When I first started watching this series, while I knew it wasn't going to be something I was going to really enjoy I did think it had some potential as an educational series following the footsteps of shows like "The Magic School Bus" and the like. And in the earlier series of the show it did at least, in my opinion, accomplish at least that goal very nicely. Each episode solved its own problems with scientific solutions. Broader narratives to a degree took more of a back seat. And although the narratives and characters weren't very interesting to me in the first season, It didn't distract from what I thought was the main educational purpose and interest that I could get from each episode. The educational content also did follow a sort of logical narrative structure as well, because it was clear that the writers wanted there to be sort of a gradual development of technology throughout the series but in ways that at least attempted to make some sort of sense.

As the seasons continued, though this started to change. It did start relatively early during season 2, and this issue matured in everything following season 3. The primarily educational and episodic nature of the show was dropped in favor of a more narratively focused one. Because the narrative foundations of early seasons of Dr. Stone were shaky, it created extremely large problems by this point in the series. The kinds of educational content you get in the show post season 3 ends up only being short clips of info dumps. Additionally, the previously logical structure of technological development stopped existing. The designers wanted there to be more of a venire of cave-man life because the series is of course, entitled "Dr Stone". But also I think that the change in focus from "Trying to rebuild society" to "Figuring out and stopping the people behind why everyone turned to stone" had a big impact as well. Because there was less focus on technology each episode, development ended up feeling super rushed. In Season 1, you had entire episodes derived towards part of a broader technological goal in a way that was somewhat believable in the timeframe they had to achieve the goal. In Season 4 part 2, you have them deciding they want to make motorcycles and doing so in like... a day in a way that just does not make sense especially in the time constraint they had (Like handmaking tires).

Another sort of unintentional impact of all this is that the characters take a hit to it too. Dr. Stone forgot its established character personalities (even if they were 1 dimensional) creating large plot-holes. In I believe it was either episode 3 or 4, When they are collecting rubber for the tires they are making, Gen gives Dr. Xeno a knife to do the work, in spite of Gen supposedly being the conniving socially intelligent of the bunch, and Dr. Xeno being essentially a held captive. What's worse, is that in that same episode, you see Dr. Xeno using anything in his power to contact his allies, such as blinking to send morse code, or creating an improvised radio signal to transmit details. Why would someone who is using every opportunity he is given to subvert the main group not use a knife for his favor? Why did the writers never make sure the characters disarmed his metal finger claws (Well this one is most likely because they didn't want to draw a new character model)? Unfortunately these are the kinds of questions that you now have to ask due to this series poor writing.

For me, this sort of culminated in the end of Science Future Part 2, where they compare the "Medusa" ability to turn people into stone and back with the "Forbidden Fruit" that Adam and Eve ate. That sort of mythological reference just completely ruined my ability to ever be able to take this show seriously again. This was a show that was supposed to be scientifically focused by the way. There was so much room for this series to be better. And it all got wasted on a now 60 episode running McGuffin chase that still hasn't ended yet.

This series had the capability of something that was made for children but enjoyable and intellectually stimulating for adults as well. Unfortunately this season just really solidified that something like that just will never happen. I don't believe this series deserves as high of a rating as it currently has, but I'm also not going to just give it a 1 in order to 'offset the rating' or whatever. I've definitely seen much worse out there than this. And if you just want a shonen to turn your brain off to, it's possible to find this enjoyable.

Rating: 4/10