User blog:Scrooge200/Season 5 Review

Season 4, which I reviewed last time, was "so... close to being perfect." Maybe Season 5 will be a nice surprise.

I will rate each episode on a scale from Vomitrocious, Bad, Okay, Good, Great. At the end of my review, I'll count up how many of each rating there are in the season, and give it a rating as a whole, alongside ranking every episode in the season from best to worst.

I have currently reviewed 8/20 episodes in Season 5.

Arthur and the Big Riddle
I like all the riddles and puns in this episode, especially Arthur's Riddle Land dream sequence. But other than that, this episode is kind of dull and not much happens until the last three minutes. And what really annoys me is the ending: Arthur knows the correct answer to a riddle, but decides to lose out of fear that he'll have to change schools and keep going on the show. Or, you know, he could just get it right, win the prize, and lose the next round so he wouldn't have to keep playing? A very disappointing ending, and this episode's call-backs to "Arthur the Loser" don't help. Are the Arthur writing staff really against winning this much? This is an okay episode.

Double Dare
It's dumb how quick everyone is to accept the dare, even after they realize it's dangerous. And that's the best way to describe this episode; dumb. The ending is dumb, the entire plot is dumb, and it's a rather confusing plot. I think this is a bad episode, just because of how everyone goes along with something they know is stupid, and the sheer boredom I feel while watching it.

Kids are from Earth, Parents are from Pluto
This is a boring episode. I don't really care about the conflict nor can I relate. So what if their parents are embarrassing? Everyone else's will be. And it's not like this episode is very funny. I found it kind of stupid. An okay episode that's not quite bad.

Nerves of Steal
I had a review written for this episode, but I accidentally lost it. So I'll go and say that this is an okay episode and that I thought what Buster did was stupid, especially the note he writes, and that the ending is depressing and I don't like it.

It's a No-Brainer
This episode's beginning and end has a weird obsession with showing people's brains. It's kind of creepy and doesn't add much to the episode. Besides that, this is a really dumb episode. You might as well call this Brain's Best Behavior, because this episode has exactly the same plot as "Buster's Best Behavior." Heck, it's even similar to "Popular Girls" and "Arthur Goes Crosswire"; why does the show like doing these plots so much? There's not much to this plot, it's just that Brain does bad in a math contest and then starts acting like Buster while Buster tries to be the next Brain. I don't even get the ending, where Brain drops a math book and confesses that he wants to do math again; then why was he acting like that if he didn't want to? Ugh, this is a confusing mess. I can't give this episode points for originality, animation (it has that washed out Buster's Best Behavior palette), humor, or even having a coherent plot. It gets a light bad from me.

The Shore Thing
It bugs me that everyone mispronounces "aqua" in this episode. Other than that, this is a good episode. It's not incredibly funny or interesting, but it makes me happy and still has some good moments. I like how Mr. Ratburn randomly appears twice, too. A low good episode, and definitely an improvement over the previous one.

The World Record
I like how many main characters are involved in this episode. Overall, it's a very fun episode. I Like seeing what records they try to break. This episode is pretty unrealistic, but it has a good ending and there are some funny moments. It's a good episode that holds my attention.

The Cave
I don't like Francine and D.W. in this episode. Francine mocks Arthur for being afraid of the dark... why? The dark is like one of the most common and logical things to be afraid of. If Arthur's fear was ridiculous, I could understand, but an 8 year old being scared of the dark isn't unheard of. I like the scenes in the cave and how Francine actually does get scared, but what happens to D.W.? There should have been a scene of Arthur at home talking to David and D.W. after the spelunking trip. Overall, a rather okay episode. This season isn't great, but it isn't terrible either.

The Lousy Week
Why are the lice portrayed as army men? Because Muffy doesn't want to tell anyone else about her lice, she infects the entire school. But why would the entire school just pass around and wear a hat? That's kind of dumb. This episode is overly serious, but not at all at the same time, with the D.W. scene and the anthropomorphized lice. It just goes on and on and just ends instead of concludes. The lice are defeated, but why? Arthur's olive oil helped but that was only for him, and isn't his family still infected with lice? This episode is just unpleasant, boring, and long. A low okay.

You Are Arthur
What a meta episode. We're shown this episode from Arthur's point of view. Well, not entirely, because some of the flashback scenes are third person. And this episode uses a lot of full-screen wipes (sometimes even just Arthur blinking) to move the plot along and go to a new scene. There's a lot of "Arthur looking into reflective surfaces" to remind us that we're watching an Arthur episode.

The episode doesn't spend much time on its plot and everything is established in the "as you already know, you have to run the race today!" fashion. I would've liked to see Arthur in school or something instead of this 5k race. I can still appreciate what we got, as this is a unique concept that we haven't seen in the show yet and I kind of enjoyed it. It's a low good.

Rating Counts

 * Great: 0
 * Good: 3
 * Okay: 5
 * Bad: 2
 * Vomitrocious: 0

Season Ranking



 * 1) The World Record
 * 2) The Shore Thing
 * 3) You Are Arthur


 * 1) The Cave
 * 2) Kids are from Earth, Parents are from Pluto
 * 3) Arthur and the Big Riddle
 * 4) Nerves of Steal
 * 5) The Lousy Week


 * 1) It's a No-Brainer
 * 2) Double Dare