filler. It was stay there and die afraid, or charge in and die with honor. I feel some of them were mainly to make ersatz versions of characters Viacom didn't own (Creep=Bloodsucker, Dream Beavers=Terror Bears, Speed Demon=Von Clutch or the Mutato-Heads)

In "Battle for New York", I felt the Irmabot scene was wholly unnecessary and felt like dropping an anvil on the fans. The removed filler slots would have been great for showcasing Hun and Don Visiozo more. Otherwise, this season was fine.

^this

And all joking aside, there's the whole she's Hamato Yoshi's long estranged daughter. Even without her being a mutant, I think there's good tension and character development to be built from that if she were to join them.

Do people forget a large chunk of Season 2 was filler as well? Like the only important events is Karai's story which was dragged out and still has no conclusion, April's Dad mutating and being turned back to normal, the intro of Tiger Claw, and just stopping the Kraang a bunch of times.

I don't like to use the term "filler" unless it's an anime. What may be a filler to some might have an important plot point occur such as "Mikey Gets Shell-Acne" where Dogpound becomes Rahzar. Season two also had strange episodes but we're discussing season three in this thread.

Well of course the Northhampton arc, was too goofy and went on too long.

That being said I also think that the nods too the 80s show got out of hand here. Bebop and Rocksteady Muckman Mondo Gecko and the Punk Frogs didnt really need all that

LOL, what? How is bringing back old characters nods to the 80's show? Bebop/Rocksteady are incredibly popular characters, Mondo is in both the Archie comics and IDW, and Muckman and the Punk Frogs are just established mutants.

That's like saying bringing in Renet, Savanti, Fugitoid and the Triceratons are unnecessary nods to Mirage. Which is also wrong is anyone said it because bringing back all old characters is ideal.

Wow, I actually agree with Cubed for once. At least the show chose infamous characters instead of ignored characters like Mr. Ogg (trans-dimensional Peewee Herman. Sir Malachi is a better Mr. Ogg than Mr. Ogg) and the bat thug who had no lines.

Season 3 really hurt itself by completely missing the mark with Northampton, we never saw the characters dealing with anything, it just skipped ahead 3 months with Leo waking up.

Some episodes were really enjoyable, but no one really gave a **** about Splinter, and the whole idea that The Kraang had subjugated the city of New York was so stupid. Like, I know the EPF tried and failed to stop them, but what about the rest of the world? What about the million people who live on Long Island?

The season certainly had some stand out episodes, but when it was bad... man. I really loved Robbie Rist voicing Mondo, but that episode basically neutered the entire Foot Clan save Shredder and was a video game in the third act.

Season 3 certainly ended strong though, even though Mikey and Casey ruined the mood in the final scene.

Cube, I kinda disagree with season 2 being filler. Sure, the Squirrelnoids, Ho Chan, and even Pizza Face were uncalled for usage, the rest of the season contributes as continuity. You have the mutations, notably Slash and Kirby, Casey getting introduced and starting the oh so lovely triangle, build on of Karai and TC debuting, etc. etc.

Season 1 and 2 ultimately contributed a lot to the show, season 3 kinda falters on not doing so until everything picks up after Northampton and even when the time travel happens. By then, the continuity is finally showcased. Essentially, this season has the most filler for good reason. With the exception of Creep and even the Vision Quest, Northampton was hit with too much references in filler. The Noxious Avenger also felt useless except for Muckman finally returning in the finale.

I could ultimately see if season 3 was redone, giving each of the main characters some limelight in the respective Northampton episodes. (Raph really needed another episode, the Beavers were perfect there) Some of the things were pretty rushed as well, case in point with Clash of the Mutanimals and even other suspenseful episodes with the mind controlled Karai for instance. If anything, it's either little to no buildup causing nothing good to occur, or even more buildup to a major arc that doesn't wrap up.

A lot of Season 2 was filler though as well. And there were tons of generic, "We found a new secret Kraang base now we have to stop them and their new mutants" episodes largely repeated with slight variations.

Yeah, season two did have more plot-relevant episodes than it did filler, but very little actually happened in them. Not to say there weren't some awesome ones, but the overall scope of season 2 wasn't very large.

The Karai/Foot plot did move enough, and it was cool to have Shredder gone for a while, but The Kraang plot in season two was ridiculously slow.

Agreed. I really liked season 3 on a whole but the above sums up my major gripes with it. Though, I have to mention I wasn't a fan of Karai's mutation arc being dragged out. She's gonna be a snake into season 4? C'mon, man...

The problem is the writers don't want Karai living with the Turtles in the lair, but they also don't want her off on her own. So she's either with Shredder or "lost in the wilds" till they find her again.

Its stupid, why not just have her as a rogue ninja who doesn't work for Shredder but also helps the Turtles? She can visit Splinter every so often.

^ That's pretty much what everyone thinks on what they should do with her.

But still with Karai being who she is, she wouldn't have easy time getting to know her real father who is pretty much the complete opposite of the guy that raised her.

Maybe that sort of conflict between two characters would be pretty interesting for one or two episodes but I can imagine that it would be aggravating after a while if the same conflict keeps repeating itself.

But then again her being a mutant snake and him being a rat....is it really that hard to write Karai?!