My Top 23 Episodes of SpongeBob Season 10 [Interactive]

ataeaf

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More_Starco said:
Gosh, we're already halfway through the Season and the list still looks mixed. Not good. Hopefully... I won't have to give any episodes an "F" anytime soon.
How would you say this season compares to Season 5? Season 4? Season 8? Obviously it’s worse than Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 9, and still much better than 6 and 7.
 

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ataeaf said:
How would you say this season compares to Season 5? Season 4? Season 8? Obviously it’s worse than Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 9, and still much better than 6 and 7.
I can't really say yet--there's only 11 episodes so far where most Seasons have nearly 50. Grade-wise it's a bit higher than Season 8's even mix of quality, but not by much and the stylistic changes are too different to compare to Seasons 4 or 5.
 

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Do you have a source on where it was said that the scripts are now ten pages? That's interesting
 
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- after thinking through I just thought Whirlybrains was alright. It had some good slapstick but the plot is still ehhhhhhhhhhhhh.

- gosh, I really loved Mermaidpants. It's one of the best Kaz episodes of post-second movie and as a comic book and superhero nerd, this episode filled me with joy <3

- Mimic Madness is without a doubt the best episode in years. Everything worked out perfectly. Jokes, animation, music, voice acting and storytelling.

- I can't say House Worming is one of Pursel's better work in SpongeBob because I thought he had a few good stuff from season 5 but this episode prooved me wrong. He can be a good writer if he tries it. The episode felt simple, yet pretty fun and it had such an enjoyable prequel short at the end.

- I felt so eh about Snooze You Lose. It was definitely sweet that SpongeBob and Patrick helped Squidward but as for rest, it's just boring and uninteresting. Only good joke I can think of is mutant Squidward part. I also dislike the fact that Squidward can't play clarinet so well, except in bad situations. I get he's an egotistical jerk with no talent but those jokes got old for me. We get it. Squidward is such an untalented person.

- You summed up my issue with krusty Katering so well. The episode just doesn't know how to calm down for a second. Jokes are so random and kids, especially birthday kid was so freaking annoying. It felt like a FOP episode for me. Still not in that bad level because at least premise was original and it had a few good laughs but still the episode was so messy and annoying at times.

- Oh yeah, I definitely love SpongeBob's Place. It reminds me of some older episodes but still the episode had enough stuff to be pretty different. The gags were great, story and characterizations were pretty nice and Squidward's song killed me.

- I actually liked Plankton Gets the Boot. I get Plankton came off as such a jerk here but I mean even in such a sweet episode like Single Cell Anniversary, his goal was the formula, still it had some sight of Plankton caring for Karen and trying to get back to her, even if his methods are so stupid. I gotta say that I actually liked it's ending. It's a slap in the fact that nothing worked out at the end but (personal gripe) after spending time with Family Guy episodes of characters doing crap to each other and get forgiven at almost every single time and how I hated resolution of Flash/Supergirl musical crossover, forgiveness of jerk characters really got tiresome for me, so I was glad Karen didn't forgive Plankton and kicked him out of Chum Bucket and as a result, he did get his karma for being such a pain.

- I wasn't so fond of Life Insurance, it was alright but compared to other episodes you mentioned, this felt lacking in good comedy. Because I thought premise was so neat but exectuion felt a bit bland. And I hated Mr. Krabs' cameo for sure. Still it could have been worse

- Burst Your Bubble is really one of my favorites from season 10. I had a few issues but this episode gets so much praise from me due to it's compelling story, good characterizations and well-balanced pace. It wasn't too funny but it had it's moments for sure.
 

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Lousy review:

Okay, it looks like these are going to be the last episodes to air for a while, as the next episodes planned to air are "Unreal Estate" and "Code Yellow" all the way on May 20. This topic's going on hiatus for a while, and I will be doing another list during that time. Now, onto the next episodes.


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"Plankton Retires"
"Plankton decides to close the Chum Bucket and move to a new town, but Mr. Krabs still suspects he is up to something."
Airdate: March 25, 2017 - Writer(s): Doug Lawrence

Out of all the known episodes from Season 10, this was the one I was most excited for. Plankton finally recognizing how many times he's failed to steal the formula, and thus retiring, is a completely out-of-the-ordinary premise for the show to tackle, and can add a lot to understanding Plankton's motives for trying to steal it. Plus Doug Lawrence, Plankton's voice actor, wrote this episode, who has much more experience with him than Ben Gruber in "Plankton Gets the Boot" Yet, despite Plankton, I was more interested in how Mr. Krabs would be written. Given Mr. Krabs is so ingrained in the routine of protecting the Krusty Krab from him, it would be interesting to have the episode explore his emotional attachment to Plankton, or it could have him try to lure Plankton out of retirement with repeatedly sillier schemes.

It disappointed me that this episode was so much less interesting than I expected. While it's a more pleasant episode to watch than "Plankton Gets the Boot", it's not particularly funny and has major pacing problems--notably the beginning and ending. While the set-up with Mr. Krabs foiling Plankton's plans were really entertaining, they took up well over three minutes, and felt like padding that could have been used on the main story. One or two failed schemes would have been sufficient to get the idea that Plankton is exhausted and needs to retire. Yet, that was still funnier than the main plot. "Dullsville", as the name implies, is quite dull. There's no jokes that can be made about Plankton staying still in a town that's so plain vanilla that I can barely remember what it looked like. It's too short to expand upon Mr. Krabs' internal character before the episode pulls a 180 and Plankton reveals that he set up a robot decoy to retire and is actually at the Krusty Krab... and then Mr. Krabs reveals he also set up robot decoys... which makes absolutely no sense given that SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs only just noticed Plankton retired while they were cleaning windows, and they left on Plankton's bus within seconds. While the robots themselves were the highlight of the episode, the ending is completely convoluted and should be completely impossible.

I get that the writers need a method of getting back to the status quo, but it shouldn't be done four minutes before it's over when there hasn't even been an emotional set up and character progression. "New Leaf" had this same twist ending of the two revealing they were faking, but that episode showed Plankton go further into his passion for his novelty gift shop and Mr. Krabs slowly recognizing Plankton's changed to then grow a friendship with him--even with the ending, the story makes a complete arc that's satisfying upon rewatch. Unfortunately, the ending leaves me no reason to come back to this episode, and that's a shame. With better pacing and humor, this episode could have been something great.


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"Trident Trouble"
"SpongeBob accidentally picks up King Neptune's magic trident."
Airdate: March 25, 2017 - Writer(s): Ben Gruber

Quick unrelated note: Best title card this season, possibly for the show in general. I never expected that they'd fully animate a title card to introduce one of the main stylistic elements of the story, the Greek Chorus. It's completely fitting for the ancient style of this episode, as the Greek used similar performers in theater, and I love that they work in unison just like the real examples and sarcastically narrate the episode--actually can I talk about title cards the rest of the review because this episode was a complete mess of conflicting stylistic choices and awful humor.

Ben Gruber's influence from working on "Teen Titans Go!" has been completely apparent on the episodes he's worked on. "Krusty Katering" had the problem of a messy story that was overloaded with fast-paced humor that couldn't take a break, with the jokes being really loud and stupid. "Plankton Gets the Boot" had the problem of Plankton being an ::dolphin noise:: that never learns from his mistake of insulting Karen. Basically, "Trident Trouble" is Krusty Katering 2.0, only without the redeeming qualities. This episode has no story that I can make sense out of and goes in random directions at every second. The Greek Chorus from the title card quickly becomes annoying with how self-aware they are about the stupidity of the humor--their lines are always a sarcastic "We told you so" and "We narrate this epic tale of stupidity."

The episode's humor, like every episode this season, lacks good dialogue and is filled with nonsensical eye candy that doesn't help the story. Most of the humor is based around how badly the magic from the trident that SpongeBob accidentally got his hands on from King Neptune, and it's always simple-minded and doesn't go anywhere besides generic chaos--from a baby's pacifier coming to life to suck the baby, grass coming to life to mow its gardener, Krabby Patties coming to life to become feral and eat the customers, vegetables coming to life to cut themselves up--...do you know what these jokes have in common? They have the same punchline of inanimate objects coming to life and hurting their owners, there's no variety before it gets a predictable ending of Neptune magically fixing everything. It's not even like "Krusty Katering" where its visually varied, it's just garishly colorful and puts faces on everything. Overall, while this episode isn't frustratingly awful, it's still a mess of a story and completely failed at telling good jokes. It's a bad episode.

THE LIST SO FAR:

I'm going to put "Plankton Retires" in the middle (C) tier, but it's very close to the Good (B) tier. If its pacing were better, it was funnier, or looked deeper into the characters, it could have been something great, but as it is it's a poor man's "New Leaf". "Trident Trouble" was a mess on premise, no regrets calling it a bad episode. Yet, it's still more energetic than "Whirlybrains", so it's far from the worst episode this season.

1. Mimic Madness (A+)
2. Mermaid Pants (A)
3. Clam Up! (A-)
4. SpongeBob's Place (B+)
5. House Worming (B)
6. Snooze You Lose (B-)
7. Burst Your Bubble (C+)
8. Plankton Retires (C+)
9. Life Insurance (C)
10. Plankton Gets the Boot (C)
11. Krusty Katering (C-)
12. Trident Trouble (D+)
13. Whirlybrains (D)
 
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I actually thought at least randomness and all that fit Trident Trouble better than Krusty Katering and I thought story was a bit better. Still it was just like Krusty Katering. A messy story with pacing issues and lack of good comedy. And I didn't like SpongeBob in the episode. he felt so oblivious again, I didn't like it.

Plankton Retires was just so unoriginal and I just thought first 4 minutes were filler but I thought the episode had it's moments to be an okay episode, particullar at the begining and robot characters.
 

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I didn't mind Trident Trouble, and viewed it as a mild improvement over Krusty Katering, but it's an episode that gets worse on rewatch.

Plankton Retires is perfectly passable but the story is such a big example of missed potential, not much happens in this episode.

My season 10 rankings so far.

MermaidPants (A-)
Plankton Gets the Boot (B+)
Mimic Madness (B+)
Trident Trouble (B)
House Worming (B)
Burst Your Bubble (B-)
SpongeBob's Place (B-)
Whirly Brains (B-)
Snooze You Lose (B-)
Plankton Retries (C+)
Life Insurance (C)
Krusty Katering (C)

Surprised I went from loving 9b to being indifferent towards 10, but that's how the cookie crumbles. I'm glad the show has learned to make every episode competent at least, the lows of 9b and 10 are far higher than the lows of 4-9a.
 

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My rankings.

1. Plankton Gets the Boot
2. MermaidPants
3. SpongeBob's Place
4. Krusty Katering
5. House Worming
6. Plankton Retires
7. Mimic Madness
8. Burst Your Bubble
9. Trident Truuble
10. Life Insurance
11. Snooze You Lose
12. WhirlyBrains (Still good though)
 

Honest Slug

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I thought Unreal Estate was a bit lacking in dialogue humor to get an A.

I also didn't think Code Yellow was nearly that bad but opinions.
 

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Lousy review:

 
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I loved Unreal Estate so much. Code Yellow wasn't bad for me but the ep had no clear direction and it had so many random jokes.
 
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Ironically those two are my least favorites in this season. I couldn't like both, sorry. The Getaway just didn't know how to stop and breathe for a second, it just kept being so high and loud. SpongeBob felt obnoxious and slapstick was overused to the point, I just wanted the whole episode to be calm down. Lost in Found has great animation, yes but rest of the episode was packed with bad cringey running gag of kid crying Squidward being shoehorned into the plot to serve as a punching bag and how those people got stuck in lost and found and never to be searched again felt so stupid for me (yes, this is SpongeBob but out of context, that's just horrible). Mr. Krabs throwing Squidward into lost and found and then not caring much about their situation and instead of doing something about this, crying with the kid made me irritated.
 

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Dr. WhoBob said:
Ironically those two are my least favorites in this season. I couldn't like both, sorry. The Getaway just didn't know how to stop and breathe for a second, it just kept being so high and loud. SpongeBob felt obnoxious and slapstick was overused to the point, I just wanted the whole episode to be calm down. Lost in Found has great animation, yes but rest of the episode was packed with bad cringey running gag of kid crying Squidward being shoehorned into the plot to serve as a punching bag and how those people got stuck in lost and found and never to be searched again felt so stupid for me (yes, this is SpongeBob but out of context, that's just horrible). Mr. Krabs throwing Squidward into lost and found and then not caring much about their situation and instead of doing something about this, crying with the kid made me irritated.
C'mon Squidward just got into bad situations no one was trying to hurt him here.
 
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Honest Slug said:
C'mon Squidward just got into bad situations no one was trying to hurt him here.
Mr. Krabs threw him into lost and found. He didn't serve anything to the plot, other than having slapstick in his face.
 

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Dr. WhoBob said:
Mr. Krabs threw him into lost and found. He didn't serve anything to the plot, other than having slapstick in his face.
That's kinda his role in episodes that don't revolve around Squidward. Mr. Krabs throwing Squidward in there wasn't OOC imo since it was an emergency.
 
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