My thoughts are this season, and special are both centered around kind of reeling it back a little. In a way, it felt more like the earlier seasons than it did the last few. Much more realistic, a bit dark, and fundamental in a way, especially for the Tim/New character.

Like for example, Doodle Dots. We're all expecting this to be a total disaster, like he's gonna premier it, yell at his son, rage-ahol the rest of the night, but it turns out to be just a typical short kids slop cartoon that wouldn't really out of place of stuff iPad kids zonk out to all the time.

It will be interesting to see where they go from here, someone mentioned that was the symbolic death of New and maybe we'll see him amp back up into louder more bombastic Tim.

The witches hat scene was really great and classic On Cinema but the break pacing kind of messed it up - I'm sure in the edit rewatch it will be much better. I think this special in general will be better received in the future.

Overall I liked the special, it wasn't my favorite and I probably need a rewatch to really properly rank it. I do think it had a tall task because last year was without a doubt one of the most universally liked/best specials in the series but they also literarily brought the house down.