I enjoy the show as mindless entertainment, but this is easily the worst part of it for me. In this season both the gymnast and the debate (?!?!) girl go from complete newbies to competing in a regional tournament in, what, 3 months? And Kenny can hold his own with Robbie? As someone that has done some recreational martial arts, it was very hard to suspend disbelief for that part.
OK, maybe the worst part was the shirtless tournament fight, but I guess you have to give the audience what they want.
Finished season 4 today. I agree with pretty much all that’s been said above. The karate bouts are often clumsily choreographed, especially when Daniel is sparring. He clearly has had little training. Some of the kids appear to have had some martial arts experience, and of course William Zabka has had some training. My oldest son has a black belt in MMA, which took him years to achieve, so these kids becoming tournament ready in (seemingly) days is just something one has to actively ignore. Season 4 dragged quite a bit and I fast-forwarded through some of the exposition. Also, the humor has pretty much been leached out of the show as it progresses.
I thought this season was actually pretty funny. Daniel is always a bit too serious, but Jonny had some great lines. His “No be there” when Daniel fought the hockey team had me on the floor.
Most of the humor always seemed to me to be Johnny as a fish-out-of-water. There is really only so far you can go to that well (though him going on a Twitter rant while Miguel was his only follower was great). And Dmitri is always good for a few laughs (the Pac-man suit at prom was fantastic). But the show (and movies) always seemed to be taking itself too serious (which is part of its campy charm) with only a little bit of comedic parts (the movies had Miyagi for that while the show has Johnny).
I thought season 4 was about as much fun as seasons 2 and 3. I’ve enjoyed them all.
But why couldn’t someone have pushed Ralph Macchio into taking iust a little more training? He is by far the worst ‘martial artist’ in the show, and that includes the little kids. Every time he throws a kick or a punch it causes me to wince. He looks like a yellow belt (fairly new student with their first participation belt).
The most unrealistic thing about the tournaments is the amount of contact being allowed. Karate tournaments are either touch-contact only, in which case people don’t wear any protective gear, full-contact to the body only, in which case contestants will wear body pads and hand/foot protectors and contact to the head hard enough to move it is loss of point or disqualifying. All of those kicks to the head with bare feet woukd be disqualifying.
Full contact fighting is done, but with lots of protective equipment. Full face masks, body padding, shin protectors, etc. Traditional Karate tournaments are nothing like boxing or MMA tournaments.
I like how those kids all have black belts now. In real life, I have never seen a black belt awarded in less than three years. Not from a real school, anyway. And the average is more like five to seven years, and some people train for longer and never get one because they just don’t have it in them.
But all that is a side show to the human stories the show is really about, and they are great.
We’re 3 episodes in, and I’m having a hard time getting into season 5. It’s just boring. Chozen has been a lot of things–coward, psychopath, penitent, mentor–but he was never a cartoon until season 5. Hope they do more with him. Coming out on top are Samantha and Miguel for having interesting, if predictable, arcs and competent writing. Oh, and the surfer dudes. They were fun.
We’re at either 3 or 4. My main take away so far is that Daniel has somehow become dumber than Johnny. I keep expecting Loki to show up and say “are you ever going to not fall for that?”.
I thought season 5 was a whole lot of fun. Silly, implausible, but not taking itself seriously at all. Does it make sense that… you know, never mind, I’m not even going to list the things that don’t make sense. It’s fun.
I liked Season 5 better than Season 4; at least Silver’s cartoonish master plan was a change of pace from having yet more teenage angst. The Mexico story in the first few episodes didn’t really go anywhere, but maybe it will pay off next season.
I thought I’d read somewhere that there wasn’t going to be another season, but Kreese escaping (exactly how did he fit into that tiny little doctor’s shirt and jacket?) and Chozen’s call to Kumiko obviously set us up for one.
Also, short island iced tea will be next drink order when I got to a bar.
