HOME | DD

Description
Season 9 of SpongeBob is well known for having... gone on for ages, seriously over five years of airtime? Anyways you might notice that alongside the season rating there are ratings for 9A (refers to first 20 segments) and 9B (the rest of the segments). I won't review this season as a whole because honestly, these two halves are so drastically different I'm surprise they are the same season.

9A: Really all I can say about this season is that it is HD version of season 8, so if you don't like that season, well you're not going to like this. I enjoyed S8 though and 9A has mostly the same good qualities as that season, such as solid humor, serviceable stories, and fine characters. Although I will say there are more bad episodes here, the obvious two bad ones being Squid Baby and SpongeBob You're Fired, but there are a couple more too. You can tell that by this point the writers felt kind of tired, because these episodes don't have a unique charm, with episodes like Evil Spatula and Yeti Krabs being good examples as not only do both of these rip-off other episodes, but they just feel tired and boring. Also, the animation of this season looks like it wasn't really ready to be HD yet, since it heavily brightened the colors of 8, and it somewhat hurts to look at. While there are some shines of brilliance here, there's really not too much to see here. It's inoffensive at worst and makes this half-season as a whole just kind of decent.

9B: This half meanwhile feels like a true breath of fresh air after many seasons of decline. First off, this season got much more creative with plot direction. While I didn't mind S8 or 9A, I did feel like those seasons were really generic in terms of content. There are more unique character interactions and heck some characters even get more screen time than they usually do, such as Pearl getting more focus in Mall Girl Pearl, or Larry being the star of Larry's Gym. The previous couple of years for the show were funny but this season brought the show back to hilarious territory, with episodes such as Patrick! The Game and Sold! being absolute laugh riots that reminded me of the show's glory days. Not to mention much more plot emphasis, episodes such as Sewers of Bikini Bottom and Pineapple Invasion are really fun scenarios which have creative visuals, while episodes such as Squid Plus One, What's Eating Patrick?, and Two Thumbs Down can be clever and even SUSPENSEFUL with their plots. This (half) season truly is something the show needed, although it isn't quite like the golden era of the show, that's fine because this season still excels in its own ways for all the reasons I just listed. I will say one thing: the quality does drop a bit toward the end. I'm specifically talking about the last row on the scorecard, since these episodes didn't feel as creative or fun as the ones before. Not that these episodes were bad, they are still pretty good, but you could tell that they were already shifting the style to something else. Outside of that, this was a great experience and an awesome start to the post-sequel era.

With 9A being decent and mostly just S8 in HD, while 9B was amazing and the best part of the show since S5, I think it's safe to say this season is great as a whole. That's all I have to say, just three more seasons to go.

Description
Season 9 of SpongeBob is well known for having... gone on for ages, seriously over five years of airtime? Anyways you might notice that alongside the season rating there are ratings for 9A (refers to first 20 segments) and 9B (the rest of the segments). I won't review this season as a whole because honestly, these two halves are so drastically different I'm surprise they are the same season.

9A: Really all I can say about this season is that it is HD version of season 8, so if you don't like that season, well you're not going to like this. I enjoyed S8 though and 9A has mostly the same good qualities as that season, such as solid humor, serviceable stories, and fine characters. Although I will say there are more bad episodes here, the obvious two bad ones being Squid Baby and SpongeBob You're Fired, but there are a couple more too. You can tell that by this point the writers felt kind of tired, because these episodes don't have a unique charm, with episodes like Evil Spatula and Yeti Krabs being good examples as not only do both of these rip-off other episodes, but they just feel tired and boring. Also, the animation of this season looks like it wasn't really ready to be HD yet, since it heavily brightened the colors of 8, and it somewhat hurts to look at. While there are some shines of brilliance here, there's really not too much to see here. It's inoffensive at worst and makes this half-season as a whole just kind of decent.

9B: This half meanwhile feels like a true breath of fresh air after many seasons of decline. First off, this season got much more creative with plot direction. While I didn't mind S8 or 9A, I did feel like those seasons were really generic in terms of content. There are more unique character interactions and heck some characters even get more screen time than they usually do, such as Pearl getting more focus in Mall Girl Pearl, or Larry being the star of Larry's Gym. The previous couple of years for the show were funny but this season brought the show back to hilarious territory, with episodes such as Patrick! The Game and Sold! being absolute laugh riots that reminded me of the show's glory days. Not to mention much more plot emphasis, episodes such as Sewers of Bikini Bottom and Pineapple Invasion are really fun scenarios which have creative visuals, while episodes such as Squid Plus One, What's Eating Patrick?, and Two Thumbs Down can be clever and even SUSPENSEFUL with their plots. This (half) season truly is something the show needed, although it isn't quite like the golden era of the show, that's fine because this season still excels in its own ways for all the reasons I just listed. I will say one thing: the quality does drop a bit toward the end. I'm specifically talking about the last row on the scorecard, since these episodes didn't feel as creative or fun as the ones before. Not that these episodes were bad, they are still pretty good, but you could tell that they were already shifting the style to something else. Outside of that, this was a great experience and an awesome start to the post-sequel era.

With 9A being decent and mostly just S8 in HD, while 9B was amazing and the best part of the show since S5, I think it's safe to say this season is great as a whole. That's all I have to say, just three more seasons to go.