Carter, the forgotten sidekick
 

I think we can all agree that Carter is far from being one of the most recognizable characters not only in the whole TMNT franchise but also from the OT. For one thing, he only debuted in season 9 alongside Dregg, so by that point the ratings had dropped quite significantly and most of the people who had been watching the show since the first seasons had gotten tired of it.

Even among TMNT fans, I notice that no one really cares about Carter. I've seen Cody and Zach fans around, but never seen a single Carter fan. I mean, is there even anyone in here using a Carter avatar and/or signature? Whatever.

I personally have never been a Carter fan either but I certainly didn't hate him. He was a useful ally to fight off Dregg, especially since every other human on Earth except April was against the Turtles due to Dregg's propaganda. But then again, he was kinda uninteresting. His attitude was a bit of a turn off sometimes. We already had a hothead in the group(Raphael), there was no need for another

One thing I've always wondered was what ever happened to Carter? Last time we saw him was when Landor and Merrick took him to the future to try and fix his mutation problem. Do you think there's any chance of him ever coming back in the future? Would you be interested to see him return?

The OT had tons of loose ends and even though this was durnig the red sky era, it still was never explained. I can speak for a lot if not most of the members here in the fact that we do not care for Carter as a character he was annoying.

Well, to be fair, the show ended shortly after Carter's last appearance. Maybe if it had gotten one more season or two he would have returned. Who knows. Although, season 10 does feel like the last season and I doubt the writers didn't know it was the last one right from the beginning.

How was that a loose end? He went to the future to find his cure. The show ended 3 episodes later.

Even if the show got a Season 11, I never expected to see him again. He was written out.

personally never minded carter that much, he reminds me of Keno in Movie 2. He is just an extra character to me. and as far as him being a loose end, he is no more a loose end then any other Character. who knows what happened to any of the OT characters

I think what Prowler was saying is how come he never came back from the future.

I accepted Carter by repeatedly telling myself "at least it's not Zach, the fifth turtle".

Still its a missed opportunity not using Casey in the same role, just without the mutation power.

Casey wouldn't have worked in the Carter role...

He's not horrible, but he just never really seemed to fit to me. He's just there, akwardly.

The only thing that really made Carter special was his mutation. Take that away and I could have imagined Casey being handled almost the same way in those episodes. They would just have to be written a little differently since I doubt anyone wanted to see Casey mutate into a yellow beast with a mohawk.

Carter also was a scientist who was helping Donatello stabilize their mutations.

Casey couldn't do that....

I just really liked Casey in Season 8 and wish he was a major character in Seasons 9 and 10.

Unfortunately i think OT casey is too much of a crazy one minded brute. If he was more like movie Casey then I think he could have worked with a bit of rewriting.

This. As written in previous episodes, Casey in every episode would wear very thin....

Actually, I may be in the minority, but I liked Carter. He was interesting, and not just because of his mutation. He was smart, he had already been studying martial arts, and he was one of the few people who treated the turtles as friends. His mutation was pretty cool, too, especially once he learned to control it. The Channel Six crew had already been written out, so who was left besides April? Casey would never have worked for any of those episodes. Of all their "sidekicks" in that series, Carter was the most normal and fun. He was certainly an improvement over Zach, who I always thought was horribly annoying. And yeah, I agree that he reminds me of Keno from SOTO.

I think Carter suffers from the same issue Venus does: shoehorned in to the core group without any real reason for it.

I think with Carter his personality/character was... forgettable. His character didn't really contribute to anything into the dynamics or growth of the Turtles. With Zach, despite his sometimes annoying over-the-top fanboy behavior what made him memorable was that despite him being a helpless 14 year old boy, he still had a few ways of helping the Turtles with his gadgets ("The Fifth Turtle") and could reveal the Turtles' weaknesses (as Splinter pointed out when Zach discovered their lair in "The Fifth Turtle"). In "Zach and the Alien Invaders", the issue of Zach's overactive imagination was brought up between the interaction of Zach and Turtles, which helped the Turtles to be more patient and careful in dealing with Zach.

One aspect I found disappointing with the Red Sky Seasons, was that it pushed aside the relationships and casual conversations/circumstances of the "Blue Sky Seasons" (Seasons 1-7), which I think is crucial to understand the Turtles' personalities outside of ninja fighting. It seemed with the Red Sky Seasons, it became 24/7 action-dominated episodes, and we didn't get to explore more of the Turtles' characters as we did in Seasons 3-7.

With all that being said, when they added Carter, he was just there. Seasons 9 & 10 didn't really develop the relationship time to introduce the characters unlike with Irma, Burne, Zach, Lotus, and others. Carter was just "some strange stalking guy" that just happened to be benificial to the Turtles since he's a "good guy" and scientifically smart.

If they would have developed his character a bit more, as with others in the "Blue Sky Seasons", he could have been more memorable.

True. There were a lot of other OT characters that could have improved the series, if they were incorporated in the Red Sky themed tone of the series.

Since the OT is done, and also since Carter was so forgettable, I highly doubt he would even make a return to any OT TMNT reunion film/episode (i.e. Turtles Forever).

I disagree. He did have a reason for being there- seeking Splinter's teaching and finding a cure for his mutation. He may be forgettable to some, but I found his very "average" personality a refreshing change to some of the more over-the-top characters. And he was basically the replacement for some of the other characters who had already fallen by the wayside, like Irma. With April off trying to get away from the turtles and all the chaos, they needed someone to keep the group grounded and connected to the world- Carter was that link. And he worked well in that role. I've been watching those very episodes over the past few days (one of the posters mentioned having inspiration for a story from a bit of Dregg's dialog in Beginning of the End) and the more I see of the last dozen episodes or so, the more I like Carter. He could have been a much more memorable character if he'd been introduced sooner. That he wasn't is kind of a loss. Other than Dregg himself, he's my favorite "new" character from those seasons.

That's true. Seasons 8 and 9 were just abrupt changes to everything we knew about the OT: The Channel 6 crew written out, April going into freelance reporting, Carter himself, Shredder and Krang gone and replaced with Dregg, introduction of Dregg's minion Hi-Tech, secondary mutations, final appearance of the Turtle Blimp, many other allies/villains gone (Casey Jones, Baxter Stockman, Leatherhead, Rat King, Neutrinos, Zach, Bebop and Rocksteady, etc.).

...As if the visual changes (Turtles' more angular faces, the red sky itself, and the more serious tone) weren't sudden already. :roll:

If the show actually took it's time to gradually phase in and phase out characters, Seasons 9 and 10 wouldn't be so off-putting and unfamiliar to some. ...Then again, the series only had 8 episodes per season, so I don't know how they could have accomplished this gradual transition. :ohwell: By season 9, the OT and TMNT merchandising was a sinking ship in it's final moments, and it was just a matter of time when it was going to completely founder.