Ways to improve the Red Sky seasons?
 

As we all know, the Red Sky seasons were a way to spark some interest in the FW series again. There were some changes like the sky suddenly turning red and the show having more action and a more serious tone. Also, April and the Turtles suffered a bit of character design change, especially April. And oddly enough, her design was slightly changed again in season 9. We also see some new characters and villains introduced. The ones in season 8 didn't show up or get mentioned ever again. Titanus and the H.A.V.O.C. mutants actually got an arc tho. 3 eps in an 8 episode only season? Not bad at all.

But the real shock was in season 9. At the time, I thought "Turtle Trek" had been the last episode. But then, turns out there were more episodes. When I first saw the title "The Unknown Ninja" I was like "WOAH!". It did look promising... but it simply turned out to be Carter. And then, we get a new villain, Dregg. I expected the Turtles to get rid of him in either that episode or in the following one. I thought it was just gonna be a mini-arc, but turns out he was there to definitely replace Shredder and Krang. It didn't feel much like the Ninja Turtles anymore. Also, the cast had been thinned out. No more Shredder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, Irma, Vernon or Burne. Not even appearances from secondary villains such as Leatherhead and Baxter Stockman. Only the Rat King got one episode, but then again, the writers seemed to like him a lot. The changes were too sudden and I can see why many fans were turned off by them. Dregg and Carter debuted by the time this show was on life support, and they're barely remembered in TMNT history these days, especially Carter. So this main villains change was kinda disappointing to me. The show had not changed its formula much after all.

Season 10 was better than 9, and not just animation wise. Also, it was great to see Dregg flip out and become madder and madder. That 3-part arc with Shredder and Krang returning was nice as well. Especially how they seemed to be on the same page. It's like that time away from battling the Turtles helped them become friends or something.

One particularly weird aspect of these 3 final seasons is the fact that they had 8 episodes each. It's fine for the first season of a show to have a short number pf episodes(the pilot season only had 5, per example) but why did did the last 3 seasons of the FW series have 8 eps each? Season 8 had a finale, but season 9 and 10 might as well have been the same season.

Now, what could have been improved? Well, first of all, replacing the main villains ended up not helping the show much ratings wise. And neither did turning the sky red to give a Batman TAS vibe to the show. It felt like a different series and didn't have a distinctive style like its previous seasons had. But to be fair, being a kids cartoon, you gotta have a main villain. The thing is, Dregg was painfully generic and forgettable compared to Shredder and Krang who are iconic villains. And whilst Shredder is in every TMNT incarnation, the same cannot be said for Krang, and yet people will always remember him. Another problem was Carter being another forgettable character. A Marty Stu at best. When you think of most of this show characters, you can tell what's unique and distinctive about them, but Carter was generic. Not a bad character but just kinda generic and unmemorable. And who told the Turtles they needed a sidekick? Wasn't April good enough? Or couldn't Casey give a hand in an episode or two. Yes, I know Carter was a computer and science genius... but so was Donatello. Oh, and scratch those awful mutations. They were pointless and detrimental to the Turtles. I still cant' believe they wasted 2 episodes on the Turtles trying to fix Leonardo's mutation.

I think a new main villain could have been written better, and some older characters should have made an appearance or two in seasons 9 and 10. Also, more villains like in season 8 would have been good for the sake of variety. And maybe focusing more on the ninja aspect of the Turtles could have been interesting as well. Or hell, maybe even try to adapt something from the source material. It'd have been toned down for kids, obviously, but good writing could have made those adaptations decent.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the final two seasons but I've always thought that "Turtle Trek" should have been the final episode of the series. By the time "Divide and Conquer" was out, we knew that Shredder and Krang were still alive in Dimension X and could always come back later. While in "Turtle trek" we could speculate that the plant had destroyed the Technodrome and killed both while it was at it.

Thoughts?

Other than not have all the old villains fade away, there really wasn't much else they could have done. The TMNT fad was pretty much over by then and the show was only getting 8 episodes a season.

It seems like Fred Wolf would have ended the show earlier but wanted it to hit an iconic 10 seasons so they kept it going.

I guess they simply wanted to milk the cashcow until the last drop.

Also, none of the Red Sky characters got any action figures, did they? And wasn't the last toyline released in 1995, one season before the show was over? As far as I know, many people who grew up watching the series still aren't aware of the last 3 seasons. I guess they weren't well promoted and/or weren't as widely available as the previous 7 were.

I was very interested when I read on the forums that there plans for the FW series finale to be an animated film. I wonder how that would have turned out.

It's too bad they never decided to go into actual fighting. They wanted to compete with batman and such and yet they continued to use dumbed down fighting and silly monsters. Maybe if they upped the animation budget it could have had 2k3 style fighting with actual martial arts and such.

Yeah, they really went full sci-fi in the last couple of seasons, didn't they? Which is odd since the turtles used their weapons quite often in the 7th season, the last one before Red Sky. Explosions and laser guns are cool and all, but let's not forget that the title has the word "ninja" in it. And speaking of that... Splinter accepting to train Carter out of the blue was kinda forced. And how did he know about Hamato Yoshi and his relation to the Turtles, anyway?

hmm
 

that's simple. More Kronos. Had such an interesting back story. Still want to know how he knew splinter and where they lived. There's just so much more to tell with him. Still probably one of my top 10 episodes of the series.

It was a fun episode indeed. As for him knowing the location, he probably stalked the turtles for awhile. Which brings another question: How didn't he know about their mutations and Carter, then?

And why didn't splinter bebop and rocksteady double-mutate? And Carter's mutation made no sense at all. He wasn't a mutant anything, he basically turned into a super hero.

Well, bebop and Rocksteady weren't in season 9, their last episode being "Turtle Trek", season's 8 finale. So whether they got affected or not, it doesn't really matter. Splinter not getting affected was weird, though. But since the mutations were so pointless, I'm glad Splinter got away with it. As for Carter, he accidentally spilled mutagen on his hand as he as leaving the Lair in a rush to help out the Turtles. But hey, at least his mutation saved the Turtles a few times.

I know that. I was referring to whatever the hell that thing was that he mutated into. He wasn't any kind of mutant animal or anything he turns into some kabuki powerhouse version of himself. Just made no sense.

Oh you meant it in that way. In that case you're right. Then again, if he had mutated into an animal he'd probably have mutated into... a turtle. :o

They said the mutagen that mutated the Turtles was unstable, Bebop and Rocksteady were mutated by a completely different batch of mutagen by Shredder later.

So the only question is why Splinter didn't mutate too, I think this is actually brought up in the first ep of Season 9 but they don't bring it up again

I actually think they said he might mutate too but then they never brought it up again.

Yep. Donatello told Splinter more or less this: "Your mutation might get unstable too, master."

I think Splinter mutating into that werewolf design Peter Laird made once would have been cool for a single episode.

Also... why didn't H.A.V.O.C. recruit mutants like Mondo Gecko, Leatherhead or hell, even bebop and Rocksteady? I know that Titanus had a mutant making machine, but I don't recall it being explicitly mentioned that he created every mutant that was a member of H.A.V.O.C.

One thing I liked about Red Sky was the turtles being outcasts again and feeling wary of mankind as a whole, especially Raph and Don. That's how I like things to be. Between seasons 4 and 6 their presence got ridiculously accepted to the point of the Turtles having normal jobs in that episode were Splinter pretends to leave them. Great episode, though.

What do you mean by improving the Red Sky season? Personally for us or in order for it to have been successful?

Because if its the former there really is not much they could've done which is why they turned out the way they did. I mean the fad peaked in S4 and while still strong and very big it meant it was only coming down from there and MM Power Rangers came out not long after which only speeded up the process. Cartoons had also changed a lot since the late 80s and we were seeing more mature shows which the turtles were competing on. So the show had already run its course by 1994 and the slightly darker take of S7 is probably the result of that. So while a shadow of their former self the show still had a name and a fanbase so that's the only reason it ran for those last three seasons. They weren't afraid to make changes anymore since they correctly assumed that doing more of the same wouldn't do any favors to the franchise but a new take might work which is why they revamped the show in the "red sky" seasons. Having old villains wasn't going to help bring back anyone but entirely new villains might so that's what they tried, even if it didn't work it was a better strategy than the already sinking ship one last chance and of course it didn't work but the turtles name was able to carry it for those 3 seasons but not much after that.

Yeah we would've all preferred to have seen the villains we knew and loved but this was a chance for them to do something different and maybe hit gold and the franchise still had long legs after all by 1996 Power Rangers while still popular hadn't been the iconic show that they had once been. Even if it had tried to continue it would've been quickly murdered after all this when Playstation and N64 were hitting it big, Nickelodeon was at its highest influence they were just different times not to mention only 2 years before Pokemon hit.

As far as the actual seasons they needed better writing many times the stories were just boring, not enough comedy but not enough drama, it was generic and there were many other shows that were doing a better job telling similar stories.

Both but mostly in a personal way. After all, as you've mentioned, there really wasn't much that they could have done to grab new viewers. The show was on life support and it was a mater of time before the network pulled the plug.

I know the Turtles were huge in their prime, but it's amazing how a western animated series lasted almost 200 episodes and was the longest running of all time when it ended until The Simpsons surpassed it two years later. Wouldn't be surprised if South Park had surpassed the FW series since then either.

I kinda liked those seasons, but a lot of it definitely felt like they took one step forward, and then a bunch of steps sideways. A lot of the better ideas weren't given the attention they deserved, and stuff like Carter was crammed in despite nobody really asking for it.

I thought the tone was a welcome change-up, though. They had completely exhausted the "goofy" setting and cartoons like that weren't what was selling by 1994 anyways. I can see why some fans aren't in love with what was a pretty jarring and abrupt shift in tone, but it was literally something they needed to do if they wanted to get those last couple seasons in. The most popular cartoons at that point were almost all "straight" action/adventure cartoons. It felt like the right move, but a little bit too late.

I think it would have been better if they hadn't completely shifted focus to a bunch of new characters right at the end, and rather stayed consistent by using mostly familiar villains slightly updated to fit the more serious vibe. The entire series was a self-reverential nostalgia act by that point, anyways, it couldn't hurt to do the same thing but "played straight" for once. I just think they asked the audience to accept too much change too soon, with the new art style, new music, the Turtles as outcasts again, secondary mutations, new supporting cast, all new villains, completely different sense of action versus humor. It was like you went away for the summer and when you watched the show again, it felt like you missed three or four seasons instead of actually picking up from where it left off.

The designs for the Turtles and April in Seasons 8 and 10 were good. Season 9 had a different animation studio so they moved more cartoony or so in that season.