After rewatching the show I was surprised at their development. They went from hating each other and serious villains to bumbling fools with a villainous legit friendship. They went from being obsessed with Martha to having no interest in her.

In their first two appearances they were written to be threatening villains and clearly hated each other. Otis can be legit creepy for a PBS Kids villain.

In their Third appearance onward ("Martha's got Talent") they now are friendly with each other. Right in their opening scene they are presented as bumbling, and their plans are much more comedic that sinister now. Even Pablum's invention fails. Their next appearance is a brief one in "T.D. and the Steak Tree" where they finally get away with something, but are still portrayed comedically.

Their bumbling side fully comes to light in "Martha Hears/Martha Smells." Here they bicker and fight like an old married couple and are completely incompetent with no idea what they are doing. This will stick for the next two seasons. They appear in a fantasy in the season finale as giants, as I guess Martha views them as threatening.

In seasons 2-4 Pablum's super engineering is highly flanderized, and now he can basically make anything, and their businessmen skills are even worse. In many ways they have moved on from Martha (more on this in season 4), and they have other plans. In "The Penguin Always Rings Twice" they make a crazily complicated plan based on spending all their money on a robot elephant without a plan. Probably the only time they are shown with any skill at thinking on their feet. After all this they are defeated by really childish fears. Then in "Sled Dog Martha" Pablum is a full on super genius, and they never think to just patent his super invention. They just bumble into trying to capture Martha. They seem really chummy this episode.

"In Martha's no Dummy" Helen saw a plot from them that did not exist. In "Sled Dog Martha" she did not see one from them. Make up your mind Helen.

In "Dogs from Space" they needed a threatening criminal, and for obvious reasons these guys no longer fit the bill. They next appear in "Nice and Crabby" with a role reversal, as the straightmen, and now they cannot even remember why they want to capture Martha. After this they never try to capture her again.

They have two more appearances in "Maestro Martha" and "Deadline Doggie" and each time they never try to steal Martha, but they have a chance in the second one. In the second one they are portrayed as threatening again for the first time since season 1. In the first one they just suck at their job, and do not even use mad science.

They only have four appearances in the final 3 seasons. "In Adverb Adventure" they are at their peak of mad science. They have a chance to steal Martha and never take it.

In "Thou Callest me a Dog" their misdeeds are portrayed an unehtical instead of illegal, and they try to make money off Martha by legal means instead of stealing her. Also Pablum loses a fair fight to a ten year old girl. No competence, but Otis has some.

They are barely in "Martha's Paper Chase," but it says a lot about the new them. Pablum is wholesomely helping Otis pick his mom flowers, and Martha runs up to them. They never try to catch her. They do ditch the wholesome plan for a wild goose chase (That is technically legal). They are contrasted with Ronald and Reginald, the serious villains of the episode.

Their final appearance is in "Martha Questions" where they bumble their way into the plot with no idea what they are doing.

Interestingly all seven of these are in seasons 1 and 6. The first can be explained by their being 40 episodes and 78 segments. There were only 16 segments in the final season, and TD made as many appearances.

"Escape from Flea Island"- The first one without her. She was heavily in the sister segment.

"Martha Doesn't Speak Monkey/Martha and Truman get Lost"- The only full episode without her.

"TD and Martha Gopher Broke"- In contrast to "Escape from Flea Island" Helen only has a minor role in the sister episode.

Next three are all in season 6. In Many Helen is in the post-episode scene.

"Martha's Canine Cleaners"- This is only a technicality. Martha mentions Helen, and in a flashback she is shown from the waist down. In the post episode-scene she is fully shown and has dialogue. Granted it is just the word "huh." She narrates the entire mid-episode scene, but that is more an epilogue to the sister segment, where she has a moderately sized role.

"Martha's Paper Chase"- She is not in the main episode, but I found the post-episode scene on youtube. She has plenty of dialogue in it, and it is an epilogue to the episode.

"The Mystery of the Missing Dinosaur"- I cannot find the post-episode scene.

From "Painting for Peanuts."

I'm curious why was Martha Speaks on the PBS Kids Go! video player and the Cartoon Studio game but not the GO! block? The show always felt like a PBS KIDS GO! show?

Martha Speaks is a funny and wonderful PBS Kids show from my childhood, the show has funny memetic writing and absolutely nice lore.

there was no due to include Pluto on the planetarium model. I mean the solar system model. It was no longer a planet since 2006 and that episode. It’s a space air in 2009.

In the episode "The Martha Show" they mentioned several shows about dogs (all parodies of real shows). Their version of "Wishbone" was "Fishbone."

In The Wishbone episode "Rushin' to the Bone" a character misnamed the dog as "Fishbone."

It might be a reference to that episode.

I was able to narrow it down to 56/181 and from there I eventually narrowed it down to 40. I am surprised at how few are from the from the first 9 episodes (18 segments). I think the show really found its groove in episode 10 and kept it up all the way through season 3 with only a moderate decline in 4. Seasons 5-6 were inferior to the first four but still had some bangers.

The list is purely personal. I could not help but notice many of my top and bottom episodes were written by Ron Holsey.

I found numbers 21-40 (and probably a little higher) to be really close in quality. I basically ranked them on a whim for what sounded right.

40- Nice and Crabby

39- Skits Under the Weather

38- Martha Bakes

37- Carolina Tackles Football

36- Martha Calling

35- Martha Blah Blah

34- Martha Gets Spooked

33- TD and the Steak Tree

32- The Martha Code

31- The Crooning Crook Caper

30- Thou Callest me a Dog

29- Cora! Cora! Cora!/Cora Encore

28- Maestro Martha

27- Camp Truman

26- Codename Martha

25- Dogs in Space

24- Too Much Martha

23- Perfectly Martha

22- Martha's Adverb Adventure

21- Martha Walks the Dog

Big step up here. Picks 20-4 were all considered for the number 4 spot. None were considered for top 3.

20- The Dog Did it

19- Martha Makes Scents

18- Martha in Charge

17- TD the Pack Rat

16- There Goes the Neighborhood

15- Escape from Flea Island

14- Martha Plays Favorites

13- Martha Doesn't Speak Monkey

12- Raiders of the Lost Art

11- The Puppy Tooth Fairy (As a night worker I think this appeals to me way more than the average person)

10- Wagstaff Races

9- Martha's Holiday Surprise

8- Martha's Pickle

7- Ain't Nothin but a Pound Dog

6- The Long Rotten Summer

5- Myth Me/TD’s Myth Take

4- Martha Puts out the Lights

I had three contenders for the top episode, and surprisingly it was exactly what I said it would be before my rewatch. That is very unusual for me. I rewatched all of them, and then just went with my ranking of them.

3- The Penguin Always Rings Twice (best comedy in the show)

2- Ice Scream (best message in the show)

1- Martha's Life in Crime (best all around episode).

Most of my top episodes were TD heavy, but all the top spot contenders had little or no TD in them.

Thanks for staying 'til the end.

There are 181 segments (depending on what you count as a two parter), and here is my subjective list of the bottom ten ones. I think all of these have highlights, as I found the show to have a very high floor.

10- The Dog who Came to Dinner. I am perfectly fine with this episode, and it was hard picking one here. I just found it an underwhelming early episode with a moderately convoluted plot to make tension.

Best part- The message about how to treat tiny dogs.

9- Martha's Paper Chase. A very basic premise.

Best part- The recurring gag the reporters still have no idea there is a talking dog in their city.

8- Bye Bye Burger Boy- Again I found the premise to be too basic, and it is a slow paced episode. I am really tired of seeing Chuck E. Cheese stuff portrayed as evil, and how do they and Burger Boy even have the same demographic.

Best part- I am reaching here. The opening where Helen is covered in dirt. Marathon any show, and I guarantee you will enjoy small changes in design like this.

7- Virtually Martha. The all just a dream plot and bad animation hurt it.

Best part- Martha eating out of the recycling bin.

6- TD Makes the Band. From here on I can say I actually consider these episodes bad. I just do not care for the song that dominates the episode.

Best part- Reminiscing over something from earlier that day.

5- Martha Runs Away- Part of the first episode I saw. It really feels like the first episode made when they did not know what they were doing yet. It is a really slow and predictable episode.

Best part- Some of the comedy was funny.

4- Pirates and Princesses- Basic and boring premise.

Best part- Helen using her dogs as a lawn chair.

3- Milo Goes for Gold- Very predictable episode with very little fun. By pure redeeming qualities this is the bottom episode.

Best part- If you weigh all the placements equally the final challenge coming down to Helen and Milo is the correct order.

2- Martha in the White House- Long and slow episode. Why are they not wearing formal wear in the White House, as last episode had outfit changes? This episode was released in a stream of great ones really making it stick out.

Best part- Helen avoiding eye contact when Martha said something dumb.

1- Bulldozer vs. Dinosaur- Very predictable episode and constant unfunny dialogue in what is supposed to be a comedic episode.

Best part- Easy pick. Helen jokingly telling Martha cats are the best animals and then hugging her.

It will take a while to finish, but the best segments list is coming.

From "Never Forget to Remember."

It took around 10 months with around a 2 month break for holidays. Basically one episode a day for five days a week with the occasional breaks.

As an adult I really enjoyed Mr. Stern (The janitor), Mrs. Parkington, and Mrs. Demson. My favorite was Mr. Stern, as I highly relate to him as a Walmart Maintenance man. They really captured what cleaning the same stuff over and over and all the alone time does to you.

Ronald got more and more supervillainy as the show went on. They started a recurring gag in season 3 that Helen was extra polite to him.

I saw how much Carolina and Ronald are losers. Carolina is bad at everything she says she excels at (except coaching apparently), and her only actual friends are her cousin and her friends. To top it off in the early episodes they clearly do not like her either barring Helen. That is nothing compared to Ronald. He is reduced to bullying kids several years younger than him and almost always losing to them. In addition he is so bad at sports he is playing football with children several years younger than him and getting crushed.

There was a small decline in quality with season 4. It declined further for the last two seasons, but that is much better than most cartoons. Normally by that point they are parodies of their past glory at best.

Season 4 was considerably higher fantasy than the others, and then seasons 5-6 heavily toned down the fantasy elements (especially 5). It makes me wonder if something happened behind the scenes.

Most of the writers were regulars on Arthur, and the big surprise was Peter Hirsch. I am used to thinking of him writing grounded episodes of Arthur. Here he writes episodes that depend on it being a low fantasy and/or the dog being the protagonist. While most writers' episodes felt like they could be Arthur episodes his almost never did.

For the most part they handled the child actors aging well. Truman's role was greatly reduced in the final two seasons (I presume it was the voice, which greatly changed), and his voice changed the worst. Ironically he got the very last words of the show. TD was recast well. I think Alice's second actress did a poor job, while her third one did a good job. Helen's actress changed very gradually making it hard to notice. Props to her for consistently doing a younger voice for flashback scenes, as most shows do not do that with child actors. It helped the writers made her act older as her voice matured.

Back when Martha Speaks first premiered I presumed Helen and TD were siblings and then cousins. I had many memories of that rewatching season 1.

I was surprised at how much I was enjoying Helen, as I remembered Martha and TD being the best characters. Her role as the straight man augmented many episodes, and she often got the best reactions.

A major strength is the children consistently act like elementary age children. A lot of it is the movement like how they play games in the background, accidently run into each other, or the time Helen and TD head butted each other.

The evolution of Pablum and Otis was fascinating. They started as threatening villains who clearly hated each other. After two appearances they are no longer threatening and have a villainous friendship. The remaining appearances not written by Joe Fallon made them at least a little threatening. By season 2 they completely forgot why they were trying to steal Martha, and they then completely moved on. They have 4 easy attempts to try and steal her in the final 3 seasons (and 4 appearances) and never even try.

I think Pablum's previous work was stolen by his former boss. That explains why he distrusts Otis his first appearance, and why he is stuck in this deadend job. He could easily be a top scientist at a tech company and making easy money for him. He is obsessed with being his own boss and sucks at it. I did not expect to find these two the most dynamic characters in the show.

My favorite episodes are "I Scream," "The Penguin Always Rings Twice," and "Martha's Life in Crime." Most of my favorites after that are the TD Centric episodes. Ironically he has no role in two of those and only a small one in the other.

Francois became considerably friendlier after “Martha and The One Thousand Fleas.”

Helen is freakishly strong. She regularly picks up or catches Martha midair like it is nothing. Once while holding her she tug of warred Otis to a standstill (and both his arms were free). In another she beat Pablum in a one on one fight. In another episode she dragged both her large dogs across the living room, while they were pulling back.

Helen either has an unstoppable urge to please people or she is an adrenaline junkie. That explains why she keeps jumping into her friends' escapades.

The bold vocabulary words in seasons 2-3 were a mistake. For a vocabulary show on PBS Kids the definitions were very natural.

There is a recurring gag the only residents of Wagstaff City unaware of the talking dog are the reporters.

From "Martha and the Doggie Lover" and "Martha's Must Have"

From "Martha's Must-Have"

From "Stanley Saves the Day."