Sinking ratings, is nostalgia not working?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Konchadunga

There aren't enough jokes, there isn't enough suspense, there isn't much character development; it all just is.

Some of the jokes are still very funny. I at least crack a smile over some lines or scenarios in every episode. Obviously the humor is aimed at kids, so a 25-30+ year old adult isn't going to burst out laughing.

I think the problem might be that they've thrusted the series into a whole new scenario faster than they have time to develop it. While this series' villains were never deep, with the Triceratons it seems like they've reached an all-new generic low for villains; it manages to turn the race against time to save Earth from destruction into something I don't care about, because the villains looking to destroy it don't leave any impression on me; it's impossible to suspend disbelief.

This is odd. I find the Triceratons, Dregg and Armaggon to all be great new villains in their Nick incarnations. They basically have one-shot villains and recurring ones like on Earth.

The scenarios they go through in space just come and go too rapidly to make an impression, too. Maybe a Lovecraft-inspired ocean world would be interesting if they fleshed it out; as it is, it's just one of many nods to science fiction mainstays they're doing here. Same with an alien town that looks like Tatooine, a basic scenario that looks like Star Trek, an actor from Doctor Who etc. In this case, no; I don't think catering to nostalgia works, because you can't just survive on references to things people like. Diving into why they like them is more important.

The Turtles travel through space and into generic alien worlds in every series. Mirage, Fred Wolf, 2k3, Archie, etc. did this all the time. How is this any different?

[Konchadunga]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Some of the jokes are still very funny. I at least crack a smile over some lines or scenarios in every episode. Obviously the humor is aimed at kids, so a 25-30+ year old adult isn't going to burst out laughing.

Except that yeah; I used to burst out laughing at this show, and at the Fred Wolf show, and at the Mirage series; a great deal less at the 2003 show, but it had its own virtues. Besides, who here can really say if the kids are laughing?

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

This is odd. I find the Triceratons, Dregg and Armaggon to all be great new villains in their Nick incarnations. They basically have one-shot villains and recurring ones like on Earth.

I admit I kind of like Armagon, but I think it's because he's more of a rogue than another member of a collective without a real identity, but the other two you've mentioned don't leave much impression on me at all.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The Turtles travel through space and into generic alien worlds in every series. Mirage, Fred Wolf, 2k3, Archie, etc. did this all the time. How is this any different?

It's the pacing, I think. When Mirage and 2k3 did the Turtles in Space arc, it held my interest because every story ended with a cliffhanger that fed into the next. This series has the Turtles and their adversaries flying sorties at each other, and that doesn't build suspense.

[CyberCubed]

The space arc is basically a half season long story arc. Its 14 episodes of the season (or 13, if you don't count the crossover episode).

And the 2k3 Turtles returned to space several times after the Triceraton arc. What about the one where April and the gang get transported to that bug planet, and they basically fought bugs the entire episode? Its no different than the Nick show.

[Papenbrook]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Some of the jokes are still very funny. I at least crack a smile over some lines or scenarios in every episode. Obviously the humor is aimed at kids, so a 25-30+ year old adult isn't going to burst out laughing.

However, less kids are watching the show, CyberCubed. Look at the ratings. Kids are starting to get older/bored, so they aren't watching the show as much.

This is odd. I find the Triceratons, Dregg and Armaggon to all be great new villains in their Nick incarnations. They basically have one-shot villains and recurring ones like on Earth.

That is your opinion. Not everyone else's.

Turtles travel through space and into generic alien worlds in every series. Mirage, Fred Wolf, 2k3, Archie, etc. did this all the time. How is this any different?

The Nickelodeon series has filler in between those episodes, CyberCubed. Why do you think there are thirteen episodes in this arc?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Papenbrook

However, less kids are watching the show, CyberCubed. Look at the ratings. Kids are starting to get older/bored, so they aren't watching the show as much.

The Nick show started 4 years ago, those kids grew into teenagers.

The Nickelodeon series has filler in between those episodes, CyberCubed. Why do you think there are thirteen episodes in this arc?

13 episodes with about 3-4, at most, fillers. What's the problem? We can't have fun filler on the side?

[Konchadunga]

I just had a thought: I'm not trying to start a fandom rivalry, here, but declining interest as of late might be down to the fact that Star Wars is now back in full-force. (No pun intended.) If they're trying to do a space-based story arc, then they need to give it a lot of gas to go up against the series that canonized many of that genre's tropes.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Konchadunga

I just had a thought: I'm not trying to start a fandom rivalry, here, but declining interest as of late might be down to the fact that Star Wars is now back in full-force. (No pun intended.) If they're trying to do a space-based story arc, then they need to give it a lot of gas to go up against the series that canonized many of that genre's tropes.

The kids watching the show today probably don't know much about Star Wars unless their parents or older siblings take them to see it.

[Papenbrook]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The Nick show started 4 years ago, those kids grew into teenagers.

As a result, less people are watching the show. However, you could also tie in promotion failure as the reason that fewer people are tuning in.

episodes with about 3-4, at most, fillers. What's the problem? We can't have fun filler on the side?

The fillers contradict the tone that the arc is trying to achieve. We have a silly episode like "The Weird World of Wyrm", and a serious episode like "Revenge of The Triceretons", in the same arc.

[shredder orokusaki]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

iTunes? While I'm sure that accounts for a smidgen of the totality of their profits, that's pretty far from say, Agents of SHIELD or something. Little kids (you know, like the actual TARGET audience who account for 98.5% of the people watching TMNT on Nickelodeon beyond the 2000 active fans on this board who are just watching a thing because it has the name "TMNT" in it) are simply not watching TMNT on their mommy and daddy's iPhone or iPad at cost. No little kids of lower to middle class, to be sure. Are 95% of the adults like you and I probably pirating or watching the Nick show in means other than ones legal and clear? Sure, probably... but two sh*ts in a bucket matter about that, as we are the weird adults watching children's cartoon who account for ridiculously less % than apparently a lot of folks around this forum seem to think.

The toys? Absolutely. That's paramount. Always has been.

I dont know about kids but from my experience i have realized most adults like us are watching it on our pc's, at least that how i and many of my friends are watching it if at the time a episode airs on tv i have something else to do but even when i watch it on tv i later watch it again on my pc because my tv is is a very old , it is a10 years old 32'' 720p while my pc monitor is 1080p 60 hz ips 21,5'' so i get the best experience(best graphics and image quality) by watching it on my pc since it also has a poweful gaming graphic card(GTX 970 G1 GAMING 4GB) that provides crystal clear image and detailed graphics in both tv shows and games.

[OrangeNinja1987]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The kids watching the show today probably don't know much about Star Wars unless their parents or older siblings take them to see it.

What world do you live in? Children are outcasted for not seeing Star Wars, especially as of late!

[miru]

Originally Posted by Papenbrook

The fillers contradict the tone that the arc is trying to achieve. We have a silly episode like "The Weird World of Wyrm", and a serious episode like "Revenge of The Triceretons", in the same arc.

Also, the filler episodes are made over episodes addressing important plot points such as Mutagen Man, April's mom, etc. that have yet to be addressed in the series. They keep adding new feral mutants that from then on are only background characters, adding more fuel to the fire. This is the main reason I LOVE "The Creeping Doom" 2 older characters come back and they tie the whole thing to a plot-point.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The kids watching the show today probably don't know much about Star Wars unless their parents or older siblings take them to see it.

... Are you serious? There are seven movies in the main series, all of which have always been easy to find on home video (given the time it takes to get home video releases of course) and the first six have probably been shown on TV so many times it's near damn impossible to never have caught them at some point. In addition to the seven main series movies, there are:

1. Three spin-off movies
2. Two upcoming main series movies
3. Two upcoming spin-off movies
4. Four TV shows, roughly two hundred episodes in total
5. A steady stream of comics since 1977 consisting of over 1000 issues
6. A steady stream of video games since 1983, too many to count
7. Books being released since 1978 and yearly since 1991, so many in fact I can't find a list of how many and can't count them all

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

[CyberCubed]

When I was younger I didn't get into Star Wars until I was like 12-13. I'd seen pieces of the movies before, but I never actually sat down to watch a Star Wars movie from start to finish until I was around 12 or so.

Originally Posted by miru

Also, the filler episodes are made over episodes addressing important plot points such as Mutagen Man, April's mom, etc. that have yet to be addressed in the series. They keep adding new feral mutants that from then on are only background characters, adding more fuel to the fire. This is the main reason I LOVE "The Creeping Doom" 2 older characters come back and they tie the whole thing to a plot-point.

What does it matter how many mutants they add? Not ever single one of them needs a fleshed out story, most of them are mindless monsters.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Powder

Be that as it may, barring a few exceptions, I've never known TMNT to be of particular fondness to traditionally Christian parents. Violence, eastern spiritual themes, etc. They drummed up a lot of controversy back in the day, as I'm sure you recall. In my experience, kids raised under strong faith were typically not allowed to watch it. Maybe today's Christian parents are different, I dunno.

It's case by case, I'm sure. My Mom was a religious nut and I watched whatever I wanted to as far as cartoons went. But I have cousins who were only allowed to watch Bibleman lol

Originally Posted by Papenbrook

We have a silly episode like "The Weird World of Wyrm", and a serious episode like "Revenge of The Triceretons", in the same arc.

You're missing the beauty of TMNT. Go read some Eastman and Laird.

[srmff]

I don't know. I've only ever seen the prequels aired on TV and they turned me right off it the first time that I watched a bit of it and that was on only two occasions that I can remember. In all honesty I don't think many of the people in my year at school had seen it, especially girls. There was a bit of a stigma that if you watched or liked Star Wars or Star Trek you were a nerd so avoid. That can really put people off when they want to be seen as 'cool.' That's probably changed recently due to The Force Awakens and the amount of people that have gone to see it. A friend of mine recently decided to watch them because of all the hype surrounding the new movie. She's 18 and it's the first time she's seen it so that's saying something. Obviously people recognise Darth Vader, lightsabers, stormtroopers, 'Luke, I am your father' (even though that's not the quote) as being from Star Wars but it doesn't mean they've seen any of the movies. If people don't have certain channels, they won't see the shows. Most people that I know hadn't seen the movies a year ago anyway. This is where I live and it might be completely different in America. I was 9 before I saw any of the films.

In regards to watching online, that's the only way that I can see it. Even if I lived in America, I wouldn't have Nickelodeon. The only reason that I did want to see it was because I'd watched the two previous series growing up and I decided to tune into the show one day.

I don't think Christian parents would have a problem with children watching it unless they're very conservative. It's just fiction. I'm from a Catholic family that go to mass every week and we watched anything that's on TV including stuff that was completely inappropriate for our age. We grew up watching 'Father Ted' (probably haven't heard of it but pokes fun at religion) and that is definitely not the worst that we watched. I only knew one person who would stop their children watching something due to religion but she's the type concerned about evil spirits. I'm not sure if her children were not allowed to watch it but they definitely weren't allowed to play Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I remember giving her children some of my spare cards that I didn't want and she threw them in the fire. It's definitely not the norm and even the local priest gets irritated with her behaviour.

I don't think there are figures for the profit earned from merchandise, online episodes, etc. but merchandise is stocked in shelves, people are seen with merchandise and they get money from it which can't be said for other programmes that Nickelodeon own.

[Konchadunga]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

You're missing the beauty of TMNT. Go read some Eastman and Laird.

I understand that the original TMNT was sometimes episodic and varied wildly in tone, but it's important to remember that a show disappointing people isn't necessarily down to just one reason; it could be many. A show that is episodic and varies in tone might not break the deal if the individual portions are entertaining in themselves, but in this case we're probably at a stalemate--that this series is erratically paced is hard to debate, but whether it's boring is subjective.

As to Star Wars, I may be in a generation gap here; with more and more channels and movies these days, cultural entities aren't as ubiquitous as they were when it premiered, so yeah; maybe it's not a given that every child these days cares about Star Wars--but by the same token, not every child necessarily cares about TMNT, either. It's just one loud, marketable series out of many that's on both the big and small screens these days; others being Marvel, DC, Pokemon and it's rising competitor Yo-Kai Watch, Transformers, and (soon to resume) Ghostbusters.

With so many shows to watch, declining viewership isn't necessarily a matter of being great or terrible; it could just be about degrees of enjoyment. I still follow The Flash and iZombie, but the fellow CW series, Legends of Tomorrow just didn't do it for me after viewing a few episodes.

[CyberCubed]

Profits of the show don't just come from live ratings. The show is on itunes, there are the DVD releases, there's the toys and merch, there's the reruns, etc.

Likewise, you really think the IDW comics bring in much profit for Nick in comparison? They have to split the profits with IDW for that one, and the comics are a lot more obscure than a cartoon. The Bay movies, again, the money is split among the movie studios and staff.

The Nick cartoon and its merch is the one thing Viacom gets the most money.

[TurtleGuy]

Personally, I blame the sinking ratings on Spongebob.

[shredder orokusaki]

How does Nickelodeon makes profit from tv ratings? They take money from the sales of toys and DVDS but how can high ratings bring profit? You dont have to pay to watch Nickelodeon on your tv

[Chabrendeki]

Originally Posted by shredder orokusaki

How does Nickelodeon makes profit from tv ratings? They take money from the sales of toys and DVDS but how can high ratings bring profit? You dont have to pay to watch Nickelodeon on your tv

Nope. But they get money for the advertisements shown before, between and after the show. And rating defines how much money they gonna get.