Funnily enough your comment is quite applicable to FiM now, because while season 3 and 4 had a lot of detractors at the time, they’re now considered part of the golden-age of FiM. For me personally season 3 especially has only gotten better with age, even MMC.

@biznizz  
i thought that chicken pox episode was good, it was even directed by genndy.

@biznizz  
Couldn’t agree more.

My worthless two-cents on CN shows that had dramatic shifts:
 
PPG: Eventually there came a time where, after the movie, the show lost it’s luster and episodes declined. You’d have a few interesting ones (the closet flashback ep which parodied fan-fics), but you’d get stuff like the time travelling pirates who drank Chemical X and Steamypunk Gals. Gnomy was sub-par, and the finale special where Mojo turned the world good was pulled straight out of someone’s ass. Even with the snapback at the end.
 
Dexter’s Lab: Just ignore everything post… that ep. where Dexter’s Family fought the Japanese Monster (Which was a finale for the whole show: Justice Friends, Monkey) and Ego Trip which was truly the only good thing to come out of the art shift. S3/4 had Mandark as an only child in a family of hippies and Dexter mutate into a chicken from normal chicken pox. You’d get a few entertaing eps, like the Dad fight one, or the Wacky Races parody, but the rest is just lousy.
 
Johnny Bravo: This show had the distinction of having the art-shift lasting longer than the original… AND going back towards the end. The designs after the show changed took some getting used to, but eventually the show adapted with Pops & Carl and everything else. IIRC, the celebrity stuff was around for a while (wasn’t Donny Osmond in the original version?). Oddly enough, after the show reverted, it lost some charm (and supporting characters) but wasn’t too bad.
 
Ben 10: F-CK EVERYTHING PAST THE ORIGINAL SHOW. People running the asylum and retcons all around. I know Ben 10 was comic book inspired, but give it a break! It’s magic, not it’s not its actually all alien crap, it’s alien and magic stuff like before. Let’s turn the two most memorable bad guys of the original (Vilgax & Kevin 11) and totally screw around with them. And include in the canon some lousy Live-Action movies. Dwayne McDuffie, man I appreciate a ton of stuff you did (R.I.P.), but you helped screw up a good franchise. Original show had problems, but had a charm that NONE of the sequel shows have even come close to recapturing. Not even the new one.

The sad truth is, Dexter’s Labs final two seasons were awful because of the art shift, The Powerpuff Girls.. It focused on them just being kids with normal problems.. Which was alright I guess.. Johnny Bravo was good, then Carl was introduced it sucked, and theeeeeen they made Celebrity Cameos a normal thing which made it better.. Sorry for my ramble.. But yes Dexter’s final two seasons, and The Powerpuff Girls after the movie, and Johnny Bravo 2000-2002(03?) sucked hardcore, Alicorn Twilight isn’t something to get so butthurt over I enjoyed season 3 more than season 2 honestly.

Didn’t Season 4 have the episode where Dexter and Mandark make their dads fight for them? I enjoyed that one.
 
Still, I do remember a decrease in quality with most of the later episodes.

Sometimes, I REALLY hate people that act like 3/4 was bad.  
Honestly, is it really THAT BAD? You’re making it seem like the Twilight Saga of Dexter’s Lab.

As a Dexter fan, I never got to see all the 3rd and 4th season episodes. I know they aren’t as funny as season 1 and 2 but I was curious to see what all of them were like.

season 4 at worst will be a quarter as bad as those two seasons were, i guess

I concur with the OP

@Itsthinking  
Oh….. Yeah.. I can see that being pretty damn bad..

@Beau Skunky  
That was in season 2, which also included the episode with no dialogue except for the final punchline.

uhh…which season was the episode where dexter and his family went super robot style and fought that giant axeface godzilla thing?

The one-button labcoat episodes were pretty much unwatchable. Aside from maybe the one episode following Mandark where everything followed his laugh pattern but half the reason that even worked was because at that point the episodes were only like 7 minutes long, if that.

@Itsthinking
 
I expect a few slight changes in S4 but I’d be more worried if suddenly a lot of the writers or Jayson called it quits and Hasbro wanted it to keep going. So far that has not happened. It won’t surprise me if it happens down the road. Shows get prolonged past the original members’ time on it due to executive meddling.
 
The show took a little bump with Faust leaving and Meghan replacing Rob as story editor. But it has not been flipped upside down like Dexter’s Lab Season 3.

I liked the “Speed Racer” episode parody, which season was that in?

@Serris  
Tartakovsky ended the series with a made for TV movie at the end of season 2 and said the series as he wanted it was done.
 
CN was fine with that for like three years, but then they realized how many viewers the show brought in. Since they couldn’t hire the same studio again, they gave it to a completely different team of writers, animators, and storyboarders. They also had to replace the VA of Dexter who retired from voice acting in between season 2 and 3.
 
The writing ceased to be clever or interesting, and these two seasons were widely panned.

I’ve never watched Dexter’s lab, never aired around here, and I don’t really bother torrenting them now. So.. I assume something bad happened?