The Legend of Korra

Hey, they still have TMNT, and the merch for that seems to be selling quite well.

I read an article somewhere that said there have been so many iterations of the same character (Batman, Superman, etc), and that a doll has to be made of each one of them at least one, that buyers won't buy a second version of the same character as long as they still have a previous one! This further complicates sales of show merchandise that is an adaptation!

Korra's gonna be available on Hulu and Google Play as well as Amazon, so you have some options.

Man, weren't we supposed to get two new episode today?

We were, but then Nick pulled all the episodes of Book 3 from the air save one, which is airing tonight. The last 5 Book 3 episodes are gonna be uploaded on a week-by-week basis on Nick's website, Google Play, Hulu, Amazon, and others.

x4 TMNT just isn't up my ally. I've seen bits and pieces so I could be completely wrong about the show, but I feel like the art style of the CGI is either missing something or is just lacking in polish and I was never a fan of the more... juvenile (for lack of a better term) plots and humor of the show.

Its the same reason I hate Sponge Bob with a passion and everyone around me LOVES that show and ALWAYS call me Patrick Star when they learn my name which just makes me want to punch them in the throat. Ahem. Anyway, I never liked Sponge Bob simply because I thought the humor was stupid (i.e. HAHAHA! Its so funny because Patrick is Stupid/Squidward is annoyed because SB and Patrick are asshole/Krabs is obsessed with money! Its SO funny!) and after so many seasons, there's been no change to any Status Quo (sticking to the Status Quo is something I hate in many shows) and its simply grown tired.

Even Tom Kenny hates the show after voicing the same character for 20 years.

Nick doesn't have anything I'm into simply because Korra, the Black Sheep of the flock, has everything I adore.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:10:31 AM by lancesolous13

That's an unfortunate perspective. It's also probably at least partially true.

Wisdom.

Oh goddammit.

Yay Korra and Asami!

I liked sponge bob when I was younger, but only the first few seasons. My friends and I still make references to it regularly. Ie, someone hurts a leg or foot, 'MY LEG'. Or 'YOUR GOOD YOUR GOOD YOUR GOOD'while parking

Everything before the movie was pure gold when it comes to Spongebob.

It's not true at all. That's pure Nostalgia talking right there.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:34:28 AM by higherbrainpattern

I think this whole issue revolves around the lifeblood of television, advertisements. A company like Nick would generally buy ad packages designed for certain demographics with the intent that the people who watch them, buy or get someone to buy it for them.

You have to realize that the franchise is 10+ years old now. The kids who watched the original series aren't kids anymore. They aren't as willing to buy the sugary cereals, rated E for everyone video games or toys designed for kids ages 6-12. Hell, they are probably more likely to find ways to skip the ads entirely. And while the audience gets older, the network is still trying to market towards the child/tween audience because that is what works for them and is the focus of a majority of their programming.

The content of the show doesn't really matter. Even if you have respectable ratings, if you skew towards the wrong demographics, it's comparable to losing viewership because you essentially have a bunch of freeloaders. It's very similar to the situation Invader Zim was in.

Sure there are some exceptions, and some networks that try to appeal to the periphery demographics that certain shows unintentionally attract, but to do so is both risky and expensive because a company stands to possibly alienate the primary demo or fail to capture the periphery as they move on to other, more fashionable, things.

There is no crime for a company to play it safe, I mean, look at what Korra is being replaced with. It's just people trying to run a business as unfortunate as it may be.

...I'm sorry, how is it not true at all?

Because late Korra Season 1 and early Korra Season 2 were kinda dire. We've been over this. We were there.

Meanwhile, ATLA's Book 2 and Book 3 were pretty damn solid.

I remember Korra's first two seasons getting a lot of damn promotion. And Book 2's ratings still continuously fell.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:39:06 AM by unnoun

Is there any practical reason why they're not just making all the episodes available online immediately? They already have them so why not just put them all on the website at the same time?

edited 25th Jul '14 8:39:34 AM by Kostya

I mean, I've been hearing this same thing from most of my friends. Which, I mean, anecdotal evidence, but whatever.

Season 2 kept losing a lot of viewers. Looking at the ratings, this is a fact.

Most people I've talked to that were watching Korra aren't giving Season 3 a try because after wherever they quit partway through Season 2 they just didn't care anymore.

...And, I mean, I was a Doctor Who fan in the 80s, so suffice to say that I've seen this before.

The last two or three seasons were continuously getting better, but the Colin Baker seasons were so bad, that nobody had enough good will left-over to give the Seventh Doctor a try.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:48:04 AM by unnoun

....Season 1 wasn't dire at all, though? It continually had great ratings because of it's Saturday timeslot. Season 2 ratings were bad because Nick put Korra in the Friday Night Death Slot from the very beginning. Who the hell watches tv on Friday nights? That's typically when people go out.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:51:24 AM by higherbrainpattern

...Not for kids or family audiences, usually.

Most children's television premieres on Friday nights. Or Saturday mornings, yes. There were a lot of other Nick shows on either side ofKorra's time slot.

And the ratings for Season 2 still had a strong downward trend.

And I was referring to Season 1's quality. Or at least it's perceived quality.

The ending got a fair amount of criticism. Still does.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:58:21 AM by unnoun

Perception of quality is subjective, usually. I thought Season 1, aside from the romance subplots, which, y'know, destroyed the fandom, was great. And I also think that Season 2, aside from people calling Korra a bitch and yes, the romance subplots, was great. I got the feeling that most people, especially on tumblr, who were angry at the ending of season 1 seem to me the kind of people who don't understand that Mike and Bryan don't want to rehash ATLA.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:00:48 AM by higherbrainpattern

I am part of the camp that says that Korra isn't as good as The last airbender and it simply lost support for it's declining ratings.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:04:47 AM by fallenlegend

I'd say Season 3 so far has been every bit as good as Avatar: The Last Airbender was.

...But yes, a lot of support has been lost.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:05:44 AM by unnoun

You can argue that season 2 lost audience by lack of interest. However, you can't deny that Nickelodeon has done season 3 no favours with the way they've marketed it.

Also, despite its flaws, I can think of quite a few worse shows than Korra that manage to do better, including... no, ESPECIALLY TMNT.

I am firmly of the opinion that, while Korra might not be as good as Avatar The Last Airbender, that's in no way indicative of anything; I still think it's a great show, just Not as good as its predecessor.

The marketing for Season 3 hasn't been great, no.

But again

Young Justice and Beware the batman had it worse and they still had good ratings.

Sorry to say this but the "Exec hate Korra because she is female" is nonsense. Executives want money, all the characters could be ballet dancers for all they care.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:10:34 AM by fallenlegend

It's not nonsense at all. People within the industry have outright stated that TV executives in the genre are generally averse to having female protagonists, and in some cases even to having too big a female demographic. You can make the argument that they're not sexist or misogynistic as much as just trying to respond to demands from a sexist audience, but that... honestly doesn't make me think much better of them.

...Young Justice and Beware the Batman are shows with characters with a built-in fanbase. That aired on Saturdays. They only problems they had were long "hiatuses." Also, Young Justice had a great, mostly female viewing audience.

Korra was shit on by the Nick execs from the very beginning. There's an interview by some of the animators from Studio Mir where they basically say the same thing.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:12:55 AM by higherbrainpattern

"Hate" is such a strong word to begin with.