ITT: "patient zero" episodes that would later ruin an entire series
>>150378086Also standardized the tendency of revival seasons to feel more like various smaller standalone stories mushed together instead of one cohesive plot
Everything went downhill after this
>>150378086I say this as someone that loves this episode as a standalone and considers it one of the best episodes in the whole series. The lessons the writers took away from making it were a huge stain on the show through the Scully years and influenced the tone and characters of the series in future seasons in an extremely negative way.
>What if we took a normal ass 11 minute episode and treated it like a once in a lifetime special event Even as a kid I didn't get why this needed a 24 hour marathon. From this point the series dropped hard in quality and Nick kept overhyping the fuck out of every new episode
>>150378247The end of season 3 was kind of a harbinger for this kind of stuff, picture very related which I'd classify as the actual patient zero for what you described. Nick promoted the fuck out of this and it's easily one of the weakest episodes of the season if not golden age spongebob period.
>>150378133For me, it's "The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase" from season 8. Yes, I know the skits were noncanon, mostly funny, and not to be taken so seriously, but it's hard not to look back and see it as a prototype of the lazy nonsensical plots that would characterize the Scully years.
>>150378114Tranny universe was garbage from day one
>>150378114>woman writerslel
>>150378247>>150378301Why did they promote those episodes specifically?
>>150378301It was weird they made that a half-hour special to begin with. I always forget it exists and then when I remember it I don't remember it not being 11 minutes.
>>150378376Probably because both episodes had big musical moments- the former was a musical while the latter rode the hype of the movie and wrote an entire episode around one song.
>>150378351Wrong
>>150378376>Sponge Who Could FlyTechnically a special even though it doesn't feel like one>Best Day EverIt... has a song I guess
>>150378535>>150378247What makes this episode even more funny to me is the fact that the Best Day Ever song wasn’t even made for the episode. It was a song made for the SpongeBob Movie soundtrack that nobody even heard because it was the last song in the end credits.So they just pulled a very lazy move and tried to make a whole episode about it.
>>150378612Proof?
>>150378530Fuck off Dev.
>>150379300Probably the fact that it's on the Spongebob movie soundtrack and appears as the last song in the credits. Just a hunch.https://youtu.be/rkARkDanrqM?si=EhWeaDvASWWcMH6q&t=362
>>150378346For me patient zero would be the first episode that wasn't funny. Even way into like season 15, each episode had at least one good joke. At some point ever that one good joke stops happening, and that's when the Simpsons died.>>150378114Which episode was this again? The one with the forge-lady?
>>150379437Fuck you talkin abou?
When You Dish Upon a Star
>>150380617No
Batdad
>>150378247The song is catchy tho I liked it for it.
>>150378133>>150378346Simpsons should have ended with Behind the Laughter, as intended
>>150378086The door episode from Adventure Time
>>150378247>That Atlantis Episode with David Bowie>He didn't get to sing Was everyone at Nick on meth during this time?
>>150385356>That Atlantis Episode with David BowieMan this may genuinely have been one of the biggest SpongeBob disappointments imaginable at the time. It was a mediocre episode and I usually love musical episodes but it just didn't deliver on an entertaining time.
>>150378247The song was nice at least
>>150378301I genuinely thought this was a season 4 episode for the longest time
>>150378612I heard the song in the credits and I had the album with the song, so I recognized it all when it aired.
>>150378086Gumball has at least two: The Shell and The Choices.
>>150378114No way, this is far too lateSU's patient zero was either the episode when the Cluster plot stop to celebrate Steven's birthday or that episode focused on Onion's friends. Whichever came firstSpecial mention goes to the episode where Steven beats the cluster by talking to it, and the episode where the mayor runs for reelection after Steven returns from space.
>>150378133I feel like people tend to mischaracterize this episode. The episode itself was funny and one of my favorites. The problem is that it highlighted how extravagant the show had become almost as a self parody, but they chose to not learn anything from the idea. A lot of the writing staff cite Marge vs the Monorail as the first episode where the show really stopped being grounded in reality. Then Homer went to space.
>>150378376Spongebob stopped airing regular episodes and no longer had a regular release schedule, so to make sure people would watch the new stuff they were putting out, they advertised a LOT of regular episodes as specials.
>>150389952SU was such a shit show. I know it was the last season so the show was already ruined but, a gay wedding just before the invasion of the fucking alien overlords? They knew it was going to happen and instead of making a plan, preparing some weapons or alerting the people on the town they had a wedding.
>>150380617>>150381706Absolutely one of the worst. This was one of the first episodes where hollywood celebrities played themselves as main characters, which started a horrible trend for the series. Yeah you had shit like Homer and Apu with James Woods, but he wasn't a main character, or Burns Baby Burns where Dangerfield played a parody of himself, but it was never "OMG celebrity, what are you doing in springfield??? let's go on an adventure!"
>>150383664What Was Missing? What was wrong with it aside from the fact that this is where bubblegum and marceline shipping started
>>150378086Post OG run Futurama seems to be influenced by that cynicism that Family Guy began to popularize.
>>150378086Is this the one with the oddly attractive dogs?
>>150390148You answered yourself
>>150390448no, that was bender's game
For Regular Show it has to be Steak Me Amadeus or Yes Dude Yes because that's when Mordecai's love shit began
>>150378247For a microsecond I tought it was TRUTH OR SQUARE, so infamous for being a mediocre bait and switch troll episode filled with cringe live action skits with no one's favorite character Patchy, that the episode was repackaged as a regular mediocre episode with an alternate title, Stuck in the Freezer.It was THAT, BAD.I know that the joke of SpongeBob specials is that they overhype mediocre or mundane episodes but this one backfired badly, remember the whole point of THE LOST EPISODE.It was a terrible episode based on a scrap script from S1 that got scraped because it sucked.
>>150390148Most of the episodes ITT aren't bad on their own, they just introduced ideas that ended up hurting their shows later on. Hence them being patient zero.
>>150378133Also, after this episode, they started retconning shit about The Simpsons (Itchy and Scratchy having another creator, Ned being a mental patient, Skinner being an imposter, etc.)
>>150378133For me it was the Maud death episode.
>>150390081This. It was just a dirty marketing stunt to cover the fact the show run its course after S3 and the movie got released 2 years after the show was over, but because of Nickelodeon not allowing a series to actually had a proper series finale that let kids know, "this is the end of the story", why? cause they wanted to keep airing the series and out of order, it's why they sometimes hold episodes of shows hostages for years like with "As told by Ginger" or splitting single deal 20 episodes series into seasons.
>>150385356I thought it was just okay.>He didn't get to singNot a problem if you're an 8 year old who had no idea who the hell David Bowie is lol
>>150383647It should have ended with Mother SimpsonUNIRONICALLY
>>150391007>member when SpongeBob already was cancelled again before Season 9 so they spliced that season FOR YEARS to trick audiences until they convinced Hillenburg to come back?
>>150391052>Not a problem if you're an 8 year old who had no idea who the hell David Bowie is lolThen why cast him at all!?
>>150391124A lot of guest stars on spongebob were people that no child would recognize. Probably not even adults at the time. I guarantee you my parents don't know who Ernest Borgnine is.
>>150378086Fred Fredburger
>>150392163He's was fine in Keeper of the Reaper, but subsequent episodes and being made the mascot of cartoon network for a year was were it got out of hand.
>>150392163>>150392367What makes the Fred shilling so interesting is it happened when Billy and Mandy was on its last legs too. Fred started appearing in the last two years of the show.
>>150389023how about The Void?
>>150379476I already thought Best Day Ever sounded like a Beach Boys homage, but didn't realize until now that it was written by Andy Paley, who worked directly with Brian Wilson multiple times. Pretty neat
The Enchiridion
>>150378133The fact that it's the last episode of season 8 means the writers expected the show to end and decided to do so by highlighting how far the show had strayed from its original concept. Too bad FOX couldn't take the hint.
>>150393077How?
>>150378086I considered listing them and why, but that would take too long. From a quick and not fully researched count, South Park had at least over 10 patient zero episodes. The Return of Chef is the biggest one. >inb4 someone calls me a rightoid for not thinking the new season is kinoThey could do 100 episodes making fun of liberals and I would still turn it off and just go watch the pre-Chef death episodes. Even most PC Principal episodes are ones you watch once and never again. Nu Park isn't as bad as Nuventure Time or Numily Guy, but that's because it had a much stronger start imo. The quality drop in comparison was higher and the fact South Parkfags and the show's creators try to gaslight you more than offsite Nuventure Timefags that it is better never made sense.
>>150393065they even had fred in that jellystone crossover special.
>>150378612I knew of it, but because when I was a kid I just had the CD with the movie soundtrack on it
>>150390529>he doesn't like PatchyFaggot.
>>150393101Stfu
>>150393811you know that's the truth
>>150393911Nope
>>150393921die adventurepedo.
>>150393077The Void is irrelevant. The Shell ruined penny.
>>150379476I was wondering why I never associated that song with that special
>>150391124Because he was cheap and desperate enough.
>>150393065B&M was still doing good in ratings. The show probably would have gone on longer if Stuart Snyder didn't go nuclear and cancel every show when the Invasion thing failed
>>150394624He did it for his kids. You think fucking David Bowie was desperate for money then?
>>150394708Fred aside, the show did start to suck. The characters got flanderized badly and the humor was more random, loud and gross than horror,
>>150393943Stop projecting tranny
>>150395636It is you, retarded zoomer. Stop spamming the board again.
>>150385356Had he been diagnosed with cancer at that point?
>>150390148That WAS the problem. It was a super popular episode, so every other writer wanted to do what Rebecca Sugar was doing and make episodes focused on characters' feelings.I'd also cite I Remember You for similar reasons. Except that one ruined the Ice King for every later writer, so they were all stuck using him as a confused grandpa instead of an easy inciting incident.
>>150390748>Skinner being an imposterThat whole episode was a tongue-in-cheek meta joke about how people complained about retcons every time something new was revealed about a character's past. That's why the episode is more about Springfield gossiping about how much they hate the change than the actual character. It was intentionally written to be stupid, forced, and nonsensical, then ended with all of Springfield promising this episode would never matter again.
>>150393112>the writers expected the show to end and decided to do so by highlighting how far the show had strayed from its original concept.Not sure how true this is, but I do recall someone from the show's staff saying that Homer's Enemy was them basically lampooning how much Homer had "devolved" since the early seasons, from a potentially realistic caricature of a dimwitted yet well-intentioned father, to a completely comical farce of an angry retard whom no sensible human would tolerate.The transition to "Jerkass Homer" began around season 4. It's honestly when all the characters began to get "Flanderized" (kek) because the show shifted from trying to be a comedic, animated family drama to just being full-on comedy.
>>150396151No that wasn't until much later, and nobody knew about it in the public until after he died. He was literally recording his final album while aware he was dying of cancer and it was a huge inspiration for its lyrics and tone so it's not like it hurt his singing ability.
People say it died when Roiland was fired but the truth is that pic rel would lead to the downfall of the series that it will never recover from
>>150394196>The Shell ruined penny.How?
>>150378086The Comedy Central era is way overhated, some of the best episodes of the show are from those seasons, and frankly I don't see the same decline in quality from Fox as other people do.Though the TV movies themselves were pretty lame if you ask me.
>>150378114>>150389952The show started going to shit the moment Sardonyx showed up. So much of the symptoms that plagued the show started showing up there. Contrived melodrama because the showrunners were convinced that's what the audience wanted, the show treating what Pearl did with Garnet as an allegory for fucking rape, Peridot is just there. FFS if the title screen didn't clue you in that things were going south fast, I don't know what would.
>>150397925you sound really gay
>>150396942CC era was a decline but a tolerable one. Hulurama is downright zombie mode. At least the gap between the Fox run and the first movie is only about 4 years. Hulu era started a decade after its second cancellation
>>150378133I completely agree and while this episode is easily rewatchable I've never understood why anyone cared so much about it and it probably for the reasons you said.
>>150378612The live action SpongeBob musical actually uses the song in a clever way since it highlights SpongeBob as a pure optimist even when he thinks the world is ending
>>150398066He's not you
>>150395885Suck my dick you projecting faggot
>>150397925I was wondering why the director of Jumanji was writing a Steven Universe episode but it's not the same guy.
>>150393101>not magical mystery cureone job
poof
>>150396352Writing something shitty on purpose doesn't make it less of a shitty waste of time.
>>150396536Whenever the show started explicitly treating Rick as "the smartest man in the universe" which was I guess the episode after this? That's when it went to shit by deifying him so far beyond a wacky science guy. The show needs to slap him down a bit. It should be demonstrated that being the "smartest man" in a universe full of alien beings isn't actually all that impressive.
>>150397925>Peridot is just therewhat a good character they just fell into and then destroyed, what a fucking shit show
>>150378086Everything in this thread is kino
>>150391007Based Puniru poster
>>150402289Stfu
>>150385356Was that expensive to pay him to sing?
>>150400377spelled backwards.
>>150403586Reportedly he just entered production super late and the animation orders were already underway, but I never really bought that because the character lip-syncing would be off if that were the actual case.
Whenever the art becomes more "on-model"
>>150396536I wanna say the episode right after instead considering that it threw out basically everything set up before in about 22 minutes, started the whole "Rick is the smartest man in existence" thing, and it caused the Szechuan Sauce thing.
>>150378301joe mama
>>150400580>It should be demonstrated that being the "smartest man" in a universe full of alien beings isn't actually all that impressive.They technically did, the citadel walled off every universe where rick isn't the smartest being alive.
>>150404770I agree with this anon. I remember being genuinely excited for season 3 after the season 2 finale and being bummed in a way I couldn't explain at the time after the new season premiered.The nugget sauce thing didn't help.Dabbing on Samurai Jack for an April Fool's joke probably didn't help the broader sentiment, though I personally wasn't that miffed by it.
>>150404770Rick and Morty season 3 is like Spongebob's season 4 where you can just tell that something's immediately off. Maybe having a massive shakeup in writing staff at the peak of a show's popularity isn't a good idea, who'da thunk.
>>150378086It was ok
>>150378301At least, and the house party episode, had hilarious Patchy segments. They make the more lackluster S3 episodes easier to swallow.
>>150391214Well mine absolutely did. Borgnine wasn't a guest star either, he was a recurring role.Don't know why people on the internet think "well I'm too X know what it is" is a comeback that's supposed to make you look good.
Why do they keep the tv movies/specials off the DVD set releases? Episode versions do exist.
>>150400584I wouldn't say destroyed, more like abandoned. If Peridot actually got the screen time she deserved the show would have been much more entertaining
The Mr Frog episode of Smiling FriendsShowed that they were out of ideas early on
>>150378133the principal and the pauper was a season 7/8 holdover and the simpsons only went to shit in the mid 2000s btw
>>150378086I would say that the true end was Jurassic Bark. Not only for Futurama but the future of western televised animation as a whole. I've taken to calling it "Futurama's Disease" or "Adventure Time Syndrome" when a comedy cartoon shifts gears and instead focuses on character relationships, "feels moments" and "lore"
>>150378086What is the Patient of Zero?
>>150408356Retard
>>150397925It's not a direct rape allegory. Not everything in fiction is a perfect one-to-one allegory of real life, and it wkuld be stupid if it was. They're aliens with their own alien concepts.
>>150378361There are probably good woman writers, right?
>>150410402Sherri Stoner and the rest of 90s WB alumni.
>>150390944This
>>150409290the first patient to have a new disease
>>150410402they're rare but yeah, OG simpsons had a femoid writer that made some bangers
>>150396429I believe everyone on the writing team expected The Simpsons to end pretty soon, because very few TV shows went past eight or nine seasons. Seinfeld, one of the most successful sitcoms on TV, said goodbye at S9.
>>150391055Bold
>>150378133Right season wrong episode
>>150411464It was funny
>>150393101bait used to be believable
>>150378114The entirety of Steven Universe is "patient zero" for western animation
ITT: the loud minorities of butthurt fans who shit their pants in anger at any divergence from a show's original formula
>>150396536this show was always bad.
>>150398211Oh yeah that was pretty neat
>>150385356I thought it was record label problems? Same reason why MJ couldn't sing in his Simpsons episode.
>>150413946Yeah? Is that a problem?
>>150413995Wrong
>>150378086i remember this being on when i was really sick as a kidit was split into 20 minute segments that kept coming, i was amazed at the length i thought it was a fever dream
Ironically enough Gravity Falls and Molly McGee both share a moment as their "patient zero" moment that completely ruined their shows and both instances involved the fanbase believing the spoiled rich girl getting redeemed was gonna make her a more prominent character as the series continued and they both become not even the 20th most important characters in their shows.
>>150405279>Dabbing on Samurai Jack for an April Fool's joke probably didn't help the broader sentiment, though I personally wasn't that miffed by it.With the benefit of hindsight they were doing us a mercy. Season 5 was such a dumpster fire after episode 2, I'm amazed it took people so long to realize Genndy is just a George Lucas. Excellent style, but can't write a story to save his life.
It's been a long time since I've seen Bender's Big Score. What's wrong with it? Other than it being the beginning of the mediocre Futurama revival.
>>150414208It was always unfunny, overtly pretentious pseudo-intellectualist "humor" for redditors.
>>150414437It was completely fine until it wanted the benefit of being a stupid show for smart people, a deep sad drama about a nihilistic man and a toilet humor comedy about a crazy inventor grandfather.
>>150414409People really didnt like the reveal that Fry going to the future wasnt an unfortunate accident on his part and it gets even crazier since the original fry found a way to go back to the past and live an entire existence only to realize immediately why he hated the past in the first place. Yeah he got to be with his parents again but the novelty of his homesickness wasnt nearly as bad as he thought it was when he was in the future so you literally have 2 different fry's one living a life in the past and an imposter fry believing himself to be the original living the life of a different fry that fell into the cryo capsule because Nibbler says this was a canon event.
>>150378351Wrong>>150378114Idk, I felt like the show got lost when when it started becoming about the Gems opening up their own lives. A shame really, I think Garnet is, conceptually, a cool love story, and moments like Pearl inventing reasons to fuse with her is a very neat use of these gem concepts that frankly is what I wanted to see explored, but something about the show's theming changed somewhere before the Thanksgiving episode with the pilot uncle to go from just a coming of age story to become the "alien lesbian SJW hour" that thw show was stereotyped into at the first season. Amethyst's hedonism and mentalluly abusing Greg? Powerful. Rose having a complex over her role as a former slave to the role model she had with Rose becoming a fanstical obsession? Powerful. But I think the fact at the end of the day it genuinley has the Power of Friendship save the day and Love Conquers All vibe so damn strong just turned me off, maybe I changed more than it. And those PSAs were cringey as fuck and the Amethyst racist one is straight up Ibram X Kendey-esque malarky. Amethyst isn't even in character there, she totally would dog on someone just for skin color without understanding how fucked up she's being or prefering to be edgy regardless of the recipiant's feelings.
>>150414641No, SU started to suck when it dawned on Rebecca she never actually wanted to make cartoons in the first place. You can see this happen in real time where SU was never originally marketed as a musical show but overtime obsessively became one because Rebecca didnt learn shit when she was at Cal-Arts she literally had the tranny privledge and knew people who would vouch for her. You notice how every "good" writing idea Rebecca takes full credit for but will argue nonstop with anyone who "doesnt get" the more validly awful ideas that plague this show? Like how the subject of genocide is an extreme no no topic because thats not PC and Rebecca at the very end of the series tried to argue "what counts as sentient life" because you cant redeem 6 million years of implied genocide all over the universe with "im sorry."
>>150414547>People really didnt like the reveal that Fry going to the future wasnt an unfortunate accident on his partWasn't that already revealed in the original series though? With the brains?
>>150414724Yes but the 2 fry's living 2 lives didnt help the show either.
>>150414409It started the trend of the later seasons where they started to mess around more with continuity, even though within its own context it was fine. A patient zero episode isn't inherently bad itself, it's just the episode that introduces elements that became bad later.
>>150396942Meanwhile is the best finale they ever did or highly probably will ever do but getting an occasional Late Phillip J. Fry is not worth the rest of the episodes continuing season 4's backslide into mediocrity and worse
