The finale especially was terrible, and arguably wasn’t even about Finn and Jake, but about the secondary characters (Marceline, Betty, etc.).
From my understanding, the final was not planned. CN gave the team the boot at random, so they had to wrap everything up quickly. Had they known before developing season 10, the final likely would have gone smoother.
Their episode in Distant Lands, just before their reincarnation, works much better as a finale for them
Better to consider this the true final.
love what Pendleton Ward was trying to do (a kid and his magic dog having wacky adventures), and also love early to middle AT, but I don’t like what it became in the last seasons .
I feel quite opposite. I think Adventure Time is best from 1-4, then 7-10. 5 & 6 have good episodes, but they are the weird seasons where AT tried way too hard to lore build and took some weird directions.
Seasons 7-10 were pretty great. Islands was a great mini series with a good payoff to learning about Finn's mom. Stakes is also great, further building upon Marceline and her history - another great miniseries from season 7. Elements from season 9 is also pretty strong, giving the Ice king and Betty their own plotline. I get the sense that AT was very focused around giving its main characters their own seasons / miniseries. I personally like how they did it, gave the series some focus after the mess of seasons 5 and 6, leading to some of the shows best content.
I think the final being rushed suffered from this mentality however. Pretty sure season 10 was supposed to be Bubblegum's season, going into her family history. The final being thrusted onto the team meant they had to conclude that story alongside the series conclusion of Golb. It sucks as season 10 had some good material, progressing Finn to be more mature both in his relationship with Huntress Wizard and when dealing with Gumbald / his former self characterized by Fern. By the end, Finn was clearly the most mature member of the cast.
And I personally dislike princess Bubblegum, but that’s just my taste to be fair.
She was fine in the earlier seasons. Something happened though where the writers began to take her sometimes questionable morality and base her entire character around it while amping it up x10. She is easily the most frustrating as she was actually my favorite in the early seasons.
Finn and Jake are some of the best cartoon characters ever made, period, and their friends are great too — like Marceline and BMO.
Ice King ended up being the strongest. Really cool how they gave a character arc to a character that cannot change. The show was very well written in how subtle the character changes were for Finn and others to start being able and willing to include him more.
But watching late AT gave me the impression the creators stopped caring about them or making fun adventures with them for kids.
AT is unique in that it lasted 8 years and 10 seasons. Most shows last less than half that amount. To account for the length, the show did something interesting by maturing with the audience since it is doubtful it would continue to gain traction. While not always great, I appreciate the effort of pushing forward rather than ending in a Simpsons/SpongeBob repetition cycle.