Raph's Treatment on the show

[Aaronardo]

I think a fairly large problem with how badly the characterization of these Turtles has become in Season 3 (besides, you know, the other problems that have been pointed out in this thread so far), can be attributed to how I can't really point out anywhere in memory where there's been any sort of character development.

It's my problem with Clash of the Mutanimals and its GoldMutant's problem, as well. At this point, we had gone a whole season that's had barely anything of substance (and, if any, it was one-off), so when the showrunners tell us that Clash of the Mutanimals is going to start an arc, we rightfully believed them, thus balancing all the filler in the season with something of some actual substance (and about damn time, too). None of the Turtles came out better because of the events of the episode, and it's an overall useless episode in the long run.

But back to my main point: Think hard about Seasons 1 and 2, and think about when the Turtles' characters actually had development. This kind of thing is normally best handled in one, what I call a Wham Scene. I think about Enemy of My Enemy, with Leo talking to his brothers about his mistake of simply believing what he wanted to. I can definitely see Leo's development here (and, hell, Leo's had some damn good development in the show as a whole up until Season 3, where they completely butchered their best opportunity). What about Mutagen Man Unleashed? Here we have a scene of Donnie talking to Timothy about April, convincing himself that he's nothing to April but a freak. Again, a great scene for the development for the character.

And there are, of course, other scenes for these two, as well as scenes for the other Turtles (Raph: Slash and Destroy; Mikey: Into Dimension X). Now, think hard about Season 3. Besides that strong scene in the opener with Leo rising to the challenge to rescue his brothers from The Creep despite his leg and the entirety of Vision Quest (which yielded no results either way), I personally couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. So, I took to a list of episodes of Season 3. I still couldn't think of anything. All I can conclude from this is that Season 3 is not only a weak season when it comes to character development, but a weak season in general. And I agree with that conclusion. But hey, that's just my two cents.

tl;dr: Season 3 is inferior especially in comparison to Seasons 1-2 in character development.

Originally Posted by ssjup81

I just don't think much about shows (Nick Turtles) aimed at seven-year-olds...

Then you have hardly any respect for Writing as an art form. It should not matter if a show is aimed at seven-year-olds or seventeen-year-olds. Bad writing is bad writing, and good writing is good writing. And really, all we want is good writing. Is that really too much to ask for?