3 out of 5

Created by: Matt Malleiro, Dave Willis

Are there some good episodes in season 4 of Aqua Teen, which is contained on the Volume 5 DVD set? Of course. But there are also an excessive amount of gross and lazy ones, making the show more mean-spirited than usual, and more indicative of its 420-friendly vibe versus what I would’ve considered rather inspired smart-dumb humor from seasons passed. I knew we were in trouble starting with ‘Dickesode,’ which beats the joke of everything being dicks into the ground forty times over, but in a way that’s not even amusing from when the gag is first mentioned / shown, not to mention the fortieth; and this kind of incredibly obvious (and surface-level juvenile) stuff keeps happening: mucus creatures, rape jokes, etc. Elsewhere, some of the previous nonsense insanity gets blended in to pretty blasé gags, which makes for more acceptable episodes, though we also have a clip episode, and a “deleted scenes” 2-parter for the movie that has an amusing framing concept, but ultimately feels pretty tired.

Weighing things back towards the positives: the 2-disc set, as usual, has a copious amount of mostly worthwhile extras, and although the “singing the menu options” shtick was on Volume 4, it’s still amusing here. I’m also… willing to excuse (to an extent) the dip in quality because this was happening at the same time as the first film, so you can understand the churn that was likely going on, just to have something on air, and that results in jokes about broomsticks stuck up butts. And, admittedly, there’s enough good mixed in with the bad that I don’t feel like the volume is a waste of time by any means – it’s watchable, and merits some chuckles – but it more resembles the kind of base level show I think many assumed it was, until thankfully bouncing back to more intelligent weirdness soon after.