[jekylljuice]

Okay, I'm back.

It seems a pattern to me with Foster’s seasons that the evens have generally been stronger than the odds. Which is not to dismiss Seasons One, Three and Five, but I personally feel that Two and Four had the highest and most consistent turn-out of excellent episodes. Season One got the show off to a great start, by Season Two it had really found its feet and was starting to expand on its characters and humour with frequently fabulous results, while Season Three was mostly very solid and enjoyable but produced fewer favourites than its predecessor, something which Season Four, though it struck the odd bum note with TBC and IOHSFY, gloriously remedied. Season Five…well, it’s been a somewhat bumpier ride with it’s higher ratio of great to not-so-great, but on the whole it’s still delivered. “Bride to Beat” is the unmistakeable champion here, followed closely by “Shlock Star”, which, like ORD, I respect for taking the trouble to bring a handful of background characters into the limelight - particularly Fluffer Nutter, whom I’d taken an interest in ever since her cameo appearance at the start of GWH. “Bloo Superdude” was an enjoyable and imaginative episode that did something new and interesting with the regular characters. And I personally loved “Say It Ain’t Sew” (sorry, Ditchy), in part because it rung some bells of truth, the roller coaster sequences were neatly edited, and that old geezer who’d willingly confined himself to the children’s play area of the store is more or less where I know I’m headed in life, gender notwithstanding.

I’m surprised that no one has singled out Berry’s return as a season highlight…admittedly, I do find her to be a slightly overrated character myself, and there are other one-off characters which I would much rather have seen return ahead of her (*cough* Kip, *cough* Red), though I’m aware that I’m in the minority. Now that the shock value of her unexpected reappearance has more-or-less worn away, I’m a bit more “meh” on “Affair Weather Friends” than I was when it first aired - I like it more now for Duchess’s contribution than for Berry’s. And Gary’s cameo appearance of course. Nonetheless, I see it as a positive sign that they took the trouble to dig up a long-buried character and utilise them again, and I would hope they at least consider taking the opportunity to do this a bit more often.

On the more negative side, I do really miss the inputs of Adam Pava and Tim McKeon, and I really hope we haven’t seen the last of them. I don’t resent Darrick Bachman, though I don't think that any of his contributions this season quite matched up to the supreme standards of "Bloo's the Boss", and a little more diversity next season, in terms of both writers and characters, might be a good thing. I agree that it's a real shame we've so little of Wilt and Coco this season, and absolutely nothing as far as poor Terrence is concerned. Hopefully this trend won't carry on into Season Six (interestingly, Season Five also saw a significant down turn in the high amount of Goo contributions which many had a problem with in Season Four - she seems to have herself pretty scarce upon the whole). And there were some fairly gimmicky episodes this season which did little for me - chiefly CAGG and TLP (the latter of which I haven't yet watched all the way through but I think I get the picture).

So, on the whole I concur that Season Five has had its noteable ups and downs, but it's still a long way off from a disaster. My hopes for Season Six remain high.