This iteration shows why April and Casey should stay as supporting characters
 

I'm rewatching the Nick tv on Pluto Tv and I am reminded how terrible April's character turned out to be. I was kinda iffy with the whole Kraang plot when I first started it but my god is it worse when knowing how the series bungles it up. A good chunk of the important plot points is literally about her, we don't even get a good conclusion to her origin or mother subplot, awful love triangle and those godawful telekinesis powers that made her op. Casey's problem is that despite not having a lot of episodes directly about him appears in almost every episode seriously did we need Casey Jones in the Space Arc dude basically adds nothing.

I agree, I thought April and Casey were better in small doses.

I actually liked April better in the beginning when her abilities and relation with the Kraang were shrouded in mystery, but with time she was given way over the top Psychic powers, which didn't make her unlikeable but made her more clichéd.

Casey on the other hand seemed to become more of a gag character the further the show got.
His first episode was actually more toned down with less "awesome and metal" lines from him, as well as a subplot about his sister and family which is never Brought up again.

Interesting. I'll have to disagree with you on April. 2012 April is actually my favorite version of the character, mostly because she's the only one that actually stayed relevant to the plot beyond the initial arc. Every other April always fades into the background because no one seems to know what to do with her, but I actually thought that tying her into the Kraang plot was a really good way of keeping her involved. Additionally, she actually developed in skill over time and I think the way they handled her telekinetic powers was actually pretty well done. As for her mother and origin, I thought those were answered. The Kraang kidnapped her mother, experimented on her to make April, and then she died. To me at least, it didn't seem like they were setting anything up, so I had no expectations that it would go anywhere. As for Casey though, yeah this version pretty much sucks for most of the run. I remember when watching the show as it came out that he just kept getting more and more annoying, and he didn't really feel like proper Casey again until the back half of season 4. I think his lowest point was when is response to the world being blown up was how awesome it was that they were in space. Though when I watched the show on DVD it wasn't nearly as bad because I didn't have to wait as long in between episodes. As for the love triangle, I'll agree with you on that. I thought it was interesting initially and was a fairly realistic depiction of a teenager, but it became clear after a while that the writers had written themselves into a corner in how to resolve it, since it would send mixed singnals either way. You'd think it would have been over after the Bigfoot episode, but then they had April kiss Donnie and we were back to square one, until it eventually just faded away.

For me at least I didn't find it to be satisfying especially since this has been a huge plot point for two seasons.

Except that she becomes TOO "relevant" and TOO "involved", in this series, which is part of why it doesn't ultimately work as well as it should.

The various series fall underneath the blanket header, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". And although April is a component of their story, their story is not her story. She is not a Ninja Turtle, merely turtle-adjacent, so making her such a central focus and devoting gigantic chunks of plot to her for the duration of the series is actually a pretty big misstep.

I mean... "opinions", and all that, sure. And while I wouldn't go so far as to label April and Casey as "minor" characters, I do feel like there's a balance between "Not Enough" and "Too Much" that should be maintained most of the time with regards to their overall involvement, and that this particular show erred far too much towards the latter. Which is part of (but not the only reason) I didn't watch a whole lot of it.

Yeah minor is too harsh of a word supporting fits them better.

I mean, that's why we have the term "supporting cast", right? Not everyone can be a main character. Especially in a show that already has four of 'em.

Whenever I did catch an episode, in some way or another it was almost always April-centric. Whether it was the stuff with Don or the stuff with her secret origins, whatever... it sometimes felt like most to none of the show's plot could have even happened without her existence/involvement. And that's just too, too much real estate for a supporting cast member.

I was also iffy about April origins being tied to the Kraang, because even the Kraang themselves aren’t clear on their motives with her. Season 1 they want her because she is meant to be a living weapon. Season 2 they want her because her DNA perfects the mutagen.


If the point of making April connected to the Kraang was the reason for her being Psychic then there are better ways of going about it.

For example, take the Neutrino’s from the 87 series. The Neutrinos are a pacifistic and humanoid race from Dimension X who were being terrorized by Krang and his forces. In one episode the leaders of the Neutrino’s send their infant daughter Tribble to the turtles to look after. That’s where it is revealed that Neutrino’s have psychic powers as babies that fade away as they grow older.

So in the 2k12 series they could have played it out this way.
Season 1 play out more or less the same way, except for April being used as a living weapon. She is just told her existence brings hope to a group of people the Kraang are oppressing.

Season 2 it is revealed that April is genetically connected to Dimension X. Reveal more of what April remembered of the day she lost her mother. Maybe imply April’s mother has association to Dimension X and the Kraang want April because of her mother’s blood line.

Season 3 Cut our all the horror movie reference and homages. April comes across a journal written by her mother at the farm house. Through it she learns her mother was a neutrino who had escaped Dimension X when the Kraang were beginning their oppression of the Kraang race. This explains why April had psychic powers because that is something the Neutrino possess.

Season 4 While the turtles and everyone were in space they encounter a Neutrino resistance group which is how Zak, Dask, and Talla are introduced. It’s here that it’s revealed that April’s mother was Princess Trible. She escaped Dimension X so that way her people would take comfort in knowing she was free. She hides herself on Earth for many years and assimilates herself all the while trying to avoid being detected by the Kraang.

April's mother died, April never thought she was going to find her. When she says, "Maybe she's still out there, somewhere" in early Season 3 it was never intended to be a plotline to search for her.

Though it could have been a fun plot.

I still kind of want her mom to show up out of the blue, having just finally found her way back to Earth after spending all those years as some intergalactic space warrior. Battle hardened and no longer the same woman who lives in April's memories, but an awesome badass nonetheless. :tlol::tcool:

Finding her could make a good 2012 special/movie plot...

Her and the Kraang, they both needed a bigger send off due to all the build up.

From what I understand Ciro Nielli has a TV movie ready called "return of the Kraang" it's too bad they never got around to making it.

Has the cancellation offiially been claimed?

The show runners confirmed after the series was over that April’s mother was killed after she was recaptured. All it would have taken would have been Bishop take April aside in his debut episode and ask to talk to her privately. The turtles and or Casey watch the exchange and while we don’t hear what is being said April’s reaction would show the info given wasn’t good. Then when April rejoins her companions she has a tone and or look that says the battle against the Kraang just got personal.

Are there any links?

I disagree. I think these particular versions of April and Casey should have been regulated to less importance, but I think Mirage and IDW both make compelling cases for their relevance in future incarnations. It’s about how well they’re written, not their screentime. If there’s a Casey/April centric story that’s compelling and a writer wants to tell, by all means tell it. Just make sure they’re entertaining to watch, which 2k12’s Casey/April were not.

Even though I prefer her to be human I kinda like this idea.

Also another negative is that the fight scenes became too croweded, compare a fight in season 1 with a fight in season 4 and notice how methodically the former is while the latter has too much stuff going on. It gets worse during the city half of season 4 where Karai and Shinigami are added to the mix and you got a 8 people on the Hamato side fighting 6 mutants from the Foot

April was a more likeable version of Venus.

It was stated on facebook some years ago.

I found April and Casey likable as characters. But I do have to admit April was OP.

At the same time it didn't even bother me that she was OP. What bothered me is the story about her character ended on a wet fart.

Casey is okay but I noticed the writers used him as a mood killer. The show was determined to not let somber moments exist and I noticed Casey was often used to go "LOL WE'RE A KIDS CARTOON DON'T FORGET THAT." And I hated that so much.

True the space arc didn't need them and if i had written that season they would have stayed on earth. But while on earth and in New York I had no issue with them being regulars.

@ Victory Angel. That Idea is actually freaking amazing. Especially since 2k12 totally screwed up the Neutrinos with it stupid "cameo in name only" thing.

Well seeing as April would have been a product of a human and a neutrino. She would have been human but her psychic powers would have been inherited from her mother. To blend in with humans Tribble could have changed her name to Trina or Trianna.

While searching for Tribble the Kraang would have realized that if the neutrinos knew Tribble had a child then they would have more reason to resist. If April was a hostage of the Kraang the neutrinos would have no choice but to despair under oppression.

That would have temporary killed them.

Lol doesn't matter since the turtles saved the planet with time travel anyway.

I'm personally opposed to the Neutrino being an entire race of aliens like they apparently are. When I was younger I thought the Neutrinos were just the 3 teens we saw. I forgot about Tribble which implies there are more of them. But still I like the idea of April being half human, half space elf. It's an interesting backstory and you could even write her out if you wanted to by having her leave earth to learn of her heritage.

Well if we go by Mutant Apocalypse, they're dead anyway.

2012 Caseys best moment was when his skull was used as a bomb.

I guess Nickelodeon wanted to focus more on the the turtles missing Splinter.

For me Casey wasn't that annoying in my eyes but I just wish they done more with his character. Like we could have seen his family he was saying he wanted to protect. I had two ideas for Casey centered episodes that show some development with him. My first idea was that Casey sloppy in keeping where he lives and just taking off his mask without looking around and that Hun and the purple dragons found out Casey's identity and where he lives, then kidnaps his little sister and beat his dad to a inch of his life and in the hospital. Casey founds out, he call's the turtles and it's hunt to find the dragons. In the meantime Casey is just angry and worried, no jokes, no goofing off he losing his temper on the turtles. Raph tries talking to him but in doesn't work so Leo decides to split up into two groups and search the the areas where the dragons are known to hangout and Leo tells Casey he's going with him and that's when we have some Leonardo and Casey interaction.

That's one thing I'll say the 2012 didn't do is show Casey interaction with particular characters. We seen Casey have episodes with Raph, episodes with Donnie, one or two episodes with Mikey, but never Leo. I have it that Leonardo talks to Casey about the fear of family members getting hurt and the responsibility of being the older sibling and making sure that everyone comes home safely. They eventually find where Hun and the dragons are they go in take down the dragons and find Casey's sister whose okay. They tie up the dragons and left them for the cops. On a nearby rooftop Casey introduce his sister to the "friends" he always talks about to her. While there dad is still in the hospital Casey's sister is going to stay at the aunt's house. But Casey decides to stay with the turtles for awhile but promises to visit his sister everyday to check in on her.

Back the lair Casey thanks the turtles for helping him rescue his little sister and thanks Leonardo for the talk. He then asks Leonardo while he's staying with them could Leo train him in being more stealthy and developing more of a level head (The reason I have Casey asking Leonardo as suppose to Splinter is that Splinter would still be training April and I wanted to see a friendship build more between Casey and Leonardo) to which Leo agrees and after this episode you'll slowly start to see Casey become more level headed. He's still going to have his goofy moments, but when things get serious e.i. the Earth getting destroy later on he's going to the space trip for the black-hole generator more seriously kind of make him similar to his TMNT 2007 incarnation.

The problem I find is less that they had April as a central character or that they gave her powers but more that they clearly had no idea were they were going with that.

They had five seasons to do more than just tease us with April's true purpose. Clearly the writing was on the wall for the show going into the fourth season, it was clear they were wrapping up every other aspect of the show but couldn't come up with some explanation and/or resolution to this storyline. Then they had the Tales episodes, a coda season which would have been perfect to wrap up April's story but they couldn't even cobble anything together.

This was worse than the X-Files and Lost shenanigans of stringing people along in hopes that they had an idea were they were going but they didn't.

I know I started this thread saying that April should've been made a supporting character but now I think its has to do with what you said in that the writers had no idea what to do with her. In the context of this series the Kraang took almost everything from her, they took the possibility of her having a normal life, they took her mom, and they took her dad numerous of times. The Kraang should've been April's go to nemesis like Shredder is to the later seasons Karai but instead we don't see her interact with them in the later episodes heck we rarely see her interact with them at all come to think of it.

April's entire arc was horrible, absolutely horrible. Casey was horrible but got a little bit better. What a waste of having April be a teenager for that.

They had a whole extra arc/season to tie up loose ends but didn't for reasons unknown.

OMG this. So much this. I wouldn't have minded if it was just the Turtles in space. We didn't need April and Casey along for the ride and it would have made things much for tragic had the turtles lost Splinter AND April and Casey.

I missed all that, thankfully. See, this is why I didn't love the show. Stuff like the Turtles going into space, okay, sure, they're the protagonists. I've seen some good stories based on that premise, no foul. But taking the NPCs with them on that kind of "adventure" is the kind of "writing" that reeks of a little kid playing with their action figures.

I get that the show was "aimed at kids", but from what I saw of it, it was also very often written with a child's mentality, which is neither necessary nor anything I care for, generally speaking.

April was pretty much a God if she went all out with her powers. Hell she brought Don back from the dead.

Or maybe at the farm house Casey is getting impatient and is chomping at the bit for them to return to New York so they can save the city. During one episode he blows up at the Turtles and says they are aren't ready to return to the city because they don?t care about it. So he?s going back just so something is done, Raph and April speak up and point out it?s too dangerous to return and it?s foolish to take on the Kraang alone. Casey?s mind is set and he starts off, before he takes off Leo says he?s coming with him. Casey starts down the road and the two of them talk about what it means to be older brothers and fearing for their younger siblings safety. This is where Leo admits that he is afraid of returning to the city because he fears he could end up letting his brothers down when they need him most. The two share a couple of memories about growing up with their respective siblings. Such as take 9/11 the turtles would have been 4 years old when that even occurred. So say that was one of the memories, the date or the event wouldn’t be mentioned or the events used, but it could be implied that is what is happening. The turtles would be largely protected from the event, at worst they would have felt a massive earthquake when the towers fell. And there will be some areas of the sewers that are unstable because of said event. Casey would likely be affected he likely would be in elementary school when it occurred but he still would hear about it and that sparked his desire to protect his loved ones.

Neutrino
 

The word Neutrino was on everyone's lips in early 1987, when the first season was written. That's probably why they're called what they're called.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A