Pugs4Thugs
#1 SpongeBob Reviewer
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The nostalgia is strong with this one, because I was there during this episode’s premiere. Not only was I there, I wrote a review of "The Fish Bowl" here, on this site. Yes, these episode discussion posts are not actually my first foray into reviewing. Unfortunately SBM doesn’t do blog posts anymore, so I can’t show it. Ah…I remember my Ted Talks posts…good times, good times.
So I know a big complaint about this episode has to do with some of the characters. I’ve seen complaints about Sandy, Squidward, and Patrick. So how do I feel about it? Let’s start with Sandy. She’s great in this episode. At the beginning, she’s so horribly insensitive that it’s funny, and I’d say it’s in character. She can get very fixated on her goals sometimes, to the detriment of her social awareness so this makes sense to me. Next is Patrick…I think the criticism of him is probably overblown, but it is somewhat justified, because he does have a jerkish attitude in this episode. And it does get annoying pretty fast, once he eats the ice cream. But it’s nowhere near the worst I’ve seen of him, so I only feel ever so slightly negative about it. Not to mention, he realizes that he was wrong in the end anyway, so I don’t have much of a problem, other than the fact it’s not enjoyable to watch him like this. Lastly, let me talk about Squidward…um there’s no problems with him here at all? He’s literally just here for gag purposes. And they’re funny gags too. So now what.
I like that this episode finally does something with the fact that Sandy lives underwater for scientific reasons, because I feel like that’s been an established fact? Anywho, I’m already excited that this episode is Sandy-focused, since we so rarely get those, but the fact that this one little part of her character is finally getting some development is just another win to put on top of that. And the science that Sandy looks at…psychology?! Well now, that just got me real excited, being the SBM resident psychology major haha. I will say that what Sandy is doing is not an experiment for a variety of reasons…perhaps a social experiment but calling it an experiment is misleading LMAO. Unfortunately I don’t have the energy to go into that full tangent today.
Pretty much all of the humor of this episode comes from Sandy being extremely insensitive (in a good way, as I’ve already established), and other people’s reactions to that. This works in the first bit of the episode, but not so much when it comes to studying SpongeBob and Patrick, given that they don’t give the same kinds of reactions other Bikini Bottomites do. In fact, they strut dangerously close to that line of boring, awkward humor that I thought we walked away from a long time ago. At least they do at first. Eventually they get more into the swing of things, but it’s still not all that funny to me. The bit with Patrick Corp was alright, but the whole “I’m in charge” mantra we had to go through to get there was very much not. I did like the bits with Squidward trying and failing to get ice cream, poor guy lol. But too funny.
“The Fish Bowl” is a perfectly fine episode. But I’m not putting it any higher than Good-Tier because it’s on the dull side, and at some points it even threatens to annoy me. Not a good look. But I mean, this is the first Good-Tier episode of Season 9B. That was a pretty good run that this half of a season had.
Episode Tier: Good
Episode Score: 7.9/10
So I know a big complaint about this episode has to do with some of the characters. I’ve seen complaints about Sandy, Squidward, and Patrick. So how do I feel about it? Let’s start with Sandy. She’s great in this episode. At the beginning, she’s so horribly insensitive that it’s funny, and I’d say it’s in character. She can get very fixated on her goals sometimes, to the detriment of her social awareness so this makes sense to me. Next is Patrick…I think the criticism of him is probably overblown, but it is somewhat justified, because he does have a jerkish attitude in this episode. And it does get annoying pretty fast, once he eats the ice cream. But it’s nowhere near the worst I’ve seen of him, so I only feel ever so slightly negative about it. Not to mention, he realizes that he was wrong in the end anyway, so I don’t have much of a problem, other than the fact it’s not enjoyable to watch him like this. Lastly, let me talk about Squidward…um there’s no problems with him here at all? He’s literally just here for gag purposes. And they’re funny gags too. So now what.
I like that this episode finally does something with the fact that Sandy lives underwater for scientific reasons, because I feel like that’s been an established fact? Anywho, I’m already excited that this episode is Sandy-focused, since we so rarely get those, but the fact that this one little part of her character is finally getting some development is just another win to put on top of that. And the science that Sandy looks at…psychology?! Well now, that just got me real excited, being the SBM resident psychology major haha. I will say that what Sandy is doing is not an experiment for a variety of reasons…perhaps a social experiment but calling it an experiment is misleading LMAO. Unfortunately I don’t have the energy to go into that full tangent today.
Pretty much all of the humor of this episode comes from Sandy being extremely insensitive (in a good way, as I’ve already established), and other people’s reactions to that. This works in the first bit of the episode, but not so much when it comes to studying SpongeBob and Patrick, given that they don’t give the same kinds of reactions other Bikini Bottomites do. In fact, they strut dangerously close to that line of boring, awkward humor that I thought we walked away from a long time ago. At least they do at first. Eventually they get more into the swing of things, but it’s still not all that funny to me. The bit with Patrick Corp was alright, but the whole “I’m in charge” mantra we had to go through to get there was very much not. I did like the bits with Squidward trying and failing to get ice cream, poor guy lol. But too funny.
“The Fish Bowl” is a perfectly fine episode. But I’m not putting it any higher than Good-Tier because it’s on the dull side, and at some points it even threatens to annoy me. Not a good look. But I mean, this is the first Good-Tier episode of Season 9B. That was a pretty good run that this half of a season had.
Episode Tier: Good
Episode Score: 7.9/10
