OR ELSE.
Broken Alarm[]
Unlike a lot of season 12 episodes, this episode's concept is actually relatively interesting and could make for an interesting plot. After all, we've never seen an episode about SpongeBob's ALARM CLOCK before. However, like many other episodes this season, this falls flat in execution.
This episode's setup is so damn annoying. Basically, it's everyone crying over SpongeBob not being at the Krusty Krab. This scene just DRAGS ON and when the episode finally reveals that SpongeBob simply didn't wake up because his alarm clock didn't ring, it's extremely predictable because the title literally says "Broken Alarm." There's also a lot of annoying crying and it's just really stupid to watch. Another thing I hate about this scene is Squidward. Similar to how he acts in Gary's Got Legs, he acts as if he WANTS SpongeBob to die. Once again, this is completely out of character for him. Sure, he's not fond of SpongeBob but there are some instances where he helps SpongeBob or at least doesn't mind him. But here, and sadly in a lot of season 12 episodes, he acts as if SpongeBob is this horror that must be destroyed. At least in Dying for Pie, yeah he hated that SpongeBob was still alive, but that was mostly because that meant he had wasted so much time for nothing. Here, there's no excuse, and yeah I may seem as though it's nitpicking, but the episode constantly reinforces this fact throughout the setup so what can I do, just let it go? The fact that this episode tries to create "suspense" is laughable because once again, the episode's title already states the concept so we don't need any of this crappy tension-building.
The setup however is probably the only truly bad segment of this episode, because the rest of this episode at least knows what it's doing with its plot, even if the plot itself is pretty boring. First off, there's Patrick. Patrick is simply forced into this episode. His first purpose is to literally destroy SpongeBob's alarm clock, and his stupidity is extremely obnoxious. He just makes a lot of these really idiotic expressions while making random comments, and his entire purpose is just a plot device for SpongeBob to get a new alarm clock. And yes, without him the episode wouldn't have progressed further, but you shouldn't use a PLOT DEVICE to do that. Using a plot device is extremely lazy. Perhaps SpongeBob is trying to fix the alarm clock, but there's a certain thing missing that he can't find that's essential to the clock, so he's forced to get a new one? Another role Patrick has is at the end, where his purpose is basically to instantly resolve the conflict. After an entire episode where SpongeBob is struggling to wake up, he's just forced in there because we need a happy ending where everything is back to normal! Once again, Patrick is used as a plot device. Perhaps they could've showed Patrick trying to build it while SpongeBob was using several alarm clocks to wake himself up, but then the episode would've had to be longer and WE CAN'T HAVE THAT AT ALL, CAN'T WE? Yes, I did spend a paragraph ranting about Patrick in this episode. But this episode deserved it, as all the evidence shows that he wasn't needed or could've been put to better use.
This episode's main basis for gags is SpongeBob being unable to wake up. This joke isn't... bad, to say the least. Unlike Sailor Mouth or Ripped Pants, where the joke is the exact same each time, this episode at least has a different type of slapstick each time one of SpongeBob's alarm clocks don't work. As for how funny they were in general, they're mixed bag. There's the fireman joke, which doesn't work because it spraying water into SpongeBob isn't exaggerated and SpongeBob doesn't even react to it. There's the slug buddy alarm clock which makes an ok slapstick joke, as well as the hive alarm clock. This episode also got pretty creative with the time cards during these segments, where the French Narrator looks like he's actually having a blast with how many times SpongeBob is late for work. I especially love the title card "You Get the Idea!" which not only represents what's actually going on really well, but it's a pretty silly line on its own. Also, unlike the other two episodes I mentioned, the repetitive sequences don't actually go on for that long. The fact that Mr. Krabs is constantly saying late may make it seem as though it takes up a majority of the episode, but it only takes up 2 minutes. I also like how Mr. Krab doesn't actually give SpongeBob a punishment, and just tells him "OR ELSE." I can tell this joke is trying to mock suspense stories where some of them use very stupid ways to create suspense (including this episode's beginning lol), and Mr. Krabs simply saying a scary line definitely mocks this well. The second half of this episode clearly shows that even though this may not be that hilarious, it's still got the right idea when it comes to humor.
The climax of this episode is SpongeBob creating this grand master plan to get to work on time. And yeah, this is easily the best part of this episode. The writers clearly had a lot of fun coming up with ideas on how to make this scene work, and I also enjoy how the scene is pretty calming so the audience can enjoy the cool backgrounds and visuals. Plus, all these different contraptions are pretty clever and I especially love how the episode even got SpongeBob to work without actually being awake. One thing I found within the visuals that I thought were pretty cool was that a lot of them were related to time. There's a lot of visuals of clocks, there's that surreal painting I always forget the name of that has clocks, and there's even one of those sand clocks. So not only is the scene pretty nice to watch, but it's actually very clever with its visuals. Anyways, the contraption failing is kind of disappointing because it was amazing and it also lead to the very lazy ending of Patrick suddenly fixing SpongeBob's alarm. Also, the way the contraption starts failings is way too wacky and feels like a bunch of random stuff happening, which reminds me of the trick from One Trick Sponge where it's just a lot of random stuff going on with no connection between. It's not much of a problem here as the episode wasn't leading everything it had going for it up to this moment, unlike that episode where the episode was clearly showing that the trick was great, only for it to be a snoozefest. It ends this episode off in a relatively low note.
There's a lot of things to like about this episode and there's a lot of things to hate about this episode. On the negative side, its setup is stupid, Squidward is out of character for no reason, the ending sucks, the episode is weirdly paced, and Patrick is out of character. On the positive side, the climax is really nice to watch, some of the LATE! jokes are creative, and the OR ELSE joke is pretty neat. However, the negatives do overshadow the positives, but since that's not by much, I can't really call this one bad.
Episode Rating: Rough (5/10)
Karen's Baby[]
Wow, Karen having a baby? My goodness what an original idea! It's not like we already had babies in the Chum Bucket before! Ok ok, this episode's execution actually doesn't rip-off Spot Returns, but it's execution is still terrible and actually worse than Spot Returns.
Karen having a baby might seem like a weird and interesting concept at first, but actually it's pretty awful and the way this episode executes it is extremely bland. This is just a really boring growing up story that has nothing of worth except for a singular scene that still fails anyways. Is it really that entertaining to watch a parent take care of a child and have normal issues occur? I'm pretty sure this episode forgot that there's a thing called EXAGGERATION. If an episode wants to be relatable, it needs to exaggerate the episode's contents so the audience can have fun with itself. This episode does something similar to later Loud House episodes and doesn't exaggerate at all, so all we're left with is an extremely boring plot with nothing to it but blandness. Anyways, let's talk about the character this episode mainly focuses on: Chip. He's supposed to be a calculator, but in reality he's just another bland boy with barely any personality. It doesn't help that he never uses his robot skills and rather he does normal boy things. Why not just make him human while your at it? This episode also tries to make Chip have character development when he escapes from home, but he never learns to respect his mom, in fact, he actually cares more about his DAD than his mom. Chip isn't really an awful character or anything, but the way the episode utilizes him makes for a lot of wasted potential because he's just another bland character in the show that I never remember.
Did you know this episode also has filler? Basically, SpongeBob appears just to make a quick joke. Oh wait, but it's not quick at all, because the scene lasts for 45 seconds and the thing SpongeBob gives to Chip is completely useless to the plot, and doesn't even come back later on. Seriously, this could've been used as excellent foreshadowing! But not only does this episode have bad pacing like this scene, this episode also had ridiculously fast pacing! Specifically the scene where Plankton tells Chip to run away. The episode's structure is pretty decent up until this point, where the episode randomly has Chip run away. It changes the story from a bland growing up story to this running away story, and yeah, the growing up story was boring as hell, but this isn't a good way to change up the story either. How about actually developing character relations like normal episodes do? Oh wait, but this is season 12 and this season clearly doesn't know how to do that!
Anyways, the whole "robot gang" stuff is probably the most tolerable sections of this episode, mainly because it doesn't include the cringy and boring-as-hell growing up crap, but it's still a snooze. The action is... alright, I guess. I still found the character development to be botched because the entire episode beforehand showed that the episode would probably have Chip starting bonding with his Mom better, but the episode has Chip actually bond with his Dad more because Karen forced Plankton to get Chip back. Perhaps Karen also came, and Chip and her could've had this great reunion that actually, you know, MEANT something! Once again, this episode fails to actually create meaningful characterization and it makes Chip even more forgettable than he already was, and also makes this episode's writing make less sense. Going back to the action, yeah it is pretty fun. And the episode at least has some suspense going for it with the robots saying that they'll "take his body parts." While the way the robots say this is pretty vague, which kind of hurts the suspense, I think it's enough that I'll at least keep my eyes opened. I would've liked if the slapstick was more apparent here, cause another problem with this episode is that there are NO JOKES present at all. Not a single scene even has a single joke except for the ending, where the joke is a pretty uninteresting Mr. Krabs' greed joke that pretty much only exists as filler at the end. Other than that, this is easily one of the most jokeless episodes in the show, and ends up bumping this down an entire rating.
And that rating is down below. This episode is just irredeemably boring with bad characterization, an awful structure, 0 humor to be found, and a bland plot that is extremely forgettable and cliche. If there's ever another episode with Chip, hopefully the episode actually makes his characterization much better than his characterization as a kid.
Episode Rating: Crap (3.5/10)