Simpsons by the Season: 11

"Just stop spouting those hackneyed quips."

If the previous season had The Simpsons jumping the shark, this is the grizzly aftermath in the subsequent landing. The greatest fault comes from completely annihilating any semblance of reason and realism in the show, as if they had to keep up with Family Guy to maintain a hold on their less discerning viewers. Some highlights of the lowlights in ridiculousness: Homer adds plutonium to a field of crops mixing it into a super plant causing the animals to go crazy (and apparently learn small parts of the English language); Homer gets shot in the arm in a duel; Homer eats toxic waste; Maggie saves Homer from drowning by gaining super-human strength; Maggie bowls a perfect game in bowling; Homer eats a jacket; Homer duels a biker gang by wielding motorcycles; Lisa convinces Homer and Bart they have leprosy; Homer and Bart train a horse to win the Springfield Derby while assaulting other horses; Homer discovers jockeys have a secret civilization (and they're also some sort of weird elf creature - this is not a Halloween episode); Bart drives a tank; Bart knocks down a Major League Baseball satellite; Maude is killed off because...; Homer kills an alligator; and the whole family becomes fugitives.

This is one season. One season. I would say it has three of the contenders for the top ten "Worst Episodes Ever" list, the first being "E-i-e-i-(annoyed grunt)". Homer glove-slaps people to get his way until he runs into a gun-toting southerner who accepts the challenge of a duel - not a terrible way to start, admittedly. He then runs away to a farm with the family to avoid it and begins to plant tomatoes, but finds the yield to be low - this is where it starts to get worrisome. He then adds plutonium... which mixes with the nicotine of nearby tobacco plants or something... creating a spectacular super-crop... and it's gone. It ends with the animals getting a hold of it, becoming addicted, and cornering the Simpsons searching for their fix - a cow bursts through a window during this sequence yelling (mooing?) "tomaccoooo!". After a sheep crashes a helicopter full of tobacco executives stealing the recipe(?) they return home to find the southerner still there, in which they decline to wrap up the plot. The southerner shoots him, grazing his arm, and the episode promptly ends. Simpsons fans, meanwhile, just shot themselves. (A second example of leaving open ends is in "Missionary Impossible" in which the episode concludes with a PBS announcement saying you can only see the end if you donate.) If that's not a contender for the worst, I don't know what is.

The second is "Saddlesore Galactica". Homer and Bart rescue a horse while making light of the fact that this is now the second time they have owned one. Those jokes are fine, and poking fun at oneself can sometimes be a good thing, but when the complaints are getting legitimate and they make light of those errors multiple times in a season, it becomes a little less funny and a touch more unsettling. Later in "Behind the Laughter" Lisa says "it's amazing how fast dad betrayed his vision of a realistic show." It's a joke that makes you laugh at first until you think about it a little longer. Anyways, they immediately train it to race faster than the other horses while hitting the other racers, thus winning pretty well everything while upsetting the other competitors. All the while, Homer is taking his latest leave of absence from work. The worst segment, and one of the worst of not only the season but the series, lies in Homer getting abducted by the jockeys who live in a secret civilization where they reveal they're actually some sort of elf. This is making me too upset to write any longer, and I believe it's time to move on to the next episode. 

Number three in the running is "Kill the Alligator and Run" in which Homer has a mental breakdown (a note for the writers: characters going legitimately insane isn't funny, it's just cheap and easy humour). Homer then goes to party in Florida during spring break which cures his worries. They then kill a beloved alligator which puts them all in jail, leading to their decision to break out and become fugitives. It's a terrible plot, it strays so far from what the characters do and who they are, and above all, it's just not funny. Why are Lisa and Marge not the voice of reason here? Why are they OK with this? Questions like that are increasingly left unanswered.

Yes, there are a few good episodes - Mel Gibson and Homer making a movie has some classic bits, and Moe getting plastic surgery is a solid episode, but while a few bad apples may spoil the bunch, it doesn't work to the opposite effect. It's just a flat out poor season. Even what they do well isn't hitting like it should anymore; a great example is "Brother's Little Helper", in which Bart goes on mood altering drugs in order to improve his school performance. At the core it's a good idea for an episode, paving the way for a smart satire on the topic, something The Simpsons has been the subject of praise for time and time again. Sadly, they just turn Bart crazy (again, it's not funny, just cheap) and they make no such statements. The plot fizzled where a few seasons ago it would shine. Something where Bart is ultimately changed in some way, loses part of himself or something along those lines would have actually said something, but instead they took the easy way. It's a sign of the times, I guess.

It's a harsh reminder that at this point in the series, they are not yet halfway through their still continuing run. I believe seasons 11-13 may be the worst, so perhaps it's in a funk in which it crawls itself out of at least somewhat, but this season was a travesty. 

Best Quotations (there were still a few):

"The problem I have is people love me so much they never criticize me."

-Oh, Mel Gibson. You got your wish.

"Well world, this is it. I always thought you'd die before me."

-Homer as he's about to kill himself for the... seventh? time in the series.

"Alright class, today we'll be sitting quietly in the dark because teacher has a hangover."

-As a future teacher, this one was a personal favourite.

"Cleo, Cleo - you've brought music to my heart but this relationship can never work. I'm a doctor, and you're a five thousand year old mummy I brought back to life."

-Moe on "It Never Ends", a sitcom which hired him due to his newfound beauty.

Best Episode:

The best episode of the season is "Beyond Blunderdome" in which Homer and Mel Gibson make a movie. It's smarter than the rest, funny throughout, and it doesn't go too off the rails. A nod goes to "Behind the Laughter" which is the funniest of the season by far in my mind, but I can't give it 'best episode' as I'm always a little wary of when they leave the Simpsons canon. 

Worst Episode:

Can I give a three-way tie between the ones I listed? If I can't, I'll go with "Saddlesore Galactica". It's an atrocity. The jockey part solidified it's place here.