Seasonal Rot: Difference between revisions

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* Season 7 of ''[[Family Guy]]'', due to the amount of episodes [[Anvilicious|focused]] [[Writer on Board|on]] [[Author Avatar|Brian's political views]], as well as a few terrible episode premises (i.e. "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven"), massive [[Flanderization]] of the whole main cast (i.e. Peter's reckless behavior in "Baby Not on Board"), and, of course, [[Non Sequitur Scene|a five-minute long Conway Twitty cutaway]]. Part of the reason behind the seasonal rot can be attributed to the 2007-2008 WGA strike that plunged a lot of shows into getting canceled, going on hiatus, or suffering through seasonal rot.
*[[SpongeBob SquarePants]] experienced a steady decline in quality between the first and second movie after Stephen Hillenburg resigned as showrunner and was replaced by Paul Tibbet.
** Season 4 is generally considered to be the start of the decline. However, this season is still considered good, dueand tohas beingsince by [[Vindicated by History]]. In fact, a few fans even consider it to be part of the show's [[Golden Age]].
** Season 5 isn't too bad either, but it's a bit of a mixed bag. While it has some memorable episodes, like "Friend or Foe", "Roller Cowards", "Spy Buddies" and "Pest of the West", it also has some infamous episodes, like "Fungus Among Us", "To Love a Patty", "Atlantis SquarePantis" and "Whatever Happened to SpongeBob?"
** Season 6 was a turning point for the series. It took the decline to new levels of low and worsened the problems of Seasons 4 and 5, with massive flanderization of characters, an overuse of gross-out humor ("The Splinter" is a prime example) and is the first season where the bad episodes outnumber the good ones.
** Season 7 is considered to be the peak of the decline, due to having two of the most hated episodes of the series, "A Pal for Gary" and "One Coarse Meal", the writing becoming extremly mean-spirited and having a ton of other episodes that are memorable for the wrong reasons.
** Season 8 is considered to be a slight improvement over Seasons 6 and 7, due to some better writing and a few less bad episodes. Nevertheless, this season still gets a lot of flak, due to having a large amount of weak and forgettable episodes.
** The decline finally got reverted in Season 9, especially when Stephen Hillenburg returned as showrunner for the second half of the season after the release of the second movie.
* Chris Savino's run of ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' (seasons 3 and 4) and ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' (seasons 5 and 6) were heavily criticized by fans due to the fact that these seasons made [[Executive Meddling|without the original creators]] after the shows were [[Uncancelled]] due to boring plots, ungodly amounts of [[Flanderization]], and a really unfitting art style. Plus, with ''Dexter's Laboratory'', they got rid of the Justice Friends and Dial M for Monkey segments.
* Fans of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' have wildly varying opinions on when the show went downhill. The first 8 seasons are generally considered to be the best, but later seasons are [[Broken Base|very divisive among fans]].
** The general consensus is that the show began to decline in quality somewhere around Season 9 and/or Season 10, due to Mike Scully taking over as showrunner, the infamous episode "The Principal and the Pauper" and the overuse of celebrity guest stars. However, due to these seasons being [[Vindicated by History]], in more recent yaersyears, fans have considered them to be part of the show's [[Golden Age]].
** No matter what your opinion is of Seasons 9 and 10, most fans can agree that Season 11<ref>For reference, this is the season that killed off Maude Flanders, had Barney give up drinking, made Apu and Manjula the parents of octuplets, and presented whimsically self-referential episodes like "Saddlesore Galactica", "Missionary: Impossible", and "Behind the Laughter".</ref> was a turning point for the series. The episodes began to have more outlandish plots, going against the normally grounded and relatable plots of previous seasons. It's also considered around this time when the series had abandoned the satirical, yet heartwarming humor of previous seasons in favor of being a [[Lighter and Softer]] (yet still wacky and crude) ''[[Family Guy]]'' clone. For these reasons and others, this is considered to be when the show had [[Jumping the Shark|jumped-the-shark.]] TheseSeason problems12 continueis intoconsidered Seasonto 12,be thougha someslight considerimprovement, itdespite tohaving bemany slightlyof betterthe same problems thanas Season 11.
** The seriesThings began to improve duringin Season 13 when Al Jean replaced Mike Scully as showrunner. SadlyHowever, thisanother didn'tsteady lastdecline longbegan as the series went downhill again inaround Season 16 with a downgrade in humor and a large amount of weak and forgettable episodes. This decline lasted years before it finally began to show improvement once again in Season 32 with funnier and more clever writing, more well-received episodes and even containing some references to the earlier seasons.
* While ''[[Futurama]]'' is consistently good, it has an in-universe example in the form of ''Everybody Loves [[The Hypnotoad|Hypnotoad]]'', which has been going downhill since season three.<ref>according to someone immune to the mind control which is its main draw, anyway</ref>
** Fans of ''[[Show Within a Show|All My Circuits]]'' are also split about Bender's run as Calculon's son. Younger viewers loved his [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|glamorizing views on smoking and burglary]] while parents despised him as an [[Moral Guardians|antisocial rolemodel]].
** ''Futurama'' itself is considered by many to be going through this in seasons five and six, ever since it resumed airing new episodes on [[Comedy Central]].
* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' fans generally consider Season 3 to be this, since they changed the [[Big Bad]] from the awesomely creepy Slade, who was Robin's archrival but still had personal beef with the rest of the Titans, to Brother Blood, who started off perfectly menacing but spiraled into [[Villain Decay]] quickly, and had limited interaction with any of the Titans besides Cyborg, and having a weak story that only got two episodes and a two-part finale worth of exposure.
** And, to a lesser extent, Season 5, probably due to it coming directly after the extremely well-received Season 4. It's still generally accepted, though, mainly due to its awesome [[Grand Finale]] (the two-part final battle, ''not'' the [[Broken Base|controversial]] actual last episode.)
*This happended to ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' took a considerable drop in quality after Season 7, the last season of the classic era, due to the loss of Britt Allcroft and other original crew members and HIT Entertainment outbuying the series.
** While Season 8 isn'tis tooconsidered badto be good in its own rights and has been [[Vindicated By History]], Seasons 9-1112 come under criticism for continuity errors, plot holes, incorrect portrayal of how railroading works, weaker writing, increasingly repetitive and formulaic storylines, like the infamous "three strikes formula", where one of the characters makes a mistake three times before realizing their error and setting things right and introducing a bunch of unnecessaryone-off characters justfor tomerchandising. sellNot toyshelping is the introduction of CGI animation in Season 12. While this wouldn't have been too bad on its own, mostthe mix of whichCGI onlywith appearthe model set was poorly done, resulting in onethe episodeseries andveering areinto never[[Uncanny seenValley]] againterritory. Also, this is when Sharon Miller became head writer for the series after writing a handful of episodes for Seasons 9-11.
** Seasons 13-16 of the CGI era is aconsidered majorto lowbe the lowest point, asfor theythe worsenedseries, as the problems of Seasons 9-12 worsened and became much more noticeable. These seasons suffer from terrible writing and storylines, massive flanderization of several characters, loads of bad episodes, like the infamous "Wonky Whistle" and the introduction of infamous characters such as the Logging Locos and Charlie. These problems and others are due to Sharon Miller's run as head writer.
** Season 12 is a low point for the series, with the introduction of CGI animation. While this wouldn't have been too bad on its own, the mix of CGI with the model set was poorly done, resulting in the series veering into [[Uncanny Valley]] territory. Also, this is when Sharon Miller became head writer for the series after writing a handful of episodes for Seasons 9-11.
** Thankfully, the rot finally got reverted during Seasons 17-21. With Andrew Brenner replacing Sharon Miller as head writer, the series was set to recapture the charm of the classic era and the Railway Series Books.
** Seasons 13-16 of the CGI era is a major low point, as they worsened the problems of Seasons 9-12. These seasons suffer from terrible writing and storylines, massive flanderization of several characters, loads of bad episodes, like the infamous "Wonky Whistle" and the introduction of infamous characters such as the Logging Locos and Charlie. These problems and others are due to Sharon Miller's run as head writer.
** Thankfully, the rot finally got reverted during Seasons 17-21. With Andrew Brenner replacing Sharon Miller as head writer, the series was set to recapture the charm of the classic era and the Railway Series Books.
** Sadly, the rot relapsed during Seasons 22-24 (AKA "Big World! Big Adventures!") when a lot of changes were introduced to the series that didn't go over well with fans, like removing Edward and Henry from the Steam Team, the introduction of two new female characters Nia and Rebecca after complaints that the series was not diverse enough, having Thomas travel around the world (which, while not a bad thing in particular, was poorly handled), the introduction of imagination sequences, faster paced visuals, and the mix of cartoon physics with realistic physics.
** The trailer of the upcoming reboot, ''[[Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!]]'' has received severe backlash from fans, due to the transition from CGI to 2D animation, change in characters, abandoning the series' original continuity, completely replacing realistic physics with cartoon physics, and completely dumbing down the series for very young audiences.
* To some, season two of ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' is this, thought YMMV. Over focus on romantic side plots, less focus on their battles and less action. Thought the ending managed to fix that by revealing [[The Masquerade]], leading to it [[Growing the Beard]] in Season 3.
* Even the most staunch of its fans will admit that so far, season 5 of ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' has been complete and utter garbage. Apparently, it's not enough to deter the execs, who have already ordered a season 6 against the wishes of many people who would rather see that time and effort put towards a second season of ''[[Titan Maximum]]'', the show Seth Green unceremoniously self-cancelled to increase his focus on ''Chicken''.
* During the third and fourth seasons of ''[[KaBlam!]]'', the production company for ''Sniz & Fondue'' went bankrupt and more one-shot shorts were produced, with mixed to negative receptions among the fandom, though the remaining regular shorts were claimed to be even better that season.
*''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' is still popular, though there are many people who think that the show's quality has been going downhill during Season 3.
** More accurately, the episodes from the middle of the third season just haven't been as good as episodes from the second season and the first half of the third. That said, the show is still quite good - it just seems to have peaked in quality sometime around the [[Big Damn Movie]], ''[[Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension]]''.
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