This special could've been great. I mean, they had David Bowie guest star! But of course, they didn't tell anybody this would have a song every 5 minutes (or less), and didn't give Bowie, who was a singer, a song at all. This is also a ripoff of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with the whole gang going on a tour of Atlantis and each member leaving at some point until there's only SpongeBob and Patrick left. Also, did Plankton really need to be shoehorned in at all? The 'conflict' of the episode, which is very late into the special and doesn't last more than a minute or two, was related to Patrick popping the bubble. So why did Plankton need to be thrown in at all like he was the villain? Also, the whole main story of the oldest living bubble was completely stupid. They couldn't have given SpongeBob and Patrick a better motivation to take this journey? Maybe Atlantis had the biggest jellyfishing museum in the ocean, for example. Why a bubble?? Every character gets a song and sings it horribly, even Tom Kenny, who is usually a great singer in SpongeBob's voice. Bowie, again, does not get a song. And the episode was originally going to be a regular 11 minute episode, but Nickelodeon thought money could be made so they upped it to 44 minutes. And if it had been a regular length episode, it probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad. Because the story was originally designed for an 11 minute episode, and Nickelodeon extended it to an hour length with commercials, the story goes really slow and is stretched out, with very little substance. And the songs were thrown in to fill time as well. And the ending is a complete disaster. All the characters except SpongeBob cry as they leave Atlantis, very annoyingly, and SpongeBob doesn't care. And let's not forget Patchy's appearance. For some reason, instead of being at home with Potty, Patchy gets lost...in the desert where Encino used to be, and runs into aliens. What?? Again, the Patchy segments were thrown in to fill time and extend the episode as well, without any purpose or reason. I get Patchy introduces the specials and sometimes plays a minor role, but they should've stuck with the traditional introduction with Patchy and Potty, and then had one halfway through, and one at the end. We didn't need this as a subplot.
Overall, the episode is way too long for the story it is trying to tell, the songs are forced, bland, and annoyingly sung, the plot is unmotivated, Patchy's segments don't make a lick of sense and are just weird, but not in a good way, David Bowie gets a role but no song and his talents were wasted, and even the animation seems lackluster compared to other episodes and specials. Skip this episode.
Overall, the episode is way too long for the story it is trying to tell, the songs are forced, bland, and annoyingly sung, the plot is unmotivated, Patchy's segments don't make a lick of sense and are just weird, but not in a good way, David Bowie gets a role but no song and his talents were wasted, and even the animation seems lackluster compared to other episodes and specials. Skip this episode.