Welcome to a very special edition of the blog -- I'll be back soon with the usual news and reviews, but for now I'd like to take a minute to focus on a topic that I first brought up last week - THE SIMPSONS.
More specifically, I've been wanting to write up a response to the recent AV Club article that listed out the Top 10 Simpsons episodes of the last five years. The article, which is a great read by the way, uses the list as a sort of argument against those who claim that there have been no worthwhile Simpsons episodes since Season 10 or 11 or 12, that the show that now airs every Sunday at 8 pm is a mere shadow of its former self and not even worth checking out.
Check it out: http://www.avclub.com/articles/in-a-way-theyre-all-winners-10-simpsons-episodes-f,25487/
At this point though, it's a long and overplayed debate. People have been bashing the state of The Simpsons for so long now that it stands to reason that, by this point, there would be a backlash against the backlash. For several years now, there has been that contingent that has always maintained that "hey, The Simpsons may be past its prime, but it's still better than 90% of everything else on TV." For a while, I was in this camp, but to me this argument held more water in the Season 9 and 10 era, when there were already people dismissing the show as having lost its edge.
That was ten years ago. By the time we got to seasons 13 and 14, it really was undeniable that the show was not what it once was. A few years earlier, there had been a subtle shift in the show's style, in episodes like "Homer's Enemy," in which random, over-the-top, and absurdist humor replaced the earlier season's more down-to-earth sensibilities. Homer in particular became dumber and dumber. The show embraced more outlandish plotlines, and used more random cutaways and breaks in continuity.
But at that point, The Simpsons was still hilarious. And the shift in humor was still gradual enough that it felt like a logical progression. But again, by seasons 13 and 14, there was a much more jarring shift, where you could see the aging Simpsons deliberately trying to mimic the faster-pace, cruder humor, and more free-flowing narratives of competing animated series like Family Guy. The shift was, for the most part, a creative failure, and these latter-era episodes were typically disjointed narratives that would often not even intoduce the A-plot until halfway through the ep. While you could still count on each episode having at least a good joke or two, the episodes lacked the heart or narrative sophistication of the glory days.
That said, in the last couple of years, I wouldn't say we've seen a Simpsons rennaissance or anything, but ... there has been a visible effort to at least return to the more straightforward storytelling style of the old days. In the last couple of years, we've seen a return of sorts to episodes that introduce the A-plot early and stick with it to the end. We've seen a bit more of an attempt to inject some heart into the episodes beyond just having Homer and Marge at odds for the five-millionth time. And yet, we still see a show that does things that the old Simpsons would never have done. Just last week, we saw a cutaway to Marge, Lisa, and Bart appearing as characters in the old Q*Bert arcade game. In the old days, a completely random, Family Guy-style cutaway like that would have had no place on The Simpsons.
So - has The Simpsons been worth watching for the last five years? On the whole, I would say yes, but with reservations. Looking at The AV Club's list of the best recent episodes, I had a few episodes I'd add and a few I'd take away (the recent return of Lurleen Lumpkin, for example, was a pretty poor episode in my view, even if The AV Club thought otherwise ...), but the fact is this: aside from about a dozen or so truly standout episodes, the vast majority of Simpsons eps over the last five years have been either merely decent, substandard, or just plain bad.
But I am a guy who likes to comb through the $5 DVD at Walmart to see if a hidden gem might be buried underneath the rubble of mediocrity. And the same goes for The Simpsons - when a new episode *does* come along that really hits the mark, it's truly a pleasure and a surprise to see it happen. It's like watching a past-his-prime basketball player have a flashback to his younger days and erupt for a huge game. The Simpsons may be running out of steam, but on any given night it's still capable of being the best in the biz. That to me is why I keep watching. Now, is it possible that we'll see one more run of greatness before all is said and done? Unlikely, given the trending, but possible. But -- have we seen some real reminders of what The Simpsons is capable of in the last few years? Sure we have, and if you've missed these episodes you owe it to yourself to track them down.
So here's my picks -
THE TOP 10 EPISODES OF THE SIMPSONS FROM THE LAST 5 YEARS:
1.) "Homer Simpson ... This Is Your Wife" - Season 17
- This Ricky Gervais-penned ep combined Gervais' unique sense of awkward humor with a great plot and tons of great jokes.
2.) " 'Tis The Fifteenth Season" - Season 15
- This Christmas ep is generally considered one of the best of nu-era Simpsons. Personally, I lost it everytime Home sought guidance from "Mr. McGrew."
3.) "MyPods And Boomsticks" - Season 20
- A recent episode that I really enjoyed, both the A and B plots were great - funny, satirical looks at Arab-American prejudice and the cult of Apple respectively.
4.) "That 90's Show" - Season 19
- A controversial episode in that it retconned a lot of previously-established Simpsons continuity, the fact remains that this was hands down one of the funniest Simpsons episodes in years - a hilarious look at 90's culture.
5.) "Moe 'N' a Lisa" - Season 18
- A very funny episode in which Lisa helps Moe to become a noted poet, this one had a great group of famous authors as guest stars and uses them to great effect. "Cha-bone!" still cracks me up.
6.) "The Regina Monologues" - Season 15
- A lot of the "Simpsons go to a new country" episodes have fallen pretty flat, especially in recent seasons ... but this ep saw the show travel to England to pretty hilarious effect.
7.) "Any Given Sundance" - Season 19
- Like "Moe 'N' a Lisa," this ep uses its group of guest stars, in this case notables from the world of independent film, to great effect, and is overall a funny look at the world of indie filmmaking, and one of the better overall eps in recent years.
8.) "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife, and the Homer" - Season 18
- This ep kicked off season 18 in style, with a funny sendup of mafia movies that really nailed most of its jokes.
9.) "Burns and the Bees" - Season 20
- We haven't gotten a ton of Mr. Burns-centric episodes in recent seasons, but this was a good one, in which Mr. Burns buys a basketball team and meets fellow millionaires like Mark Cuban. Some great jokes and an interesting plot.
10.) "Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore" - Season 17
- A very funny episode that offers some wry social commentary to boot, this one sees Homer shipped off to work in India, where he proceeds to spread hsi Americanized culture of laziness to the hard-working employees of the local power plant.
- And so there you have it -- these are the episodes that give me hope that The Simpsons can still kick ass, these are the kinds of episodes that keep me watching and keep me a fan. The glory years may be gone, but there's still the occasional episode that's less "d'oh!"-worthy and more warranting of a "woo-hoo!".
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