Simpsons by the Season: 26

"You know what we should really thank for our success? Lower standards."

It's the last season before catching up with the present day, which means this project I've started about ten months ago is finally coming to a close. Twenty six seasons later, I've seen it through it's inception, the golden years, the shockingly fast descent, a brief half-resurgence (at least in comparison) and another sharp decline. I haven't been enjoying the episodes for a while now, and, as you can see by the increased length between posts, it's becoming more of a chore than anything. Rather than feeling the satisfaction of completing a task, it's closer to being put out of my misery.

I had thought the series had hit somewhat of an end of history, descending into mostly tame episodes that are rather run of the mill and inoffensive; finally all dust and embers of it's once roaring fire. It's the way the show had been turning for the past while, and I foolishly thought the trend would continue. Oh boy. If only. While the mistakes are plenty, the theme of the errors this time around are simple; it all comes down to laziness.

More than ever, things feel loosely strung together as the episodes fail to reach a cohesive story. Guest stars come and go for seemingly no reason: Pharrell Williams just happens to be in Springfield without explanation; Elon Musk descends from a futuristic spaceship mostly just because. The effort in the writing in at least having a reason for the guest spots is shot, but that's not the only mistake here. Frequently the show feels like a pieced together variety hour with plots that come and go with only a tenuous link to the main story. The appearance of Elon Musk's spaceship (I can't believe that sentence has to do with a Simpsons episode) ends a segment of the show where the family captures an eagle - a segment that has nothing to do with the rest of the show but nevertheless takes up a good part of the beginning of the program. A similar idea occurs in an episode called "Sky Police" that has Clancy find a jet-pack to better monitor the town before crashing it into the church - where the plot goes to a gambling scheme. But what about the whole sky police angle of which the episode is named? Well, when Clancy said "this is the end of sky police" - only three minutes and fifteen seconds into the episode I might add. I guess that was the end of that plotline entirely. Even the endings of episodes have moments that appear tacked on just to fill space when they couldn't make up the entire twenty-one minutes. One ends with "The Simpsons Post-show Jug Band", which is entirely as it sounds; another is just a drug fueled trip from Otto. Neither is funny. Both are pointless. It plays like it's written by a child that's on a sugar-high.


The rest of the season is filled with what I've come to expect from the past few sets. Absurd storylines (Kang and Kodos are real, apparently), changes of character (just one off lines like "that's where I used to grow my weed, but that's a story for another day" tend to upset me - and by the way, Marge said that), and repeated stories (Homer and a rag-tag band he puts together become wildly popular, and Apu finds centre stage - but this time he doesn't change his last name to de Beaumarchais). They might as well just keep making seasons now, as long as it's making them money. What have they got to lose? It's no longer a cultural phenomenon; no one talks about The Simpsons anymore, and spouting quotes from the series stops beyond season eight. It's no longer well received or respected, as that died out long ago. So many of the writers have long since left, and they very nearly lost Harry Shearer. They said they wouldn't do a movie, but of course that didn't last. That would have required some integrity left in the show. Groening removed his name from the episode when they did a crossover with The Critic from the sixth season (pointing out The Critic has "nothing to do with the Simpsons' world" and "it violate[d] the Simpsons' universe"), and now they've done one with Futurama and allowed their characters to appear on a Family Guy crossover episode, the twisting of the knife in my side. I suppose it doesn't even matter when they stop now. To quote the show from a better time...

Stop, stop, it's already dead!

Best Quotes:
"Remember: we're parked in the ethnic princess section."
-Marge at a Disneyland-esque place

"We will always remember your countless appearances on the Krusty the Clown Show... and your one appearance on To Catch a Predator."
-Krusty getting roasted

"You don't have to announce it. Just do it quietly and blame the dog."
-Homer

Best Episode:
It's always safe to go with Krusty. "Clown in the Dumps", in which Krusty's dad dies, has a few pretty big laughs and a story that isn't total nonsense. Nowadays that counts as the default victory.

Worst Episode:
"The Man Who Came to Dinner" has the family visit the home planet of Kang and Kodos, the Halloween episode favourites. The quote "are we truly in space? And if so, why?" rings far too true. Maggie flying them home in a spaceship was taking the knife that was twisted in the Family Guy crossover and giving it serrated teeth. Bottom ten material, right here. A fitting way to end it.

Simpsons by the Season: 25

"That's the great thing about art - everyone can have their own opinion about why it sucks."

This season is in many ways a carbon copy of the previous. For the most part it's simply bland, the episodes drifting into one another without ever really catching. There are only a handful of truly offensive episodes (I'll detail those towards the end, as two split the coveted worst episode of the season award) but just as scarce are the good ones. The minds behind The Simpsons must have decided that to prolong the longevity of the series they will churn out episodes that aren't going to enrage the viewer (who is far more loyal than they deserve) but will instead placate them with mediocrity. Viewers won't be up in arms, so they'll probably grudgingly return to the television to pay homage to a fallen great. After all, you can't say you've watched the entire series while skipping season 25. 

The identical feelings at the end of season 24 and 25 I believe may have signified the end of change in the series, settling into a permanent lull. It won't change now. It doesn't go from fantastic quality, to low quality, to ridiculous, to tame and then back to something previously; it'll stay at tame as tame is safe. Low effort, low quality (but not bottoming out quality) will bring in enough viewers to keep the propped up, rotting corpse of the series alive for another day. It's the end of the line. 26 won't be better or worse, and neither will 27. The show has flatlined a hair above being legally declared deceased. Of course, it's still better than the death spiral of 15-18 (give or take) in which the show bottomed out, but being on life support after it's heart attack is such a sorry state.

Don't get me wrong, the show still has its periodic ups and downs (occasional heartbeats and seizures, if we're continuing on the hospital metaphor) but they're few and far between. There are two pretty decent episodes in "Specs and the City" (the Simpsons' version of Google Glass comes to Springfield) and "Steal This Episode" (their take on internet privacy), and about four terrible ones. "Days of Future Future" is an absolutely nonsensical mess with Homer being cloned, and then it's in the future and there's zombies, and... all I know is it wasn't a Halloween episode. "The Man Who Grew Too Much" has Sideshow Bob splice genes of animals to make himself super-human. "You Don't Have to Live Like a Referee" has Homer officiating the World Cup. Homer and Bart get back at Skinner through a prank, telling him his mother has been murdered and he was the main suspect, but they'll help him get rid of her corpse by chopping it into pieces in "Yellow Subterfuge".


Sigh.

Fortunately, those four messes make up only a fraction of the season, so it's mostly watchable. Anger has subsided and it's been replaced by boredom. Just as long as it's still on the air, right?

Best Episode:

"Steal This Episode" takes the cake, as it delivered a fairly even handed approach to internet privacy. Sure, it's low hanging fruit, but they tackled it well.

Worst Episode:

I've already described them, but Homer being a World Cup referee is so bafflingly stupid it's too difficult to ignore. However, "Days of Future Future" is such a pieced together trainwreck it might, somehow, be worse.

Best Quotes:

"Eduardo Barcelona, or in english, Eddy Miami." 
-Homer's Brazilian pen-pal

"Nelson, you frighten me so, 
the psychoest bully I know,
you're a sociopath,
in need of a bath, 
I'm sure you'll end up on death row"
-Bart's valentine for Nelson

"I'll never experience the ultimate reward for a life well lived: the gentle slumber of death."
-Homer living in a dream world

Simpsons by the Season: 24

"There's like eight amazing shows, none of them on Fox."

At the end of the last blog post I made a plea for sanity in The Simpsons, claiming that when the show holds onto reality it's infinitely more entertaining than when it gets completely lost. This season, in a refreshing fashion, actually holds to that - the over-the-top absurd moments are few and far between, and while they still exist (Reverend Lovejoy literally boring frogs to death in "Pulpit Friction") the season is much more tolerable than others due to the fact that most episodes have a straightforward plot that doesn't go insane two-thirds of the episode through. 

Sadly, that isn't to say it was a success of a season, but more of a stay from absolute travesty. Many of the same issues in previous seasons creep up, but they're just not quite as pervasive as they have been. Homer's a jerk in "A Test Before Trying" where he puts up a parking meter to scam people out of pocket change, but at least it's a side-story and not the main. Episodes are rehashed or merged, like in "Whiskey Business" - Moe gains confidence through wearing a specific suit (not Marge's Chanel one though!) and it turns out he can make a phenomenal drink (but gained his popularity in a different way than through his Flaming Moe). Continuity errors still come through, with Bart pretending to be a great piano player in "The Fabulous Faker Boy" (they reference him never having any musical talent, forgetting he surpassed Lisa's success in jazz through drumming a few seasons ago) and "The Saga of Carl" in which Carl's adopted Icelandic heritage is revealed, which just raises countless questions considering Lenny, Homer and himself have been friends since childhood. But, I'll be realistic here, and realize that in the grand scheme of things these are relatively small errors or oversights, and the weakness of the season doesn't lie there.

The problem with this stretch is a lot harder to pinpoint. It's hard to say "this just has to be funnier" and leave it at that, but that's really the core of the problem. The humour just isn't there anymore, lacking the cleverness and wit of previous seasons and replacing it with jokes that feel more like they're just going through the motions. They can hardly fill a full episode slot anymore, as if it's becoming too hard for them to do so. The couch gags are getting longer and longer, and twice this season they had two minute segments at the end of episodes that are complete non sequiturs. One had Mr. Burns explaining the "fiscal cliff" premise and the other was a clip about... I don't know, advertising characters doing something. It was a total mess. It's not that those clips are the worst parts of the season, but it's indicative of a greater problem; they're so low on ideas that they literally can't fill the entire show up before having to switch thoughts to something else. It's like the show itself is battling with attention deficit.

While this isn't the worst season by a longshot, there's little to report that's positive except for the moderate absences of negatives. While few moments or episodes really stuck, there wasn't anything that made me as violently angry (I may take the series a little too seriously at times). So, take it as you will. Is The Simpsons best served lukewarm now? Perhaps that's the truth.

Best Quotes:
"A kid's never lonely when he has balogna! Except me." 
-Milhouse

"Emergency meeting in the faculty lounge. BYOB." 
-Chalmers to Edna

"Nah, it's a 44 long. I wear a 38 hunched." 
-Moe, shopping for a suit

"My gay dad is gay for gays."
-Homer about Abe

Best Episode:
"The Day the Earth Stood Cool" is probably the best episode of the season. It pokes some easy fun at hipsters but it does a pretty decent job of doing so.

Worst Episode:
"A Tree Grows in Springfield" has a message of "hope" written into a tree in the backyard of the Simpsons' house. It's essentially the episode with the angel all over again, and not much better. This is also one of the episodes with the two minute segment at the end that has nothing to do with the episode itself.