Like the voracious SB fan I am, I went out on Tuesday and purchased my copy of volume 2 of the 4th season. Of the 20 episodes, there were 11 of them I hadn't seen. By Wednesday I had seen all of the new ones, and now I've seen them all at least twice.
The 11 episodes I hadn't yet seen are:
Squidtastic Voyage
Hocus Pocus
The Thing
Driven to Tears
Rule of Dumb
Best Frenemies
Born to Be Wild
Squidwood
The Pink Purloiner
Best Day Ever
The Gift of Gum
I'm not going to review all of them, but I do want to comment in the context of what many have felt regarding season 4. I want to first discuss my own impression of the 4th season compared to the first 3, and then discuss my overall thoughts on these last episodes.
I, too, am in agreement that season 4 has had an often subtly (but sometimes clearly) different style of humor; and I am in complete agreement with those who say "Look no farther than the new writers and the absences of Hillenburg and Derek Drymon" to locate the source of the difference.
As stated, most of the writers are different. Indeed, the majority of the season 4 episodes were written by 2 teams: what we might call the "Zeus Cervas" team and the "Luke Brookshier" team. We saw some old writers (Tibbitt/Springer/Hill/a few others), but it seems that the bulk of the compositions fell on new writers.
If I had to give an explanation of the anomalies we encounter in the 4th season and what to make of them, it would be the following: What we've witnessed since the SB movie are decidedly new "forms" of humor, if that is the right word. What we've generally been given in season 4 are well-defined characters (from seasons 1-3) placed into the hands of writers who didn't always have the sense of how to magnify their characteristics to maintain continuity in the "forms" of humor that made SB so popular.
To me, there is good news and bad news here. Let's look at the bad news first:
The bad news:I think, in many episodes, these new writers have missed the essence of what made Spongebob unique and special. But not by that much. Only in a couple episodes (which I'll hereby Christen the "dud" episodes) do they miss the mark egregiously.
Take what I consider to be the season's worst episode: "All That Glitters," and compare it to the first season episode "Pickles." Any devoted fan of the first 3 seasons will immediately see the difference. Spongebob's reaction to the nameless guy's (no personality-filled Bubble Bass here) ordering of a "monster krabby patty" is quite off the mark. The way Spongebob says "monster.....krabby patty?," well, it just seems a little
off. I'm not going to attempt an explanation for this, other than saying that I don't think you would have seen this in the first 3 seasons. If a season 1 episode began with some guy ordering a monster krabby patty, I think Spongebob would have reacted differently.
Another insight I've gained from reading these threads is the idea that "too much happens" in the episodes of the 4th season. I completely agree. There is no episode remotely like the pace of, say, "Bubblestand" or "SB-129" in season 4. What made the 2nd and 3rd seasons so superior is that they kept the uniqueness of SB and combined it with superior writing and episode crafting skills. Take "Wet Painters"--event-wise, that episode is every bit as slow as "Bubblestand," but in that episode, we are witness to some outstanding lines and antics.
The good news:The "forms" of humor are clearly different to any SB devotee. We've grown accustomed to a certain form of humor and we "can just tell" that things are, shall we again say, "a little off" in season 4. Just like in the 3rd season episode "Klams," Mr. Krabs "can just tell" that the dollar Spongebob and Squidward tried to pass off as his millionth dollar isn't actually the one.
But this hasn't prevented the creation of some outstanding episodes in the 4th season. What makes SB funny in season 4 may be different, but the writers did often come up with some hilarious episodes even in their differences. As I stated above, the writers may have partially floundered (no pun intended) in their attempt to maintain continuity in the essence of what made the main characters unique and funny (and uniquely funny)--but this didn't always stop them from bringing out some ridiculously funny antics out of those characters.
And this brings me to the one episode that, in my opinion, most closely resembles not necessarily the excellence of the first 3 seasons, but the brand of humor that made those episodes so good: "Krusty Towers." Now that I've seen all 40 (or 38, depending on how you count the double episodes), I can say that "Krusty Towers" was the best of the bunch. But I realized that part of the reason for it is because the "forms" of humor most clearly mirrored what I had seen in previous seasons. I'm not going to attempt an explanation here for this. The way the four characters interact with each other and the complexity of the humor really makes this episode a winner. This episode, along with several other episodes, we absolutely see that the writers were clearly in their element (even if it was a different element than the seasons 1-3 writers). The other episodes for me on this list are "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired, "Wishing You Well," and "Chimps Ahoy." About a half dozen other episodes came close.
So, to the last episodes of season 4...Now that I'm completely off-topic, I did want to place what I say here in the context of the final episodes of season 4. For better or worse, there's not much of a difference to be had. In other words, if you're one of those folks disappointed by season 4, don't get your hopes up. It's more of the same here, which, as I hoped I made clear above, isn't necessarily bad. It's
different at a core level, and that's precisely what upsets folks who like the show the way it was in the first 3 seasons and can sense the difference (like Mr. Krabs and his dollar.)
Of all 11, only one episode (IMO) falls in the "dud" category: "Rule of Dumb," and even that one wasn't so bad. The best of the group (again, IMO) was "Driven to Tears." When Patrick blew the horn of his new car, I was almost driven to tears! It may be a subtly different brand of humor, but it's still plain
hilarious, which explains why many insist on the qualities of the 4th season. The quality occasionally goes down, but by and large, it's still funny, if even a different kind of funny (hope that made sense.)
Since it's essentially a done deal that we're going to have a season 5, it should be interesting to see if we witness the brand of humor put forward in season 4, or if we see a reversion to that uniquely unexplainable humor of the first 3 seasons.
I've written very little on my opinions of the 4th season, but, uh, there you go.
