Your Own Personal... "Deal Breakers"
 

EDIT: (Because for some reason it was omited) So I was thinking, after hearing that there were things that may or may not have been "deal breakers" in the Nick series, "What would it take to make me throw up my hands and say, 'To heck with it!'?"

For me deal breakers would be:

• Season 9-10 Hulk-esque Mutations (It lead to my falling away in the late 90's...that and Spider-man and X-Men on Fox. :D)
• Any drastic changes of character. I want my Donnie nerdy, my Raph angry, my Mikey happy-go-lucky, and my Leo leader...y. No, "Michelangelo Leads, Raphael Does Machines, Donatello's cool, but (c)rude (though this may be close to what we get in the Nick series....:P), Leonardo is a Party Dude!"
• Something that came to mind reading CyberCubed's "TMNT High" idea: April (in my head I can't decide whether she should be a brain or a cheerleader) and Casey (obviously "dumb jock") as a dating High School couple, and Baxter as their science teacher.
• Goofy sound effects in fight scenes. It was one of the major down sides of NM.
• NO 5th Turtles. No little kid sidekicks who take up the mantle, no oddly never before seen fellow mutants that were taken to China. The MAJOR down fall of NM

I really can't think of anything else right now...but if I do, I'll let ya know. :D

Blame my wife for the Depeche Mode-esque title.

3rd toes. I mean, really, where did that come from?

I pretty much always accepted the changes in each incarnation, even the Image series multilations, the mutations in Seasons 9/10 of the old series, Fast Forward, and some other things.

However Venus obviously should not have happened. Next Mutation would have always been a cheesy and hilariously bad show, but I feel it would have been more accepted if it just had the 4 Turtles in it.

Season 2 was gonna have April and casey...:( Why was NM cancled? I heard it was actually doing as good, if not better, than the Power Rangers season of the time.

'Cause it was expensive.

That makes sense. With PR and some of the other shows, Saban had Japan to get footage from. NM was made entirely by Saban. No Sentai footage.

I more or less agree with everything in your first post, Jester, though I did like the mutations from the red sky seasons.

I think if NM didn't have those insanely annoying sound effects, that stupid "Wick" (?) character, that horrendous Shredder, that Power Rangers cross-over, that...ah, heck. I guess the cons out-weighed the pros. But honestly, the Turtles of NM weren't done that bad. I liked their voice actors, too. And I guess I'm biased, but I think they did Donatello *really* well. I think the whole "dream realm" arc was kind of cool, if they did it more realistic and just simply...better.

As far as "deal breakers" go...well, for me, I stopped following Image after I realized Donatello wasn't returning to normal anytime soon. So if Nick does some bogus nonsense like that, I would probably stop watching. Besides that, as long as the personalities are kept in tact (like your second bullet, Jester) I won't have many problems. I'll be a little upset if Donny doesn't have his plain ol' bo, but that's something I can get over, eventually.

I like the third toe, I don't know why it's getting a lot of bad press. It's more realistic than two toes anyway, two toes never made any sense. At least three makes more sense, although it's still not exactly correct, and although mutant turtles aren't exactly realistic, I think you get what I'm saying.

Next Mutation probably wouldn't have lasted much longer once the Pokemon era started.