Was the End of Season 3 Kind of Mediocre?

FinnDinner

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I don't personally think so, but the second half of season 3 kind of gets a bad rap. Sure there is the Camping Episode, Missing Identity, and SB meets the Strangler, but Krabby Land, Born Again Krabs, and The Sponge Who Could Fly were kind of mediocre. In fact I know several people who really do hate those episodes. Not to mention the Great Snail Race and Ugh a little before those episodes.

Did season 3 kind of go into mediocrity? Maybe the movie distracted the writers or something, but do you guys think these episodes are bad/mediocre? Did Season 3 go downhill?
 

Coffee_lover

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Still don’t get why people blame Krabby Land so much.Because Mr. Krabs is OOC?Well,episode viewed him like negative character,and his got his punishment in the end.Also there a lot of solid gags as well.The same thing with The Great Snail Race
 

MasiHosseini

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Still don’t get why people blame Krabby Land so much.Because Mr. Krabs is OOC?Well,episode viewed him like negative character,and his got his punishment in the end.Also there a lot of solid gags as well.The same thing with The Great Snail Race
Regarding Krabby Land, I think it's especially hated and infamous, because the "flanderization" of Mr. Krabs was really obvious, which was rare in episodes before that one.
 

FinnDinner

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Coffee_lover said:
Still don’t get why people blame Krabby Land so much.Because Mr. Krabs is OOC?Well,episode viewed him like negative character,and his got his punishment in the end.Also there a lot of solid gags as well.The same thing with The Great Snail Race
The main issue I have with Krabby Land, is the fact that Mr. Krabs doesn't learn his lesson. I'd say Born Again Krabs is good, just because he actually knows what happened was wrong. This, he just gets punished, it feels kind of cheep, especially for the bad things he did in this episode.

As for the Great Snail Race, I don't see many redeeming qualities in it. I mean SpongeBob being a jerk to Gary isn't funny in my opinion, and then him disgustingly crashing just feels really forced and cruel. There are some really nice gags everywhere and about, which makes it not my least favorite pre-movie episode, but still I don't think it's good.
 

McSponge

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Far from it. Just because there are a few weak episodes doesn't mean the second half of Season 3 is mediocre. Yes, it's inferior than the first half, but there are still loads of great episodes ("The Strangler", The Camping Episode, Missing Identity, etc.). Season 5 is mediocre, there are plenty of great episodes, but plenty of terrible episodes. 3B is far from mediocre.
 

hippythehippo

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It depends what you mean by "second half." If you mean it from a literal sense, PPP to Pranks a Lot is the range. This still had some great eps, like Chocolate with Nuts, MMBB5, Clams, Camping Episode, Spongebob vs Strangler. Yeah, I think 4 eps are bad, and 3 are meh, but that is still a decent statistic. Compared to the first half, yeah it's not as good, but I think it's still a decent crop of episodes. If you are talking about 2003-2004, it might be a bit average, but eh. Season 3 as a whole, which is honestly all that matters, is amazing anyway, so yeah.


I actually just watched Born Again Krabs again just a couple minutes ago, and it was actually better than I remembered. It's probably upper okay range, but not totally mediocre or bad like some people make it out to be.
 

Original Raw and Uncut

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Bad episodes of season 3 are lightyears ahead of bad post-movie episodes. The Great Snail Race, despite being mean-spirited, managed to make us laugh with clever gags, and a sharp premise, not to mention the top notch pacing. Compare that to...let's say the atrocious "Boating Buddies", cliched premise (how many times has "Being forced to be around your enemy" plot has been used in other shows), Boating Buddies wasn;t clever, it was lazy, poorly written and the jokes sucked. Post-squeal is an improvement from post-movie, but it's still missing that extra zest that seasons 2-3 had. Yeah, the second half of season 3 wasn't as good as the first half, but I wouldn't say the show went downhill until mid-season 4. So much so, that when I was little, I always thought that "The Lost Mattress" & "Krabs vs. Plankton" were pre-movie episodes.
 

SpongeBobfan1987

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The airdates for the final episodes of season 3 were spread thin. The animators worked on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie during most of 2003/early 2004, which explains the lack of new season 3 episodes.

One of my favorite episodes from that season, is SpongeBob Meets the Strangler, where SpongeBob meets a criminal by the name of the Tattletale Strangler, who happens to be voiced by Thomas F. Wilson, best known for his portrayals of the main antagonist, Biff Tannen, his ancestor Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen and his grandson Griff Tannen in the Back to the Future Trilogy, as well as Back to the Future: The Ride and he would also voice Biff Tannen in Back to the Future: The Animated Series. He also voiced Flats the Flounder in a previous SpongeBob SquarePants episode, The Bully.
 

McSponge

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The second half of Season 3 might not be that fantastic for "Pre-Movie standards", but as a cartoon in general, it was still a really great collection of episodes. Like Original Raw and Uncut said, the bad episodes of Season 3 is miles above the bad ones of Post Movie. While I do find some exceptions like The Sponge Who Could Fly, I won't deny most bad episodes of Season 3 are on the same level as good/great episodes of Season 5.
 

Original Raw and Uncut

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I don't get why they didn't finish season 9 before sponge out of water, it would've been way more convenient than only having a year that had only two new episodes. They finished production on season 3 in Winter 2002, why didn't they square away season 9 that way, they only produced eleven episodes between the end of season eight and Sponge Out of Water.
 
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FinnDinner said:
The main issue I have with Krabby Land, is the fact that Mr. Krabs doesn't learn his lesson. I'd say Born Again Krabs is good, just because he actually knows what happened was wrong. This, he just gets punished, it feels kind of cheep, especially for the bad things he did in this episode.

As for the Great Snail Race, I don't see many redeeming qualities in it. I mean SpongeBob being a jerk to Gary isn't funny in my opinion, and then him disgustingly crashing just feels really forced and cruel. There are some really nice gags everywhere and about, which makes it not my least favorite pre-movie episode, but still I don't think it's good.
But sometimes people just don't learn from their mistakes. at the very least Mr. Krabs got punished for his mistakes in Krabby Land.

Idk, SpongeBob was a jerk but he admitted his faults and tbh the horridness towards Gary wasn't that bad to me.
 

FinnDinner

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Master WhoBruh said:
But sometimes people just don't learn from their mistakes. at the very least Mr. Krabs got punished for his mistakes in Krabby Land.

Idk, SpongeBob was a jerk but he admitted his faults and tbh the horridness towards Gary wasn't that bad to me.
I see what you mean for Krabby Land, I have other issues with the plot (if you want I could go in more detail what I think is horribly wrong), and the gags mostly revolve around Krabs beings cheap, which is something we've seen a lot.

As for The Great Snail Race, yeah he did, and even got his butt kicked by Sandy, but I find that scene where Gary is crashing to be really disturbing, and it wasn't even the girl that Gary wanted, it was to watch TV, the reward didn't really fit in my opinion. Also, I think they could have done a lot better with the whole race setup.

Overall I see where you're coming from, but I still see both as bad episodes. I actually dislike Krabby Land more than the Great Snail Race, I don't know about you.
 

LARRY22

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I really enjoyed the first half of Season 3, but the second half is where it all started to go downhill in my opinion. Most say it went started going downhill in Seasons 4 or 5 (Pretty okay Seasons IMO), but I think that the latter half of Season 3 was showing signs of the crew "losing steam" so to speak. This will be a long entry.

This half of Season 3 also established overly-greedy Mr. Krabs in Born Again Krabs, and Krabby Land (A very late season 3 episode). Did we get greedy Mr. Krabs before those episodes? Oh yes, especially Jellyfish Hunter, but that episode made it very clear he was meant to be the antgonist, unlike those two episodes. SpongeBob also had the tendency to be a jerk, either because his pet snail did not want to compete in a race (The Great Snail Race), or because people aren't following his lame party rules (Party Pooper Pants). He also acts pretty dumb in general in the latter half of S3, sure there are episodes that he acts somewhat intellegent in, but still. Patrick didn't get too much of a downgrade thankfully, the worst he does is spary SpongeBob with Invisible Spray and pretty much haunt Bikini Bottom along with SpongeBob in Pranks a Lot, the very last Season 3 episode, and the last pre-first movie episode. One last issue, the 2nd half feels... off. IDK, eveything from the animation, to the general feeling, it's off. You could definitely tell they were making a switch to Season 4.





I do think Season 3 of SpongeBob is really good overall, but I could live without most of the epiosdes in the second half of the season.
 

Jai The Guy

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There were only 2 season 3 episodes that I dislike. Snail Race and Pranks a Lot. I actually quite enjoy Krabby Land, and the camping episode is classic.
 
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