Reviews WesternAnimation / Sponge Bob Square Pants

Lost in Bikini Bottom/Tutor Sauce - Spongebob's Return review

Fans had every right to be cynical about this new batch of episodes. I mean, we've endured a decade of absolute crap. But it seems Stephen Hillenburg's return to the series has indeed been a step in the right direction.

These two episodes are actually pretty funny. There's no mean-spirited humor. There's no gross-out humor at the level of the toenail scene. And the cast isn't composed of sociopaths who love to torture Squidward.

Spongebob is naive, but its something similar to his sweet naivety from the days of old. Squidward actually stays out of trouble, and trouble doesn't find him. In fact, he earns the comeuppance he gets at the end of the A episode, when he had almost gotten off scot-free. Mr. Krabs has a long road to redemption, but here, he did genuinely try to do a nice thing (even if profit was his main goal, kinda like in Pickles) for Spongebob. Patrick had a brief cameo where he sounded like the idiotic, obnoxious sociopath we'd had in recent years, though. Baby steps.

The running gags were funny. And again, the cast was likable again. Spongebob got himself into trouble and didn't torture anyone along the way. Granted, the animation is still in that post-movie slick look, as opposed to the rougher animation from pre-movie episodes. The new animation makes me associate the cast with their post-movie, flanderized selves, so it was jarring to see them back to form but in the new, shiny animation.

All in all, this pair of episodes is genuine proof that the show is starting to take a step in the right direction. Good, funny humor, a sane cast all indicate that maybe there really is hope for Spongebob to return to form after all.