Favorite iteration of Team Rocket

[Zoruagible]

I just voted for everything but BW and XY
Those two were the worst iterations. BW had potential.... but XY did nothing, they were just walking plot devices for the entire series! I'm hoping SM is where they get written off, I'd rather they go as actual characters rather than in a series where they're treated like dirt and the Pokemon have as much personality as a rock! ....Okay that might be a bit far for Gourgeist, but Inkay and the BWmons fit that statement through and through!

 

[mehmeh1]

As far as I’m concerned every version after OS TRio were garbage though I will give XY TRio some credit in that they knew when to back off and not unnecessarily hog episode screen time. Let me elaborate; when I was rewatching the DP and XY gym battles (in order to compare the respective iterations of Ash), for DP in literally every single gym battle they would cut away to TRio doing stuff MULTIPlE TIMES over which quite frankly was incredibly jarring. For XY on the other hand they practically never cut away from a gym battle with the only debatable exception being Ash vs Korrina where TRio tried to sneak into the gym arena only to be quickly dispatched by Froakie and Ash’s friends though even that case was nowhere near as jarring as the DP instances with regards to breaking the flow of the battle.

though they were still pointlessly shoehorned into many otherwise interesting stories (filler or not), still kinda annoyed at their interruption of the goodra arc, which just made florges seem like an idiot

 

[DatsRight]

though they were still pointlessly shoehorned into many otherwise interesting stories (filler or not), still kinda annoyed at their interruption of the goodra arc, which just made florges seem like an idiot

Yeah the gyms were preserved, but they were about the ONLY thing that were preserved. Anything else that required a good battle, a more complex dynamic or the twerps to have any degree of character agency, Team Rocket quickly butted in to put an end to it. Especially repetitive by the second half where they didn't even bother to have TR put up a halfway fight anymore. Hell it was probably MORE annoying in XY because at least in DP TR were still mandated to appear in every episode, XY they were just shoehorned in because the writers couldn't think of anything else.

BW I remember having more times TR didn't butt in, just fans weren't very impressed by the alternative (probably why XY went back to normal ten fold) while SM is experimenting harder to just make the twerps drive some stories on their own without TR, with it being divisive between the fanbase whether it's a failed exercise or not.

 

[Genaller]

though they were still pointlessly shoehorned into many otherwise interesting stories (filler or not), still kinda annoyed at their interruption of the goodra arc, which just made florges seem like an idiot

I actually found the Florges plot to be 1 of their better works since it shows that their schemes can have more to them than just “we’re going to try stealing X Pokémon by pure brute force”. Regardless any such cases utterly pail in comparison to gym battles as far as importance goes meaning the gym battle ctuaways would still be larger issue not to mention that DP TRio still had a lot of unnecessary interference in other storylines which you do seem to implicitly acknowledge.

 

[mehmeh1]

I actually found the Florges plot to be 1 of their better works since it shows that their schemes can have more to them than just “we’re going to try stealing X Pokémon by pure brute force”. Regardless any such cases utterly pail in comparison to gym battles as far as importance goes meaning the gym battle ctuaways would still be larger issue not to mention that DP TRio still had a lot of unnecessary interference in other storylines which you do seem to implicitly acknowledge.

it was a good scheme, but still interrupting a more interesting plot

 

[DatsRight]

I actually found the Florges plot to be 1 of their better works since it shows that their schemes can have more to them than just “we’re going to try stealing X Pokémon by pure brute force”. Regardless any such cases utterly pail in comparison to gym battles as far as importance goes meaning the gym battle ctuaways would still be larger issue not to mention that DP TRio still had a lot of unnecessary interference in other storylines which you do seem to implicitly acknowledge.

While that is true, I guess the thing is that DP, while certainly having some awful fillers, still arguably had more times they tried to make them work, they still had some funny moments with the twerps instead of just being their stock jobber villains, some of the stories could be creative or not involve Pokemon-stealing primarily, and even their butting into main arcs seemed more intuitive at times (eg. Jessie being a more legitimate rival for Dawn than Serena, and more emphasis on her training or having funny moments with her, while with Serena again, she was mostly there to make her look better). XY's overall schemes tended to be blander outside odd ones like the twerp disguise one, the only thing they tended to have going for them was TR putting up a bit more of a fight in the early half, and even then superficially since the twerps still usually won through curb stomps and plot armour as often as the DP lot, making that aspect pointless (Serena and Bonnie weren't even battlers and still never had to put any effort into stopping TR).

I suppose it's that DP had more successful moments of TR being meaningful foils or elements to an episode the twerps were in, while XY they were mostly there to dumb it down and avoid having to properly finish a story or have the twerps do too much. The Florges arc wasn't awful, but it still felt like a cop out because having Florge the greyer main villain would have involved a more complicated and likely more intense climax.

 

[GarchompTheAssassin]

OS easily but AG had good moments too (e.g. Bicker the Better, A Hole Lotta Trouble)

 

[DatsRight]

I just voted for everything but BW and XY
Those two were the worst iterations. BW had potential.... but XY did nothing, they were just walking plot devices for the entire series! I'm hoping SM is where they get written off, I'd rather they go as actual characters rather than in a series where they're treated like dirt and the Pokemon have as much personality as a rock! ....Okay that might be a bit far for Gourgeist, but Inkay and the BWmons fit that statement through and through!

I kinda liked Inkay. While it was annoying James never got his secondary, Inkay was an okay compromise of his usual cute mascot and standard battler duo, and having some good bonding moments with James. Also Inkay, unlike the BW lot, did interact with the others and take part in the wackier moments like dressing up as Pikachu.

XY TR were still enjoyable as characters, just utterly wasted in a format where the bland heroes needed cheap plot devices and dumbed down challenges all the time. It's bad when they actually lampshade how obsolete their role is by the end of the series.

 

[janejane6178]

XY or DP. I really liked Jessie participating in contests/Show cases.
And btw, her showcases performances were amazing and way better than Serena's in my opinion. She did somethig new every time and it wasnt repetitive

 

[DatsRight]

XY or DP. I really liked Jessie participating in contests/Show cases.
And btw, her showcases performances were amazing and way better than Serena's in my opinion. She did somethig new every time and it wasnt repetitive

I think DP handled Jessie better in that regard, given Jessie felt like a more relevant rival for Dawn. They interacted and Jessilina was allowed to win on her own merit, not just because Dawn had a blatant moment of error that threw her out of the competition. The first time it happened really set Dawn bad and pushed her to improve. I also liked they shown Jessie's team training or utilising chekhov's skills in the DP contests, like everything from Noodle's Roamin' Off coming into play in Dressed For Jess Success, that was actually pretty cleverly done. It was a genuinely decent attempt at making Team Rocket good opponents at something but then making the twerps get that little bit better, a good rivalry.

Jessie's XY showcases felt like a bad attempt to make Serena look good, bad because they actually put character and talent into Jessie's and they were just designated to be worse. Add to that Jessie changing her game each performance and slowly getting more and more popular made for a more believable rise in competence, but then she was fazed out and earned the rest of her keys offscreen when she risked being too much of a threat. Jessie was enjoyable in the showcases, but for perhaps that reason she was toxic as a rival for Serena, since they never had any real chemistry and Jessie actually made it look like the main protagonist didn't deserve to win. I remember May started to suffer this in AG at times as well, since some of her performances were kinda dull, while Jessie slowly made genuine improvement but still lost to make May look good by relation.

This was actually a bit of lost potential with SM actually. Team Rocket actually BEAT Ash at one point, and yet....it never really had any long term effect and afterwards they went right back to being ineffectual. Remember how Kiawe being trounced by Bourgain had a bad way on him and drove him to train to protect his squad and even in later appearances they're arch enemies? Ash just...forgot about his stalkers being a threat for once. Hell I don't remember him being that on edge about them being competent REGULARLY in BW either. It just further leads me to believe that no matter what way TR develop, their role can't improve unless the twerps bounce off of it.

 

[janejane6178]

I agree that Jessie was better handeld in Sinnoh performances (contests) But I think that the few on screen Jessie's ones in Kalos were good too

 

[DatsRight]

I agree that Jessie was better handeld in Sinnoh performances (contests) But I think that the few on screen Jessie's ones in Kalos were good too

That's the problem though, they were good, but not allowed to be effective like in Sinnoh. She never challenged Serena or forced her to up her game like she did Dawn. You wondered why Serena always won against her.

This is probably why they ditched TR being semi-competent as villains halfway through XY, since the whole point of an opponent upping their game is to show the protagonist can do the same thing and can handle a challenge. While they shoved in SOME even handed fights throughout BW, XY Ash and co only had a few moments they thought of a good counter against a 'not so harmless' TR plan, otherwise relying on dumb luck or TR relapsing into being harmless again. After too long of this the heroes would start to look like incompetent lucky-luck-kids so they had to 'cut the tall poppies'.