Well, like I've done the past 4 or 5 SB DVDs to be released, I picked up the "Friend or Foe?" DVD last Tuesday, the first day it was for sale.
Much has been said about the pros and cons (primarily the latter) of Season 4. So, I wondered, would these first episodes from Season 5 prove significantly different and, if so, in what direction? (That is, in a Seasons 1-3 direction or an altogether new one.)
First off, the writers are largely the same--but the "teams" are a bit different. The last 70-80% of Season 4 episodes (with one exception, "Best Day Ever") were written by 3 "teams"--Zeus Cervas, Casey Alexander, and Luke Brookshier. Some of the writers in the teams themselves shifted (for example, Dani Michaeli shows up in some but not others), but the head writer in the list was always one of these three.
Here's a change: the Luke Brookshier team is the same (writing "The Original Fry Cook" and "Spy Buddies"). Zeus Cervas is not listed as a head writer--he's now listed below Casey Alexander (in "Friend or Foe?" and "Fungus Among Us"). Alexander also wrote "Night Light," but Cervas isn't in the credits. The writers of "Best Day Ever," Nate Cash and Tuck Tucker, show up in the other two short episodes, "Rise and Shine" and "Waiting."
Anyway, my main reason for boring you with these seeming trivialities is to point out what the folks at Nick might be thinking. It seemed to confirm my own view of Season 4 episodes, which I've shared in other threads: the Brookshier episodes were generally the good ones, the Alexander episodes were average, and the Cervas episodes tended to be the bad ones. So I'm not too surprised that Cervas isn't listed as the head writer anymore.
The episodes:
Friend or Foe?: 6/10 OK episode, not great. Those who don't like Patchy the Pirate will inevitably groan. The plot is consistent in some ways with previous episodes and contradicts them in others (in particular, "Dunces and Dragons" and "Enemy-In-Law.")
The Original Fry Cook: 7/10 Starts out great, then kinda falls flat.
Night Light: 8/10 This one was pretty good. The part where Spongebob is buying the nightlights is easily the best part of this episode, and possibly the funniest scene in all this DVD.
Rise and Shine: 8/10 Short but good. You gotta love it when Patrick says "Hello?" to the can of food.
Waiting: 6/10 Not a bad episode, but nothing to write home about, either.
Fungus Among Us: 7/10 A pretty good episode with a plotline that hovers a bit too closely to "Once Bitten."
Spy Buddies: 9/10 This one (IMO) was the best of the group. This episode was full of funny lines and antics. If you find farting unfailingly funny, you'll love this one. This episode is also pretty clever, plot-wise. It shows us that there's still a lot of life in Spongebob when it comes to the plotlines still available. While "Fungus Among Us" is a bit-too-close rehash of "Once Bitten," "Spy Buddies" is quite original. There were things I didn't catch till I watched it the second time ("Oh, now that makes sense.")
So we can see here that there aren't any "bad" episodes, at least IMO. There are no episodes like "All That Glitters," "Ghost Host," and "Rule of Dumb" to be found here (all 3 of which were written by the Zeus Cervas team, I might add.)
Another possible change I've noticed in this season (I could be way off with this early assessment, by the way)--I've seen a slight increase in the "risky" moments, as another thread put it. The writers are clearly cognizant of the controversies this show has produced. Best example: in "Night Light," when Squid gets inevitably bothered by Spongebob and Patrick's antics, he says something to the tune of, "I don't care or want to know what you two do in your spare time."
One particularly risky moment is in "Spy Buddies," when Spongebob speaks into Patrick's pants-o-phone (so he's actually speaking into Patrick's butt.) After Mr. Krabs hangs up, you hear a phone operator say, "If you'd like to make a call, please deposit 25 cents." Spongebob takes out a quarter and you see Patrick with a strange smile. There are other risky moments like this one in these episodes.
At any rate, my conclusion is, when you get right down to it, no significant difference exists between Season 4 and what I've seen so far. We'll see what the next set of episodes brings us....
