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.
"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.
"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)