How well/poorly has the 2012 show aged?
 

Continuing Prowler’s thread series against neatoman’s better judgement :P

What does everyone think? As far as animation goes, I think all the action looks incredible. Some of the dialogue scenes from season 1 and 2 look a little rubbery, but everything after that looks great.

This version isn’t perfect, but it still holds up quite well. Season 1 is still amazing. The payoff from the season 4, followed by the Kavaxas arc and “Lone Rat and Cubs” is still some of the best TMNT stuff ever, if you ask me. This show really nailed the big emotional moments.

I do think this show feels incomplete, especially ever since the “Kraang Among Us” short comic came out last year. We never got a real conclusion to the Kraang story. They just kind of quietly went away after season 3.

I also think the Apocalypse arc/series finale is maligned for all the wrong reasons. But they definitely should have acknowledged or at least hinted at what happened with April and Karai.

Oh boy, premature thread... Aw well, might as well:

The show had obvious problems even when it was still on the air. Not problems like letting it air with unfinished animation or easily spotted technical errors to cut corners, basically it's not like the show lacked quality control, but serious problems still. Writing yourself into a corner by making it clear the cure for mutation takes too long to make but still having millions mutate into mindless monsters, only writing yourself out by having a character create the solution by accident and being incapable of recreating, may not be the result of bad corner cutting or anything but it's still a problem.

By the way, that particular problem is what a 14 episode stretch hinges on (the first half of season 3 to be precise), so it's hardly nitpicking to claim that was a bad piece of writing as far as the overarching story was concerned, it's more than a tenth of the entire show and that's just one example. How about Karai becoming "mindless" and then turned evil again with a brain parasite, only for it to be removed and thus bringing her back to what she was right before becoming "mindless"? That stretch of episodes is even longer than one full season, 27 to be precise. What was the point of that? Did the writers get too far ahead on her arc or something?

While I'm on the topic, Karai's arc basically comes across like it was conceived by someone who can't even try to let things take their time and wants changes to happen immediately, which is the charitable interpretation of that. A more negative way of putting it is that it seems like this character's hero/villain status is not determined by a moral compass or broadening perspectives, but instead the main factor seems to be believing who her father is. I that sounds dismissive and there is lip service to there being some better justification, but that doesn't change the fact that Karai gleefully commits felonies, commissions killer robots from evil aliens and knowingly leads people into death traps when she believed Shredder to be her biological father. While the Karai who is aware Splinter is her biological father wants to restore the Foot to it's glorious past and wants to end the Shredder's operations at any cost, because of her long absences between learning the truth and coming back it really does come across like that is the only real development between these two characterisations, if something else happened it was off-screen and unexplained. I don't know how anyone can take it as seriously as intended, the character's behaviour seems to operate on an on-off switch.

I should note that these are just some problems, I could go on but I'm not sure I should put that much detail into one post. I will say though that they are examples of the show's typical writing problems. Other similar problems include Baxter Stockman somehow becoming more loyal after he's unjustly turned into a monster, and the earth blowing up with the "only" salvation being a one-time use of time travel (even though the show had already established time travel by other means). More could be said about these problems but it's best to move on.

More general problems are things like the first few seasons being set in a weird tiny little ghost town they insist is the same as a real world city that had nearly nine million living there at the time, even after people move in it's still seems to just be a few blocks. You typically just get to see a rather limited amount of areas, meaning you are either just meant to think they keep coming back to the same exact places or the audience is just kinda meant to think everything warehouse in the world looks exactly the same. It doesn't do a good job of making me think there is more to this world than a single town block is what I'm saying, the illusion just isn't pulled off.

The show also seemed to be strangely allergic to the idea of any major character being a normal human. When trying to think of characters who are introduced as normal humans, become a major player and remains a human until the end of the show, it's pretty much just Casey, isn't it? It might not seem like a "real" problem and it may be a bit difficult to explain but I'll try. The concept of TMNT and seemingly the show itself hinges on the idea that they exist within a world that is otherwise normal. Mutants, aliens and whatever else does exist but is not the norm, they're supposed to stick out. So when the show basically has no major characters who are just human, at least in the long run, it feels really weird. Now you could argue that most of these characters were based on action figures that needed promotion and wouldn't exist if that wasn't the case, and maybe that's true, but did the mutant characters and the human characters actually need to be the same characters? Like... Is there any actual reason Xever and Bradford couldn't just be human criminals working for Shredder doing human criminal things, while Fishface and Dogpound could just be seperate monsters? I can't really think of a good reason why Xever and Bradford absolutely had to be Fishface and Dogpound when we already know random animals could get mutated instead. The same goes for Baxter, Steranko, Zeck and quite a lot of other characters. I mean it's not like the human character models are used for much afterwards, so from a budget standpoint it seems kinda like a waste, considering how we're otherwise just meant to pretend the same set of docks are multiple ones. In many cases, they also become worse characters when it happens, for some reason Steranko and Zeck just become total idiots once they mutate despite being somewhat smart and competent as humans, I don't see why. It just feels like characters in this show aren't valued as actual characters but are more seen like excuses to make merch.


... Uh, yeah, I might come back. Feels like I have more to say...

I know that was pretty negative and might come across like I just hate the show or something, which I don't. The show does have good qualities but what's wrong with the show is so seriously wrong that it's harder to articulate what's actually decent about the show.

I don't think think the problems are the result of indifference, at least I can say that. There are plenty of children's shows that are bad because the people behind them don't care and think children don't really need quality, this is not that. Passion clearly went into this and the failings seems to be because of something else. It's a decent enough show for children and there is far worse out there, but in the end it's still no more than a decent children's cartoon. I don't think it's fair to attempt elevate it above that, it's not by any means "one of the best TMNT things" either, it's just OK for what it is. I don't quite understand how someone can call this show "great" and then dismiss Rise and Mutant Mayhem as trash, as much as the MM Turtles piss me off by being more pop culture spewers than characters and the "now they're in high school" ending is the lamest direction they could have gone with, the content and tone just isn't that far off from this show. So I don't really see what the problem is other than the main characters being better in this show than in that movie, it basically has the same idea about what the target audience is interesting in seeing and much of the plot comes across like something that could have been cooked up for this show. As for Rise, as hard as I try all I can think of is the possibility that it's just "too far off" compared to this show but that's it.

For better or worse, I can't think of this show as some "great revival of TMNT" or "The ultimate distillation of TMNT" or even "a wonderful passion project". I think of it as "the first of Paramount's series of kiddie versions of TMNT", it's kinda hard not to.

You make some good points. As much as I love this show, I don’t disagree with much you said.

I think a lot of your problems more or less stem from too many episodes. Ciro said they needed 4 seasons to tell the story he wanted to tell. So obviously you use the season finales/openers to feature big status quo changes and location changes, but 26 episodes per seasons was probably too much and caused a lot of stalling and kicking the can down the road.

I wouldn’t change much about seasons 1 and 4 (or season 5), but 2 and 3 probably could have been tightened up to be closer to 13 episodes. But I still think the story of Shredder reigniting his feud with Yoshi and letting it ruin his life and ultimately leading to his death is good. The turtles going through hell and growing up together is good. Karai and April had serious problems and feel like incomplete arcs.

And again, The Kraang went away too easily and we know Ciro has that movie idea. I feel like it’s time for a reunion special soon.

And I still think this is the most successful thing overall from the Nickelodeon era, even if the IDW outlasted it.

Besides some overall pacing issues:

1. Northampton arc should of been 2-3 episodes shorter. Could have easily cut the mutant car episode, the giant chimera episode...and that awful Bigfoot ep which is what I consider to be the worst ep of the entire show.

2. Kirby getting constantly kidnapped/mutated got old, but at least they realized that and stopped doing it.

3. April's backstory really needed to be explained better, I feel like Ciro had a better idea in his mind then what he could portray in the show.

4. Tone down Don's more creepy crush on April especially the later gags

5. Some of the excessive mutant eps could feel too same-y, I also feel Snakeweed should of had a real conclusion being the first mutant we saw.


Lastly I'm worried how much the CG has aged. Which is why I'm waiting for a blu-ray boxset, I fear this show will not be pleasing to the eye as the years and decades go on. Even when it was airing you saw people complaining some eps look like a PS2 game.

Oh yeah, the CGI has aged poorly, trust me. The show does well with camera movement and angles compared to the other shows but that is just the benefit of CGI, it's way easier to pull off and do it on a budget by simple virtue of being a simulated 3D environment. Of course it was going to do the one thing the previous shows couldn't pull off. That and smoother movements I guess, but again, that's just the advantage of using CGI over 2D animation.

The comparing the quality to a PS2 game's graphics is a stretch, pre-rendered cutscenes for PS2 games maybe but certainly nothing in-engine compares, the show clearly has models, textures and lighting effects that would be a strain on the PS2. It's insult to make that comparison, probably intentionally and I doubt anyone ever felt it looked that primitive.

That said, the models in the early episodes tend to look a bit waxy and the eyes a bit glossy, it may not be all that noticeable with the turtles or other mutant characters because how cartoonish they look but with human characters very obvious. Even major human characters, like April, tend to look a bit like cheap plastic dolls, the skin and eyes just don't look right. There also tends to be "selective attention to detail" for a lot of the models as well. The Turtles themselves have details like freckles, scuff marks and such but moment they open their mouths you'll notice their teeth rows are just two white blocks.

Another common criticism, that I checked out to see if it's true, is that new characters did indeed receive higher quality models but no character ever received an updated model, unless it was for the purpose of mutating them or giving them an alternate outfit. So the result is that a major character like April in season 4 is less detailed than the Sylvester Stallone parody who only appeared in two episodes, it's honestly kinda weird.

As for the animation itself it tends to look a bit floaty at times, skin bending/stretching looks like rubber and there seems to be a reliance on canned effects that don't really mesh all that well. For the first one, it doesn't always happen but I don't always believe these character exist in normal gravity, there are plenty of times when it looks like the characters jump up in the air with less effort than it should take (especially considering one of them carries a pair of steel weapons) and descend slower or in some cases make movements that just shouldn't be possible. While the characters do seem like they have skeletal joints (for the most part) it doesn't typically look like the muscles are doing much of a job, instead it looks like... Like if you put bones inside a stretchy rubber doll to prevent the wrong points to get bent, I think that's the best way I can describe it. And the effects.. Yeah, those look pretty bad. Liquids, be they ooze or tomato sauce, always have this weird goopy behaviour to them, even regular water which is just weird. Explosions and dust effects also seem like they're just something that came with the software, they often don't make any sense in context and tend to look the same regardless of what blew up, I can't even say they mesh with the environment.

Something I have pointed out in the past and I suspect will be more noticeable with a higher quality release, is the show's tendency to rely on this matte painting like effect when actual models weren't worth creating. Examples of this is the gross pizza Mike made and Tang Shen's entire house. While I understand their purpose of keeping the budget down, they don't really mesh with the actual models, the detail is often far greater than the models, light/shadow doesn't match and there is clearly a "flatness" that the 3D models just don't share. Even in still frames and DVD resolution the illusion doesn't work, so a higher resolution release will just make it stick out even more.

There are of course the parts that lower budget CGI can't really do regardless of how new it is or how much talent it has behind it, like hair always behaving like an unmoving solid piece rather than having individual strands (at most you get stuff like ponytails moving a little) and never actually animating the mutations. If you pay attention, the mutations themselves are never actually animated, it's usually stuff like they go into an ooze tank and emerge with their new model, at best they show a piece of the mutant model sprouting from the human/animal model or something but you never actually see something like Baxter's human hand morph into the fly claw.
But then again, those parts in particular are not fair to criticise, it's not even fair to say that has aged poorly because budget CGI still struggles to do stuff like that. It can be done but I don't see TV cartoons making it the norm for a long time.

I'd need to sit through the show again to really evaluate this, but I have no intentions of doing it unless it finally came out on Blu-Ray. Going by memory though?

Some of the overt "personality Jokes" are probably always going to be funny. "Interaction Jokes" like Leatherhead nonsensically pulling on Donnie's face across random episodes is always going to be funny.

Although the animation got better and more well funded as the show went on, the routine emptiness of the city made the show feel "cheap" at times. There's probably more instances like that here and there but I'd have to watch the show again.

The in-show explanation for Leo's voice change was brilliant and isn't often done. The art direction for the show could have been better - I think the "chibi head" thing will date it a bit when animation in general returns to "symmetry" and "high art".

I think the combat in the show will age well - they didn't shy away from it and moments feel very anime (sword swipe lines, etc).

I just know that my interest in the show dropped precipitously when they left Earth. It was best when it was a "New York" show to be honest.

This show was overrated as hell when it came out because all the normies were now old enough to be nostalgic about the cartoon and now everyone and their mom loved the turtles again and everyone was now a mirage fan and acted as if 2k3 did not exist. Tumblr was well tumblr at its peak so the show got more attention than it ever deserved. I think it was only a moderate hit with the kids and this is only because Nickelodeon put all their marketing muscle to make it a success.

It should've been 2D animated, the designs work so much better in 2D than 3D.

First season looks so amateurish, NY is dead, they keep reusing 3D models, the few models look dated, the story is silly. S2 rehashes the S1 ending if I rememnber correctly. Most of their original mutants were all terrible outside of a few. The horror parodies overstayed their welcome by the end of the first season and we still had many more.

All the bad origins they decided to give to estabished characters were BS, tall Splinter sucks, bald Shredder is goofy looking with his 90s extreeme spikes and 'anger'. The whole Splinter Shredder story is dumb. Karai's story arc is stupid. Teen April was wasted, we never get any real Teen angst or storylines. All the stupid mutations.

Why were people having such a hard on for this show? I think its because they didn't know 2003 existed, and when they did they got a hard on for that show which is now why the TMNT reddit that couldn't shut up about 2012 now can't shut up about how great 2003 is. I mean it's an alright show, I don't hate it despite all of the above, but it was always overrated.

Nick 2012 Splinter is one of my favorite versions of him. Shredder being bald doesn't bother me as he was burned in a fire during the fight over Tang Shen and scarred so it fits their rivalry. He did seem to narrow minded with his obsession with Splinter for most of the show though.

Shredder's extreme lack of perspective when it comes to getting revenge on Splinter is another thing I find questionable about this show. Most of the stuff is fine, you know, kidnapping his daughter to raise her to hate him, moving his HQ to New York to find him better, pouring acid into the sewer, trying to mutate the Turtles so they'll eat him and that stuff is fine. Where it gets weird is how he interacts with the aliens.

He co-operated with one set of aliens he knew full well only wanted to make earth uninhabitable just to make it slightly easier to go after Splinter, and when a second set of aliens tried to destroy the planet completely he still prioritised killing Splinter despite knowing full well that would result in said immediate destruction. There is being narrow-minded or stubborn, and then there's acting completely illogically, I mean what's the point?

"The planet will blow up and I could always kill him right after we've stopped it, but I'll take the slightly easier opportunity to kill him even if it means I won't enjoy my revenge or do anything else because I'll be dead, at least I'll get a few seconds to gloat about before I die!"

We were meant to understand Shredder was slowly going more and more insane. Even Karai calls him out in one episode, that his obsession with finding Splinter and the Turtles had gotten out of control. I get the feeling that if Shredder had "won" and killed Splinter/Turtles, he wouldn't really care what happened to the world otherwise as he was ready to die and reunite with Tang Shen.

Unfortunately he also runs a criminal empire intent to assimilate all others and the reason he had for joining the Turtles in trying to destroy the BHG was that he wouldn't be able to find Karai if the earth is gone. In fact, if all he wanted in that episode was to kill Splinter and had no interest in still living afterwards, he had a much better opportunity when Splinter approached him. Also, earlier in the season he believed he had already killed Splinter and was merely staying in the city to find Karai, even stated that he would make sure to destroy the Kraang when "the time was right" and control New York.

He's clearly not a character who values his revenge so much that literally nothing else matters, he still wants to have Karai in his life and seems to want to rule over a city at least. Having him be so much of prick that he killed Splinter at the worst possible opportunity wasn't actually consistent with his character, it wasn't even consistent with how he was earlier in the same episode.

It was a cheap way to get to a cliffhanger and a space arc, that's really about it.

The show also suffered a lot from villain decay, they set up this perosn to be the next big guy only for him to become useless as the next big guy comes, they did this over and over again.

I like 2012 Splinter is a combat pragmatist, which make him more like a ninja than most version of Splinter.




While I don't mind Splinter being killed, but the problem is they've killed him multiple times.

Ciro was clearly fighting an uphill battle against Nickelodeon in sticking to a cohesive vision, but he still managed fairly well. I remember him talking at least a couple times about how he'd write out 10 episodes at a time and like 7 he really loved, but 3 he made "safe," and Nick would always veto the ones he liked and go with the safe ones. Or strike important ones altogether.

I'm curious which ones were safe, which ones got vetoed and which ones were stricken despite being important. More than that, I'm curious what factors made them always pick the "safe" ones and pass over "important" ones.

Sounds like Ciro was submitting 7 horror parody/tributes and 3 actual TMNT episodes. But even vetoing we'd still get like 5 horror movie parodies per season

We could probably surmise, as a blanket statement, that episodes with any "consequence" were vetoed routinely in favor of more traditional "animated adventure of the week".

Part of the problem might have been putting them together to be side-by-side in the first place. He might have been better off turning in a singular script and arguing on it's behalf, as opposed to actually offering a lesser option right next to it, therefore inviting the conflict.

1. Northampton length was fine. If anything, it should have been longer. I just wish it was more somber, introspective and actually built up the team getting ready to go back. Instead it was goofy horror pastiches. Even Vision Quest was too lighthearted and the reveal of Splinter being alive didn’t really carry any weight.

2. Yeah that was awful. But once they stopped doing it, they just stopped writing him in any episodes lol. We never get his take on the Mom-Thing episode or an explanations out of him. Why did he get named “Kirby” and then they didn’t ever do a Donatello #1 episode?

3. Agree big time. We need the Kraang Among Us movie.

4. Yeah, pretty bad.

5. Maybe. Like I said, seasons 2 and 3 could have been cut in half.

Really? Other than the Triceratons rubbing The Kraang out and taking over, it was The Kraang and Shredder/Foot the entire time.

The problem with The Kraang was they were just so goofy and incompetent that it was hard to believe they were capable of being that deadly. Which is probably why they got quietly discarded.

This thread has summoned me. I'll be back with my essay, entitled
"Why the 2012 Show is Still Generally Pretty Good in Spite of Stupid Things like the Super-Retromutagen (Which even I will not defend), But Which Generally Does a Good Job with It's Characters and Story."

But the short version, for now, is that I think it aged as well as any cartoon, is generally pretty good, is unquestionably the best TMNT cartoon, and holds up well in general, in addition to "as a TMNT thing." As to the why, I'll get back to you on that. I'm off to play Dusk first.

Looking forward to it!

But yeah, that’s where I’m at. It’s an imperfect story that is solid enough. It has a clear beginning/middle/end with good payoff. The fight scenes, art direction, voice acting and humor send it above and beyond. All the fanwank was always pretty well done, too. Rarely felt too heavy handed.

That is interesting. That might explain why the show at times felt like it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be an ongoing narrative or an episodic adventure of the week. They would declare important missions like rescuing April's dad or finding all the lost Mutagen cannisters in the city, and forget all about it the next episode until suddenly it becomes important again.

That's how most shows work. The missing mutagen canisters is what made all the random mutants they found not only in Season 2 but also into Season 3. And the ones they did get Don used to form the retromutagen if I remember right.

Those are good examples in that the speak to the polarizing nature of the show's storytelling. It could be well thought-out and layered, but occasionally executed in a manner that could be head-scratching. It reminds me about "the Mashup mentality" in the hobby. But we've all likely experienced that guy who says this kind of sentence:

or
And the guys who speak like that are more addicted to speaking like that than finding actual enjoyment in those strange mashups which are actually unappealing nonsense. It's like a world of actual fans of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter". It's not cool. It's just dumb.

And sometimes that mentality worked for Nicktoons TMNT, whereas others it became a totally uninteresting disaster.

I didn't mean them specifically but they always introduced someone new who made the previous mutant "irrelevant". For example you first had Xever and Bradford who were great original characters, but then they are easy for the TMNT to fight against so they are quick to mutate them. Then you had Fishface/Dogpound who were great in their own way but they quickly make them irrelevant and look weak so for example to make Dogpound relevant again they had to mutate him again and then he also stops being threatning after his first appearance. So then you had Rocksteady and Bebop and things repeat again. Tigerclaw was the one who was handled the best I think and later seasons handled the villain decay a bit better but it was really bad the first 2 seasons or 3.

Really only Fishface became a jobber. Even though the Turtles beat Rahzar, and then Bebop/Rocksteady, they were still shown tough to take down. Tiger Claw also wasn't really defeated properly till later in the show.

Fishface definitely got the jobber treatment though.

Quite frankly I think they were trying for relevancy by interjecting some common anime tropes into the show. A version of the 'ever evolving threat' or 'enemy behind the last enemy who was really hard to beat'.

Oh for sure. Tiger Claw was a serious threat in season 2 but was getting his sh*t pushed in by the likes of April by season 4. Now that I think about it, even Shredder got beat pretty easily by Splinter after the space arc. They had to mutate him to make him a threat again.

They were being extremely literal in the theme song when they casually mentioned the good guys win and the bad guys lose.

Part 1

Okay, I’m back from playing Dusk. I still have to beat Episode 3. Anyway, here’s my essay. Read it if you want. Or don’t, I don’t really care one way or the other. I just wanted to write it. Without further ado:

Why the 2012 Show is Still Generally Pretty Good in Spite of Stupid Things like the Super-Retromutagen (Which even I will not defend*), But Which Generally Does a Good Job with Its Characters and Story

In the years since the 2012 show has finished, many things have been said about it. Some have been totally fair, others not as much, and some which I think are ultimately only nitpicks. I’ve made no secret of my opinion of this show: I think it’s a pretty good cartoon in general, a good TMNT story, and it’s one of my favorite versions of the TMNT in general, if not my favorite TMNT cartoon. I’ve written at length about this show a few times before. However, I feel that people have begun to reevaluate the show, and not in a way that’s wholly fair, criticizing things on the basis of what they wanted to show to be, rather than what the show actually is.

This essay seeks to discuss the whole of the show, and ultimately explain why the show does hold up, both as a cartoon in general, and as a TMNT cartoon more specifically. To that end, this essay will go over the show from beginning to end, from what the show actually is and what it strove to do, and the things it succeeded in, to the things it didn’t succeed in (because no show is perfect, and this show is no exception). I’ll also be consolidating my previous writings into this one.

Let’s begin with what the show actually is. The first thing that needs to be discussed is the way that the show is actually structured, plot-wise. This show isn’t a grand epic in the way the 2003 show was. Say what you will about the 2003 show, but one thing most of us seem to agree on is that the plot was the best part; the way the various threads were all set up, the way things connected, the continually building world and escalating stakes. There’s disagreement about how good the 5th season is, but there’s no denying that the show had a fairly strong myth arc, and that there was a story playing out, with the turtles at the center of it.

The 2012 show is not that. The 2012 show, despite the world ending stakes that later make their way in, is not a “story” playing out. The 2012 show is rather the story of the turtles' lives. We’re dropped in when they turn 15, and watch them live out their lives, with the ups and downs, the things that come their way, and the way they respond to it. While the narrative builds on things, it’s not a “grand” plot. The turtles here are not “chosen ones” the same way they ended up being in 2003. Here, a plot happened, they were dragged into it, and now they have to deal with it. Much like Mirage, the turtles are weirdness magnets, always being dragged into plots larger than them, and ultimately having to find ways to deal with it, save others, and save themselves. Because of this, its structure is fundamentally different. There are things that happen, and there are things that continually develop, but the turtles themselves are not always “working” on something. Some days they’re trying to solve a specific problem. Other days, they’re just hanging out, and weirdness finds them, much like every other TMNT version. It’s been said that the show’s plot is incoherent, or that it doesn’t really come together. However, a critical analysis of the events of the show, especially with a view of the whole picture, reveals a generally well thought out sequence of events and subplots, nearly all of which have payoff, and which are fairly nuanced and thematically rich.

So, that said, what is the overarching plot of the show? Besides being “the story of the turtles’ lives,” the emotional core of this show is the rivalry between Splinter and Shredder. Indeed, this rivalry is the foundation upon which the story rests. The Kraang, though hugely important to the background of the show, and being that which initially drives the plot forward, are an external threat. It always comes back to Splinter and Shredder eventually, and the show’s main arc is showing how the turtles, being drawn into this conflict, grow and respond to the impact that it has on their lives.

Between the five seasons of the show, we can break down the main plots as follows (understanding that the conflict with Shredder is always there in the background, until Season 5);
Season 1: The First Kraang Invasion, and the battle with the Foot.
Season 2: Collecting the scattered Mutagen, Karai, and the Second Invasion.
Season 3: Northampton, Defeating the Kraang, Searching for and trying to Save Karai.
Season 4: Stopping the Triceratons, and finishing the fight with Shredder.
Season 5: Admittedly a post-script season, but one which could be charitably looked at as "Figuring out how to be on their own.” (This season is also the payoff of the themes that had been woven into the show up until this point.

Now, between these overarching plots, there are also numerous subplots woven in and throughout, but I’ll talk about the relevant ones as I come to them. The plotting of Season 1 and 4 is the strongest, followed by Season 3, 5, and 2. Of the core 4, even I’ll admit that Season 2 has the weakest overall plot; it definitely felt like it was spinning its wheels in the middle, with a much stronger beginning and ending. Season 1 is very tightly plotted. Everything in that season ends up being relevant sooner or later, and there's very little "fluff" (a problem which again, I think season 2 and to a lesser degree season 3 has more of). A problem I have often heard mentioned is that of April’s dad, and the show’s repeated need to write him out of the story. In this season, the problem with April's dad is not really a thing yet; his only role is to be someone they need to rescue, and his absence allows the turtles to interact with April more and build up the character dynamics. Likewise, one thing the show excels at is building up the characters and concepts in piecemeal fashion. For instance, having Bradford and Xever around as humans for a few episodes before becoming mutants, introducing the Rat King ahead of his becoming the Rat King, and saving the Shredder fight for 9 episodes in, and using it in a dramatic fashion very effectively. (In terms of Bradford and Xever, I’ll save discussion of them to when we come later to the characters of the show). The show very effectively builds up the conflict between both Shredder and Kraang, introduces Karai and setting up foreshadowing for her arc later, merging the three plots by the halfway point, and finally bringing in the Technodrome, while also answering the mystery posed at the beginning of the season regarding April and her Dad, and setting up material for later.

Part 2

As I mentioned earlier, Season 2 is ultimately the weakest section in what can be considered the main narrative of the show (Seasons 1-4). It has some good stuff, but its plot, as written, doesn’t really fill out the season. As before, I’ll save discussion of Karai specifically for later. That said, Season 2, which at first glance can appear to not have a real “plot,” actually does have a pretty clear narrative arc, one that directly carries on from the previous season, and which thematically sets up elements that won’t be paid off until the end of the show. The initial arc of season 2 shows the turtles having grown overconfident from their last victory, and paying for it. The mutagen canisters also serve as a convenient, and also completely believable, way to explain any further mutants that the turtles encounter. The Kraang are placed on the backburner; their ultimate goal is to terraform the Earth, their last plan being the closest they’d gotten to it, but having been beaten, and still not having figured out a way to perfect the mutagen, they are unable to move forward on their primary goals. From here, the conflict with Shredder comes more to the forefront. Splinter, having learned the truth about Karai, is now focused on her. Likewise, the turtles’ main goal is to convince her of the truth. Karai’s plot forms the backbone of season 2, whose season 2 conclusion (with Karai getting mutated, ultimately due to Shredder’s own hubris) furthers his worsening insanity and delusion, and pays off much later. By the end, of course, the Kraang come back, and like the beginning of the season set up, the turtles aren’t able to win this one. Season 2 had several episodes throughout its run that are about humbling the turtles, and this is where it pays off. The turtles unequivocally lose, and are forced to retreat.

Season 3, I will admit, annoyed me when it first came out. I hadn’t yet read Mirage, and the months-long delays made the Northampton arc drag. But it’s much better on rewatch, and having read Mirage since the first time I watched the show, I could appreciate more what the point was and what it was trying to do the second time around. It’s also an incredibly important point in the turtles’ own development, as it’s the first time they really had to be on their own, which calls forward to the eventual death of Splinter. Season 3 and 4 both do this, forcing the turtles to act on their own for extended periods of time, because thematically the show is preparing for when that finally becomes a reality with Splinter’s permanent death at the end of Season 4. Anyway, because the Kraang used up most of their mutagen supply, when the turtles eventually beat them, it forces them back for a while. The conflict with the Foot, specifically with saving Karai, becomes the main plot. Eventually, the Triceratons show up, it connects back to the Kraang plot, and the Kraang are well and truly dead by the end of it; with Kraang Prime dead, the hivemind is freed, and they go back to being Utroms, which is further confirmed in season 5.

One complaint I have heard more than once is the lack of a conclusion to the Kraang subplot, which is a criticism I have always strongly disagreed with. The Kraang are built up throughout season 1, and they fail. They try again in season 2, and succeed. When the turtles beat them again, they go back to the drawing board. However, the Kraang’s existence, as we learn later, was always somewhat fragile; it depended on the existence of Kraang Prime to maintain the hivemind. Without him, the whole thing falls apart. Thus, when the Triceratons vaporize him, the hivemind is gone. The Kraang are just Utroms again. Besides the comic which came out long after the fact, there is no reason within the show to believe that the Kraang would ever be back, which season 5 shows us. The turtles had already had their ultimate triumph against them. The Kraang’s attempted comeback being stopped dead in its tracks by the more powerful Triceratons is nothing more than the last vestiges of a previous threat feebly attempting a comeback. It was the denouement to their existence. But by then, the plot had already gotten its grand conclusion, and been capped off. Because of this, I consider the matter of the Kraang to be one that was ultimately dealt with and paid off. And with a being as egotistical as Kraang Prime, going out with a whimper is the ultimate karmic fate for him.

Returning to the season plots, Season 4 begins with the turtles alone once again. They’ve once again lost Splinter, and are forced to act independently to save the world. Season 4 has a very clear plot: get the pieces and stop the Triceratons from using them. Through lots of twists and turns in what I consider to be a very enjoyable run of episodes, they’re ultimately successful, and they’ve got Splinter back, who severely injures Shredder, and momentarily grants them some peace. Eventually they reconnect with Karai, who wants to push herself into someone she feels is worthy of Splinter by taking down Shredder, and pushing away the others in the process, an arc that mirrors some of Splinter's earlier behavior and Raphael and Leonardo at different times throughout. This eventually concludes in Shredder finally losing the only thing he had left, his humanity, and going all out to kill Splinter and end it for good, which he succeeds in doing. I’ve written about it somewhere else, but Shredder in this show also has a very long and fairly nuanced arc chronicling his delusion and overall worsening descent into madness, losing everything along the way and being more and more unwilling to take any responsibility, until there’s nothing less and it finally gets him killed. This season is the culmination of that as well. The turtles, with no one left but themselves, finally are able to face Shredder, and this time they kill him.

The point that I’m trying to make with all this is that ultimately, there are many different cohesive themes that run throughout the show, clear arcs for many of the characters, and an overall cohesive direction. Besides the emotional foundation of Splinter and Shredder, the show’s main theme is preparing the turtles for a world where they don’t have Splinter, where they have to act on their own, and becoming the kind of people who can do that, who can carry on and persevere. This is foreshadowed throughout. The events and the battles they fight, the enemies they work again, are just the vehicle for them to make that change. WHAT happens is less important then HOW they deal with it; it’s just the events of their lives. They start the series naive, reckless, and more unsure of things, and end it (ignoring Mutant Apocalypse, because I still don’t like that special as much more than an elseworlds, but we’ll come to that) as much more mature, and able to face life alone. Raphael and Leonardo, I would say, have the strongest arcs overall between the four of them, but the themes are there, and everything is building up to the eventuality that comes to pass in season 4.
Season 5, as we all know, is an anthology season, a post-script. The plot is concluded, and now we see how the turtles carry on. The first four episodes give the show a suitably grand send-off, with everything (Except Mutagen Man and the Fugitoid) paid off. “Lone Rat and Cubs,” for me, has always been a thematic last episode, going back to the beginning, giving us one last bit with Splinter, and ending with them about to enter into the adventure we just saw. There’s not as much to discuss here.

Part 3

That’s the plot, but what about the characters? I’ll mention the major ones, and I’ll give particular focus to a few that need it. I’ll start off with the turtles. Another thing that needs to be mentioned, in the vain of what the show is, is that the turtles here are teenagers; not in the nominal sense they’ve generally been before, but actual, real teenagers. Whether or not you think they should be, any arguments you can make about how they shouldn’t be because they grew up in the sewers, are irreverent. In this show, they ARE teenagers. And since this show also goes with Splinter being Hamato Yoshi, they were raised by a “human” parent. In this version, at least, it makes sense that they would be more like teenagers than normal. They grew up in harsh conditions, and in poverty, but were ultimately raised as children by a “human” parent, with access to TV and books. In this universe, it tracks and makes sense that they would be more like teenagers than the Mirage turtles would have been. The turtles being teenagers informs huge parts of their arcs in this show: Donnie’s crush (and everyone else's crushes), their repeated learning of certain lessons, their overconfidence and impulsive actions, etc. Them being teenagers is not just lip service here, but fundamental to how we must perceive them as characters. It also reverberates outward; April and Casey are teenagers here, and Leo’s relationship with Karai (which exists in some form or another in every version she’s present) is now viewed through the additional dynamic of a teenage crush, a decision that, while it wouldn’t work elsewhere, works well for these versions of the characters. The “real teenagers” bit is not a shallow “just because” decision; it’s a fundamental part of this particular show’s identity, and they actually do things with it.

As I’ve mentioned, Leo and Raph have the strongest arcs between the four of them, with Leo’s development practically following the show’s overall development. Compare the overeager and somewhat naive Leo at the beginning, to the mature patriarch by the end of the show. Leo has always been someone who wanted to do right by himself and his brothers, but the experiences over the show shaped him into a stronger person. Season 1 Leo would not have been capable of killing Shredder in season 4. But it’s the humbling experiences, the losses, particularly his personal loss against the Shredder in Season 2 (which also tied into the season's theme of humbling the turtles) that allow him to grow up into who we see by the end of the show. Likewise, Raph starts off as typical angry Raph, but gradually opens up, softens around his family, learns to depend on others, and tempers his ego. Donnie’s arc mostly revolves around his relationship with April. This is one place where the writing in some ways failed the character. They basically resolve that plot by season 3, but then go and undercut it a scene later in the Bigfoot episode. From there on, it mostly goes away, but it could have done with a stronger conclusion. But at the end of the day, a good marker of character development is whether or not a character is the same or capable of the same from the beginning of the story to the end. For Leo, Raph, and Donnie, we can definitively say they are different by the end. Mikey, unfortunately, receives the least development of the four. He’s the comedic relief at the beginning, and remains so at the end. There’s not a personal arc for him in the same way as the others, and his development can be pointed to as a weaker point in the show.

Splinter is overall done very well in this show. Much like Iroh in Avatar, Splinter, in many ways, went through his character arc before the show started, and in the show proper settles into more of a mentor role. However, even he has things to learn, and he does develop. The Splinter at the beginning of the show did not trust his sons to be independent, and still hoped to resolve things peacefully with Shredder. The Splinter at the end of the show trusted his sons much more, and had resolved to kill Shredder to keep them safe. Beyond this development, Splinter here was always a very good character. He was warm and fatherly, but he was also strict when he needed to be. He had the best interests at heart for his children, but didn’t always act perfectly. He felt like a real parent trying his best. Besides that, this Splinter is also one of the most badass Splinters, as well as one of the funniest. He was all around well written and well used.

Let’s talk about Karai. Putting aside complaints that Karai is Shredder’s daughter again, let’s look at how she functions within the confines of this particular story. Karai at the start is a typical dark action girl. She’s the Catwoman to Leo’s Batman. From the get-go, it’s clear that she’s bad, but not evil on the same level as Shredder. She’s willing to look at things pragmatically, she doesn’t go to the lengths Shredder does, and until the turtles betray her trust, she’s willing to work with them if necessary. The crux of her arc is finding out that Splinter is her real father, that Shredder killed her mother and is not her real father, and figuring out how to come to terms with that, gaining in the process the family that was taken from her by Splinter and Shredder’s initial rivalry.

Karai is a person who has had her agency taken from her. First by Shredder taking her and lying to her all her life, then by Shredder again when she turns against him and he mutates her, and a third time when he uses the brainworm. Much of her arc follows her attempts to regain this agency and make a choice for her own life. When she learns the truth, after many episodes of the turtles trying to convince her, she’s locked away. And once she’s finally free, she can’t help but follow in Shredder’s footsteps, both out of anger and a misplaced sense of atoning to her true family. It costs her, and she spends a long time as a snake. Then, fast forward to when she’s free of that, she still chooses to put distance between herself and her family, out of a misplaced sense of guilt, but also out of a desire to make a choice in her life that isn’t made by someone else, which she unfortunately sees joining the turtles and Splinter as. It’s not until this bites her in a major way that she finally comes around, but by this point Splinter is dead. Still, she rejoins the turtles more in earnest, and in a way is able to regain the family she lost, but still make choices as an independent person. As mentioned before, she’s set up in Season 1 as a person who is in conflict with her own nature, and what she’s been raised to be. This is solidified when the turtles betray her trust, but eventually, through their efforts throughout season 2, she’s able to see the Shredder for who he truly is. Her season 2 arc is basically concluded when she gets mutated by Shredder. While she does spend a long time in this state (the conclusion of which is, unfortunately, one of the show’s missteps), between her appearances in the first two seasons, and especially her appearances in the back half of season 4, she ultimately does have a clear arc where she goes from being merely a pawn of Shredder to someone who reclaims her own agency, and makes positive choices towards becoming her own person, and reconciling with her past.

Part 4

Shredder is someone I’ve already talked about before, which is why I’m going to quote myself at length here, because my opinions on the matter haven’t changed, and because Shredder is a great example of the multi-layered nuance that this show possesses in many places. An argument that I’ve heard about this Shredder is that he’s an inconsistent or illogical character. But here’s the thing: The Shredder IS an illogical character. His illogic is entirely consistent and tracks with his overall motivation in this continuity. Shredder being illogical is part of the reason why he ends up being so frightening; the man is genuinely insane. Even at the start of the show, when he's still "lucid," he's still deeply delusional. He just has an intelligence behind it that makes him dangerous, sort of like the Joker (not in terms of personality, just in terms of how he can be insane and not totally incompetent). He’s so incredibly deluded, full of hate, and determined to have his “revenge” that he becomes incredibly dangerous. While he is not on the level of Ch’rell, or even the Kraang in this show (who, let's be honest, are the “main villains” for the first 3 seasons), he nonetheless is their most personal and dangerous enemy. The Kraang affect everyone, but he pretty much only affects them, because of his single mindedness. Since this is their story, he is important in that sense, but not to the wider world. This makes him “less dangerous” than someone who’s out to conquer planets, but no less evil or dangerous.

Shredder here has one mission and one mission only: To kill Hamato Yoshi. He hates the man to an irrational degree, born from a sense of entitlement towards a woman, his own ego, and his own inability to take responsibility for anything. Every problem he has in his life is ultimately completely self-inflicted, and just contributes to his further downward spiral. He's like Demona, another self-loathing villain with an irrational hatred and a set of problems that are entirely her own doing. But with Demona, you pity her, because you see who she used to be and who she still could be if she would just let it go. Shredder has no such redeeming traits. Even his love for Karai, genuine in a wrong and twisted way, doesn't redeem him in the slightest, since it just highlights HOW MUCH he hates Splinter and how he was a terrible person even before he caused the inciting incident between him and Splinter. His love for Karai is born entirely out of spite for Splinter.

Shredder has demonstrated many times throughout the show that he will not be satisfied until Splinter is dead, and only if he is dead by his hand. The fact that the very second he learned Splinter was alive, he packed everything up and headed for New York, or the fact that upon learning he survived the Season 2 finale, he tracked him down, had him at his mercy for weeks, and refused to kill him until he had his mind back, because otherwise it wouldn’t be satisfying enough, because he’s that petty and sadistic, show this. Shredder comes across as someone who has so wholly devoted himself to a cause that he has nothing else in his life, and nothing to live for once it’s over. The question of “Now what?” is one that has probably never occurred to Shredder. And, in one instance where he succeeded in killing Splinter, it’s clear that he doesn’t care what happens once he’s “won,” because that’s all he has.

Because of these elements, Shredder in this version comes across as someone who does not really care about the Foot Clan or global domination or any of that. He has the Foot Clan, and he likes power, but it’s all ultimately been second to his hatred of Splinter. Based on how the show presents it, I don’t think he had any real desires outside of his vendetta, mostly biding his time and accumulating power because it was something to do, and because it was a close second to being able to do the thing he REALLY wanted to do. As soon as he has a mechanism to achieve his overall goal of killing Splinter, he takes it. Everything he does is ultimately to either make progress towards killing Splinter, creating an opportunity to kill Splinter, or biding his time until an opportunity to kill Splinter. Because again, the man is actually insane. He’s told himself a lie for so long that he wholeheartedly believes a version of events that is irreconcilable with reality. His actions make sense when viewed through this lense, even though his actions are self defeating, self-harming, and ultimately cause him more trouble than it would ever be worth. It’s basically one long suck-cost fallacy. He continues because of how much time he’s already invested in it, and because stopping would require him to acknowledge that all of his problems are his own fault, and as already discussed, he is utterly incapable of doing that. So he continues to pursue his one goal, to the detriment of all else, including himself.

So yes, he’s an illogical character. But, his illogical and counterintuitive actions are a consistent part of his character. Throughout the show, there is a very clear arc of progress to his madness; a multi-season villain decay, from his first appearance in season 1 all the way to his death at the end of season 4. Now, at the start, he’s a lot more “restrained,” as it were. He’s delusional, but he’s not yet ready to go all out. He views Splinter as a coward, himself superior, and wants to draw it out for the sole purpose of causing Splinter to suffer as much as he possibly can, because he’s evil and petty like that. He has an entirely human Foot Clan. He doesn’t yet know about the aliens and mutants. His “love” for Karai is still slightly more genuine than later. And he first trusts his lackeys to try and bring Splinter to him, content with just being the one to finish him off (with no regard for honor, as is later shown by the fact that he was willing to poison Splinter and then try to kill him, as well as the fact that both times he killed him, he stabbed him in the back. This is another example of consistent characterization). When they fail, he goes himself, and from there learns about mutants and aliens. He shows open contempt for mutants and for the aliens, but is ultimately willing to use them if it furthers his goal of getting to kill Splinter. Additionally, the turtles get roped into his vendetta, for beating him (or at least stopping what he was doing) repeatedly and for their connection to Splinter.

Part 5

So at the start, he’s a lot more composed, shows contempt for mutants and alien technology, has a slightly redeemable trait in how he values Karai, and is a lot more reserved in his schemes. But as the defeats pile up, as Splinter continues to evade him, as he continues in his delusion, he starts the slow process of sacrificing everything he had left at this point to finally give him his “victory” over Splinter, because again, even the Foot Clan and all the power it had wasn't enough for him. It’s all been secondary to his one, all-consuming goal. First, he loses his loyal lieutenants. They become mutants. The turtles keep defeating his ninjas, so he replaces them with robots, sacrificing the Foot Clan. The Kraang hate the turtles as well, and could give him a chance to kill Splinter? He strikes up an alliance, despite his hatred of aliens and what those aliens have planned later. They keep beating him? He goes and deliberately hires a mutant bounty hunter. They turn Karai against him? He imprisons her, then later throws her in the line of fire in a gambit to get the turtles and Splinter. She ends up getting mutated directly because of his actions? He immediately blames Splinter for it, because he hates him and because he cannot ever take responsibility, and will use any excuse to justify his vendetta.

Eventually, after Baxter and Karai, he’s left as the only human member of the Foot Clan, but he doesn’t care because again, it’s all secondary. The Kraang fully invade? He’s fine with it as long as Splinter is dead. Splinter survives? Well, I already talked about that part. He finds Karai again? He’s now willing to literally brainwash her out of his twisted “love,” and tries to use her to kill Splinter solely out of spite. His defeats keep mounting up. He deliberately makes extensive use of alien technology and mutants, all to find a way to kill Splinter eventually. The WORLD IS LITERALLY ABOUT TO BE SUCKED INTO A BLACK HOLE, WHICH WOULD KILL HIM AND KARAI, WHO HE STILL CLAIMS TO LOVE? He takes an opportunity to kill Splinter by stabbing him in the back, at the expense of the world, because he’s been so consumed by his vendetta by this point that he thinks it’s worth it. He is willing to throw away everything and everyone, including himself, to achieve his goal. The Shredder of season 1 may not have done that. But the Shredder by the time of season 3? Absolutely.

Now, anyways, after 4 seasons of being defeated, losing Karai to Splinter, sacrificing everything he had, and now being seriously injured, Shredder crosses the one line he had left: his own humanity. Eager to finally SOMEHOW achieve victory against Splinter and to get back at it, he accepts mutagen treatment to both heal him quickly and make him stronger, eventually getting impatient and rushing the treatment, resulting in him becoming the mangled monster Super Shredder. At this point, he’s a far cry from the collected person he was in the first season. He’s even more insane than he always was, but even more dangerous because of it. He goes all out, and eventually gets to the point where he treats even Karai with contempt. Earlier he tells her that he literally SAW Splinter kill Tang Shen, then gloats about killing her himself to her face, before trying to kill her. Once he actually DOES kill Splinter, the question of “Now what?” doesn’t even have time to be answered. The turtles hunt him down and kill him.

Now, despite all that, he actually DOES show a modicum of character development during the Kavaxas arc. Between Leo’s comment about his being a demon shortly before he dies, and his spending relative “eons” in the underworld, he appears to have come to the conclusion that he is a monster, and once he has control of himself again, his last act is to remove him and Kavaxas from the living world. Given unlimited time, it’s believable that even the most evil of men could self-reflect.

All of this to say that Shredder, throughout this show, was an entirely consistent character, with a clear arc of progress and development, a clear motivation, and a deliberately self-destructive path he laid out for himself, all by his own doing. He, as a character, was deliberately illogical, self-destructive, and hypocritical. Everything he does makes sense under the overarching goal of killing Splinter, and he has a very clear character arc where he gradually goes more and more insane, sacrificing more and more until he has nothing left, and then eventually is killed because of it. As a character, he is one of the most layered and multifaceted versions of the character, and is an intimidating villain who serves his role in the story well.

Lastly, I suppose we should talk about April. (I don’t have as much to say about Casey Jones in this version of the show; He’s fine for what he is, he serves his role, but he’s not nearly as interesting to talk about). 2012 April is one of the more divisive aspects of the show. I personally think the way they handled her works for THIS VERSION of the story. It’s also one of the only versions of April that, to me, feels like she stays relevant past the initial story, and one in which the legwork is done to actually keep her in the story. She also helps develop the wider “found family” theme that this show builds up constantly. April in season one is, by all accounts, a normal teen girl. She’s quickly drawn into the world of the TMNT after being rescued by them, as usual, and from then on, she starts to develop as a character. The first season centering around her, and with a good reason for her dad to not be there, allows April to develop as a character and develop the friend to family dynamic with the other turtles fairly well. Additionally, her being such a crucial part of the Kraang plot allows her to stay relevant in a way that doesn’t feel forced. I also think it worked well to give her the psychic powers, because it gave her an edge. If she were just a normal girl, there’s not really a believable way she could be trained and still keep up with the turtles at all, even if fully trained. Giving her the extra ability helped in that matter. They also made good use of it by tying it into a larger subplot for her in the 4th season, with the Aeon crystal.

As to the matter of her backstory, I never really had a problem with it. I thought it actually complimented her well, because of keeping her relevant, but also because of how it wasn’t just a one-off thing, and continued to influence the plot, such as the aforementioned aeon crystal plot, but also things like her blood being the key to making the retromutagen. One complaint that I’ve heard is that she should just be a normal girl, which, though it comes down to preference, is not a fair claim when even the Original April was still a magic doodle baby. Not even Vanilla April was Vanilla. At least this April was interesting. Another complaint that I’ve heard, which I’d like to address, is the issue of April’s mom. It’s been called an unfinished subplot, but I don’t see it that way. Before the episode with the mom clone, the nature of April’s mom was never really in question. She was just assumed dead, and it wasn’t really something that was relevant. That episode brought her in, revealing that hey, she wasn’t dead! She was still alive. But then we find out that it was just a clone. I don’t really think it was supposed to be set up for anything else. It was just a one-off story that people for some reason made more important than I think it was ever supposed to be.

There are several other characters that I could talk about, like Fugitoid (who has a pretty solid arc), or Shredder’s henchmen, or Leatherhead, or Irma, or the excellently creepy Rat King, or other various supporting characters, but at this point, we’ve talked about characters long enough, and this essay is already a beast. As such, I’m going to move on.

Part 6

With all that said, let’s talk about what the show does well in particular. I’ve already discussed how the plot really does come together into a mostly cohesive whole, and why I think it works well. I’ve also gone on about why I think the characters are done well, at the very least in the context of this particular show. So let’s talk first about some of the technical aspects of the show. We can’t go very far without talking about the animation. So far, this is the only 3D TMNT cartoon, and honestly it looks pretty good. The animation holds up very well, and isn’t anywhere close to being dated. If you want dated 3D animation, look at shows like Reboot or Shadow Raiders. Those shows are incredibly stiff, blocky, not shaded well… all the things you’d expect out of a CGI show that came out of the 90s. The 2012 show doesn’t really have these problems. It’s very smoothly animated, and the action is quick and flows very well. The shading is good, and the models got more detailed as the show went on. The animation only got better as the show went on, getting more elaborate, detailed, and dynamic, especially when it came to fight scenes. While it’s true that the city was pretty empty in the first season, I consider this to be a nitpick. The city is never really a focus in a way that matters, and the empty city was simply a limitation of both budget and ability. By season 4, they were filling out those scenes with background characters, and since the focus was always on the turtles and the action surrounding them, I think focusing on the city is somewhat unfair, and not really something you notice while you’re just watching the show. It certainly could have been “better,” but it in no way should bring down the show. The characters are stylized enough to avoid the pitfalls of aging CGI animation, their shaded well (especially season 2 onward), and as I mentioned earlier, the animation is generally very fluid and dynamic.

Let’s talk about the voice acting in this show. The voice acting is stellar. All three voice actors for Leonardo did a very good job, to the point that Seth Green’s Leonardo is probably my favorite voice for the character. And as an extra bonus, I did like that they explained it in the show. Greg Cipes is also an excellent Mikey. Rob Paulsen does a good job as always as Donnie, and Sean Astin brings an effective range to Raph’s voice, with both an angry edge, but much more emotive than 2003 Raph. Hoon Lee as Splinter is also my favorite voice for the character, for reasons mentioned earlier. And Kevin Micheal Richardson makes for a very intimidating Shredder. Josh Peck’s voice for Casey was perfect, even if the character was somewhat under done. Mae Whitman does an excellent job as April. I really don’t have any complaints about the voice acting, and I don’t think most other people do either. Unlike the 2003 show, they all sound and act like real people.

The writing, in general, is pretty good. I’ve already discussed the plotting, but one thing I think this show does really well is its humor. The jokes are well delivered, and they rarely feel forced. There’s lots of good visual gags and physical comedy as well. I can understand if the “anime” gags are not your thing, but they are a part of this show’s visual identity, so I’d be remiss not to mention them.

This next one is going to be a bit controversial, because it’s a common complaint I’ve heard, but I think this show did “horror” really well. I’m in the camp that loved the various horror pastiches the show did. When this show wanted to be scary, it could be scary. It made excellent use of well designed monsters, and the horror pastiches were not badly done; the most common complaint I’ve heard is that there were too many of them. But I don’t really understand that as a complaint. TMNT should not be all plot all the time. Part of TMNT’s very identity is a mixture of plot and just random, weird adventures that the TMNT end up in, even when they’re not looking for it. If it wasn’t horror pastiches, it would be something else. The question becomes why? Why is it a problem that they have a lot of horror pastiches? Why is that not something they can do for their random weird adventures? On many of them, the atmosphere was good, the creatures well designed, and they were good pastiches that really showed that the creatures of the show understood what they were paying homage to, in more than just a surface level parody. The episodes were well done. The only complaint I’ve heard is that there were a lot of them, but with a show that has horror baked into it, I don’t think this is a problem.
Related to this is the issue of the Northampton arc, which some criticize as going on too long, and having too many horror episodes, or not being introspective enough. To that point, I’d like to remind everyone that the Mirage Northampton arc was even longer (A two years in universe), and that after #11, it features plots like fighting against Dr. Dome, an organization called C.R.A.P., and Casey reenacting detective movies. They’re enjoyable stories, but let’s not pretend like Northampton is supposed to be all introspective. Its main purpose is to take a break from the actual narrative and give the turtles time to recover, and that even while away, weirdness finds them. The Northampton arc annoyed me while the show was airing, but on rewatch, after having read Mirage? I think the 2012 Northampton is one of the only adaptations that understood the assignment.

Part 7

One thing that absolutely bears mentioning is something this show doesn’t get enough credit for. With the IDW comics doing their thing at the moment (ugh), this show stands as the ONLY version of TMNT to have the guts to kill off Splinter, and actually deal with the ramifications of it. Even Mirage, which explored the idea in Vol. 4, still implied near the end that he’s actually not dead. We’ll never know where Peter was going with that, but even Mirage couldn’t commit to it. Here, he dies fighting Shredder, and he doesn’t come back. He’s actually dead, and the turtles have to actually deal with and come to terms with it.

Related to this, but one thing that this show can claim, that no other TMNT outside of Mirage, not even the IDW comics, can claim, is that the turtles actually kill in this one. One of the most common complaints for any TMNT outside of Mirage is that the turtles never kill. They always get around it, they always fight robots, they never are allowed to kill. Not here. These turtles fight to kill Shredder’s henchmen. And Leo definitively decapitates Shredder. Sure, you can say he was a mutant, but that doesn’t really matter. He was the main villain, a pure human for most of the show who got a power up near the end, and they killed him. Say what you want about this show, but the turtles being allowed to kill is something no other version outside of Mirage can claim.

Now, having talked about the things the show does well, it’s only fair to discuss the things that the show does poorly, because there are a few. We’ll start with a few of the obvious ones. Mutagen Man’s subplot was never concluded. That was a complete oversight on their part, and it’s a glaring hole in the narrative. Season 2, as mentioned earlier, has a lot of what feels like filler in the middle. After some strong stories in the beginning and at the end, it really feels like it’s spinning its wheels in the middle. Another easy flaw to bring up is the way the time duplicates were dealt with following the time travel plot. Having another Fugitoid show up and take away the time duplicates, who from their perspective are just abandoning Earth and Splinter without a second thought is just sloppy. It’s a clear example of the writers not being sure what to do, and writing themselves out of the corner. And adjacent to that, implying that our Fugitoid is still alive, then never using him again, undercutting his sacrifice and character arc (which again, was pretty good) for nothing. Mutant Apocalypse, as far as I’m concerned, intentions or not, is not a good ending for the show. I don’t want to get too much into that can of worms here, but it’s ultimately thematically unsatisfying, undercuts the entire show, and I’m totally fine siding with Nick on this one and treating it like an elseworlds tale. It’s fine as a special, but not as the canon future. Even though Mirage ends up similarly, I don’t think a Mirage style future fits this particular iteration. It’s like when they tried to force the book ending of How to Train Your Dragon to the movie ending; it fundamentally did not go together and undercut the whole thing. Another one that bears mentioning is Karai’s mutation. Specifically, the way it’s fixed. They go to a lot of effort to have the turtles’ efforts to fix it fail, and make a big deal of how hard it is to fix. And then after all that, they have Baxter cure it offscreen while literally saying outloud “Good thing I turned you human again!” I can’t defend that. It’s just bad writing.

Another one that bears mentioning, even though I ultimately consider it a nitpick, is the state of Shredder in the back half of season 4. What we got out of it was really good; this show finally made good use of the Super Shredder concept, making him legitimately intimidating, and using him just enough to have a good couple of episodes, and killing him off at the end before he could overstay the welcome. That said, the impetus of how we got there is not very well conveyed. This is one case where I think the events as they were supposed to happen did not line up with what we were actually shown. The intention is clearly supposed to be that Splinter beat Shredder within an inch of his life, beating him so badly that he was bedridden and needed the mutagen to recover. Of course, that’s not totally what it looked like. It’s sort of like in Revenge of the Sith, when Palpatine kills the three jedi masters. The idea was that he was so fast that they had no chance to react, but the way it looks is that he moves somewhat slowly and they just stand there. The visuals didn’t totally match what actually happened in the story, and I think the case was similar here. It doesn’t ruin anything for me, but it is noteworthy.

There’s one more thing in terms of “what the show does wrong” that bears mentioning, one that you’ve probably been expecting for a while now. The matter of the single weakest example of writing in the show: The super-retromutagen. I’ve saved this example for last because while I will still not defend it, I thought of a new perspective while writing this, and I wanted to present it, if not to explain the concept, then to perhaps make it slightly more tolerable. Now, I’m not going to pretend that it’s anything then what it clearly is: The writers wrote themselves into a corner, and needed a deus ex machina to get them out. That’s clearly what it is, that’s clearly what they did, and there’s no changing that. However, I would ask that you consider the following. The manner in which the super retromutagen was created is not unlike how several things were created in real life. There have been plenty of accidental scientific discoveries. There have been plenty of things that people have created without knowing how, or without looking for it. In at least one example, a man accidentally created a gunpowder formula by sweeping a bunch of random stuff into a sink, and inadvertently stumbled onto a recipe. Science in real life is full of times where people stumble onto something remarkable and are unable to replicate it. While a narrative is often subject to more stringent rules on what we’ll believe, the fact of the matter is that real life has no such restrictions; things happen often enough that would be decried as “unrealistic” were they to happen in fiction. It’s an interesting thing: we’ll cry foul when things suddenly work out, but not when they suddenly fail. When a narrative is going well, and things suddenly break, people will sagely nod and pronounce it “realistic,” because people are inherently cynical. But when the opposite happens, when a eucatastrophe happens, people act like it can’t or shouldn’t happen. To which I ask: why not? Sometimes things work out unexpectedly, as often as they fail unexpectedly. Why should we be so annoyed any time it happens? It can be done poorly, but there’s really no reason why the occasional “deus ex machina” should be under any more scrutiny than the much more common “diabolus ex machina.” And looking at it in this manner, I find that I’m not as annoyed with it as I was, even though, like I said, it’s very clearly a way to get themselves out of the mess they made. But it’s something to think about.

There are other things I could talk about; other characters I didn’t mention, other plot points I didn’t talk about. I could easily go on for much longer, but I don’t need to. The point has been made. Is the 2012 show a perfect show? No. Few shows are. I won’t pretend that the show is flawless, but I don’t think we should let those flaws overshadow the far more numerous things that this show does correctly. From a technical standpoint, this show is very well put together. The animation is very good looking, and does its job well. The music fits the show well. The characters are well cast. The designs are good. From an artistic standpoint, this show is well put together. There’s a clear progression from beginning to end, with lots of nuance and thematic elements throughout, almost all of which has a worthwhile payoff. It’s not perfect; there are bumps along the way, a few poor characters, a few bad episodes, a few times with weak writing. But each of these are far outweighed by the things the show does well. It’s a good cartoon. A great cartoon, even. Not perfect. But pretty darn good. And as a TMNT story, it touches on all the things that make a good TMNT story. Ninja action. Sci-fi fantasy. Themes regarding the importance of family, and the consequences of revenge. All the staple hallmarks that make TMNT what it is are present in this show, unlike so many recent iterations of the franchise. The people making this show gave a damn, and I think it shows in the end product. You may disagree with the way it handled certain elements. Some elements may not be your cup of tea. You may wish the show were something different. But for what the show is, and what it tried to do, I think it mostly succeeded. To say that you didn’t like the show is fair. Even the best shows aren’t for everyone; If you don’t like romance, you won’t like a romance novel from a master of the genre. But to say that the show is bad is, I think, unfair. And to say that the show doesn’t hold up is, I think, incorrect. I think that at the end of the day, the show mostly accomplished what it set out to do, and did so well. I’d say it more than holds up.

Time for me to grab some popcorn and Cheetos.

I love reading me a good article. Kudos for writing all that, it couldn't have been easy.

Well, you know me. I live to pontificate. :lol:

But I had fun.

Very nice Zog, I loved it. I read it a few hours ago and have a few random replies. We’re definitely of the same mind overall, so here’s a few parts I didn’t agree with:

- The end of The Kraang. I see what you’re saying. On paper it works out having Kraang fail/Kraang win/Turtles beat them for good between the first 3 seasons. My issue is just that Battle for New York didn’t really feel like a proper ending. It was OK, but nothing special per my memory.

The existence of Ciro’s Kraang Among Us also makes it hard to let it go. It was so good and left me wanting more. The fact that “Father, I fear the worst” is the last line of dialogue in this canon (if you don’t count Mutant Apocalypse*, as many people don’t) is so ominous.

- Northampton in Mirage wasn’t quite as dire. Leo wasn’t beaten too badly and recovered before the end of #11, April loses her apartment/shop but the lair is never compromised, and Splinter is in tow, alive and well.

I feel like it should have been more like the 1990 movie, since one of the guys is horribly beaten into an X month coma and Splinter is dead as far as they know. I’m fine with some whacky adventures in the middle but the beginning and end could have hit harder. I have a whole rant on why I think Vision Quest sucked, but I’ll save it.

- Mirage April was revealed to have a fantastical origin, but she was still just a plain biological human female baby once she was created.

* = not trying to start a debate about the real finale, I respect everyone’s headcanon. I just want to point out that Nick never said it “wasn’t the finale”, they just made sure the FW crossover aired on Nickelodeon last. But it had already been released on DVD at that point. Between DVD releases, streaming, Nickelodeon and Nicktoons, season 5 had a truly schizophrenic release order.

I’m pretty sure Mutant Apocalypse was the last thing we had access to as far as legitimate viewing options go. I remember streaming it after I had already seen all the other episodes.

Ironically, although 2012 Alopex only appeared in one episode, her storyline was far better than IDW Alopex. More importantly, she didn't become Raph's girlfriend. They focused on her revenge. Although she chose not to kill his brother, Tiger Claw, she still cut off his arm so that he will remember the another humiliation of his failure forever, meaning that she could kill him at any time if she wanted to.

Agreed. I don't like IDW TMNT couldn't stick to the story development and changes they had written, and in the end, they blinked and turned everything they wrote into hype bait. Not only just "the death of Splinter" and "Shredder's redemption". "Dark Leo" is their first mistake.

This has nothing to do with aging, it’s a problem I’ve always had with the show:

Big dramatic episodes are almost always followed by incredibly silly/lighthearted episodes. I assume they just did this on purpose, since it’s a kids show.

In The Gauntlet, they all very nearly get killed by Shredder and only survive because Bradford and Xever distracted him. They’re all terrified and shaken at the end and Splinter is upset too. Follow up episode is Panic in the Sewers.

The Invasion is followed by the season 3 premiere. They spend a little time on them recovering and dealing with the loss in the first like 2-3 minutes, but then it immediately devolves into a horror pastiche.

Season 3 ends with Splinter murdered and the entire planet destroyed. Season 4 opener vibe is “woah dude, space is so epic! We’re having so much fun!”

You get my point.