I see that Atlantis SquarePants has faced a lot of criticism. This being one of the rare few episodes to surpass the 22 minute runtime, it's quite a mixed bag.
This episode has a storyline that I feel would've worked better if the episode runtime wasn't twice as long. A lot of things that happen in Atlantis SquarePantis barely feels like a special and more like a virtual theme park ride with how much it wants to show us. It has some fun visuals and a couple of cool Willy Wonka inspired ideas they threw in there, but other than that it's just a longer episode about SpongeBob and Patrick desperately wanting to see the oldest living bubble. They don't really do anything special and the bubble is pretty much what you would expect in the end. There's not really any good jokes and the musical numbers felt pretty lame. The fact that David Bowie was casted as the Lord Royal Highness (LRH) surprised me because he's the only character that doesn't sing in this entire special. The entire main SpongeBob cast sings but not him? That was quite a missed opportunity since Bowie was a popular singer. Additionally the Patchy segments were fine, nothing that memorable but are still a little entertaining.
Personally I don't think the episode is that bad but not very good either. Some hate it, some love it? To me It just misses opportunities and didn't need to be as long as it is. It might be the most mid of the episodes in my opinion.
This episode has a storyline that I feel would've worked better if the episode runtime wasn't twice as long. A lot of things that happen in Atlantis SquarePantis barely feels like a special and more like a virtual theme park ride with how much it wants to show us. It has some fun visuals and a couple of cool Willy Wonka inspired ideas they threw in there, but other than that it's just a longer episode about SpongeBob and Patrick desperately wanting to see the oldest living bubble. They don't really do anything special and the bubble is pretty much what you would expect in the end. There's not really any good jokes and the musical numbers felt pretty lame. The fact that David Bowie was casted as the Lord Royal Highness (LRH) surprised me because he's the only character that doesn't sing in this entire special. The entire main SpongeBob cast sings but not him? That was quite a missed opportunity since Bowie was a popular singer. Additionally the Patchy segments were fine, nothing that memorable but are still a little entertaining.
Personally I don't think the episode is that bad but not very good either. Some hate it, some love it? To me It just misses opportunities and didn't need to be as long as it is. It might be the most mid of the episodes in my opinion.