Pinned thread Season 3 Discussion

JoeyBoi

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Wrapping up the pre-movie era we have season 3. Now this one I'm a bit curious about because I haven't fully watched this season in about 3 years, which is the longest period of time between these so far.

Weak (4)
37. Party Pooper Pants
Average (5)
36. Krabby Land
35. Born Again Krabs
Okay (6)
34. Ugh
33. The Sponge Who Could Fly
32. The Great Snail Race
31. Club Spongebob
Good (7)
30. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV
29. Pranks A Lot
28. New Student Starfish
27. SpongeGuard on Duty
26. Squilliam Returns
25. Mid-Life Crustacean
24. Missing Identity
Great (8)
23. Doing Time
22. My Pretty Seahorse
21. Nasty Patty
20. Plankton's Army
19. No Weenies Allowed
18. Clams
17. Spongebob Meets the Strangler
16. One Krabs Trash
15. The Bully
14. As Seen On TV
Amazing (9)
13. Just One Bite
12. The Camping Episode
11. I Had An Accident
10. Rock-A-Bye Bivalve
9. The Algae's Always Greener
8. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V
7. Wet Painters
6. Can You Spare A Dime?
5. Krab Borg
Perfect (10)
4. Idiot Box
3. Snowball Effect
2. Chocolate With Nuts
1. Krusty Krab Training Video

Ratings:
Top-Tier: 13
Good: 17
Average: 6
Bad: 1
Bottom-Tier: 0

Number Rankings:
10/10: 4
9/10: 9
8/10: 10
7/10: 7
6/10: 4
5/10: 2
4/10: 1
3/10: 0
2/10: 0
1/10: 0

Like season 2, season 3 is filled with fantastic episodes. To be honest, halfway through my viewing I was getting ready to call it my favorite season. Seriously, the stretch of episodes from Krab Borg to MM&BB V (excluding PPP of course) is legendary. Why do I think season 2 is better? Well, as many people have mentioned before, the last quarter or so of the season is noticeably weaker than the rest, with some episodes just having less memorable stories and jokes and some just feeling... off. It's not too big a deal, but definitely noticeable when you binge the season. You can tell as the writers started running out of steam the stories of some of these episodes got more zany and loose, which benefitted the episodes in some cases (I Had An Accident, SB Meets the Strangler) and backfired in others (Born Again Krabs, Sponge Who Could Fly). I do think season 3 peaks in episode quality a bit more than season 2, but season 2 is just more consistent, which is why it comes out on top. Despite these minor quirks, this is a good season and one I'd definitely recommend, maybe even more than season 2. Average score is 7.78, which is very close to season 2 but not quite there as I expected. It's also almost a whole 2% increase from last time, which is pretty cool.
 

Neon2500

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This is probably the most comedy-centric season of the whole show. I agree with the people who have mentioned the writing is a bit lazy-wacky in the last few episodes, but I personally find that vibe hilarious

Things I noticed:

The tone of this season is in one sense kind of cynical (Party Pooper Pants, Sponge Who Could Fly) but it’s the most positive actually character-wise; think of how many episodes we have about characters teaming up, especially SB and Squidward, who have eps where they work together or interact positively in “Can You Spare A Dime”, “Squilliam Returns”, “Krab-Borg!”, “MM&BB V”, “Clams”, “Born Again Krabs” and “SB Meets the Strangler”

The late episodes of the season have a very different feeling from any other era of the show. As someone else put in a post, this effect is clear in every episode starting with “I Had An Accident” but can be felt a lot starting with “Party Pooper Pants”. The show starts to feel more empty, in a way - “Sponge Who Could Fly” is the episode where this is felt the most, but “Krabby Land” and “Missing Identity” also have a lot of it.

The crew is very limited this season, with Sam Henderson, Kent Osborne and Kaz joining us, but only a few writers/storyboard artists from the previous seasons coming back. If I am correct this season has the least different writers excluding post sequel, which accounts at least partially for the weird vibe.

Honestly the whole season feels like a wrap party for SpongeBob, that’s the best way to describe it lol

(On a side note, can anyone recommend a whole show that reminds of late season 3-type humor?)
 
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