With "The Simpsons" movie now in production.... (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Bunk]

I just looked over the Season 8 episode list again-OMG I can't believe how many of my all time favorites are in this season.

Frank Grimes! 'Nuff Said.

 

[Ethan Riley]

I stand by my comment that the creators act self-importantly in those commentaries, the reason being that at least 50% of the time they have absolutely nothing insightful to contribute...they're just playing the old Hollywood game of congratulating one another. They should limit the commentaries to select episodes that demand more attention, or do the South Park thing and only provide 4-6 minute mini-commentaries on each episode. Seriously, none of these Simpsons creators have anything interesting to say past the first five minutes anyway.

25 seasons of Simpsons??? Oh god...oh god oh god....

 

[TravisR]

After 100 episodes and after more than a decade has passed, how many new anecdotes could anyone remember for the commentaries? As you can see just from the fans in thread, many are still enjoying what they are saying and want all the episodes to have them.

And if they're all so self-important and uninsightful, why are you wasting your time listening to them at all?

 

[Ocean Phoenix]

Wow, the variety of opinions on this show amazes me. For me, the "golden age" is Seasons 4 to 8. I can pinpoint when The Simpsons "jumped the shark" right at the first episode of Season 9. Just as film critic Roger Ebert likes to say so often, that's when the writers started to show that they only "know the words, but not the music". The episode "Homer Simpson vs. The City Of New York" had so many of the trademarks that made classic episodes of The Simpsons great - a catchy musical number, Homer going crazy, a classy song over the closing credits, and funny characters with funny accents...and yet they weren't as funny in this episode as they were in so many others.

It was the first time that The Simpsons started becoming formulaic, relying on the same old jokes/scenarios, but without the wit that had characterized the show in the past, so it looks like classic Simpsons, and feels like classic Simpsons, but isn't. That episode also continued the awful tradition (which started back with "Bart vs. Australia" in the otherwise excellent season 6) of The Simpsons taking a trip to another city or country in an episode that is full of lame, shallow stereotypical humour that isn't funny. I really believe that every episode in which The Simpsons have gone to another city or country has been mediocre or horrible, with the exception of the trips to "Captial City" and Washington in the early seasons.

P.S. To be fair, since season 8, there have been episodes that I have enjoyed (including the new episode from last week!), but I believe that season 8 is the last season in which there were enough good episodes and enough consistently good writing to make the entire season worth buying on DVD.

 

[MarkHastings]

Ocean, I just looked at the Simpson episode guide and (while I didn't think I would) I would have to agree about Season 9...With the exception of "Trash of the Titans", Season 9 doesn't exactly stack up to the previous ones.

Season 8 is definitely a great season and Season 10 picked it up a notch, but Season 9 is a little weak. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good season, but compared to the rest, that would be the first season that I would say started getting a bit hokey.


p.s. Can you believe that Season 8 is over 10 years old????

 

[RoryR]

Seasons 6-10 were great. I was watching an episode 'Trash of the Titans' and was suprised to see that its in Season 10, I figured it was one of the classics. I have completley lost track of which seasons are good, happens after 18 years.

 

[Sam Favate]

IIRC, Season 10 also contained "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," which had the hilarious spoof of The Prisoner. There is great stuff in every season.

 

[Wezzo]

RoryR: Trash of the Titans is actually S9.

Sam Favate: The Computer Wore Menace Shoes is from S12.

Sorry to nitpick..

 

[Jason_V]

I've been on board with this show since it started its LONG trek to DVD many years ago. I patiently wait for each release, grabbing it when it comes out and methodically go through every disc in three or four days.

I can't stand having an incomplete anything; therefore, if Simpsons goes to season 39, I'll have 39 little box sets lined up on the shelf.

 

[joshEH]

Quite a few years ago, this show was effectively the ONLY thing on television for most people. Now it's the ONLY thing that people watch out of habit, rather than choice. It's just on, and people visit it like that old retarded friend who we once loved, and now find incredibly annoying and pathetic. It's over. Unless the new movie is a serious jump creatively, it'll tank like nothing we've ever seen before.

Whoever it was who outlined the zenith-run for this series as having ended with the expanded "You Only Move Twice" episode really did his homework. Virtually everything Simpsons after that point is either forgettable, or only memorable because it was such utter s**t compared to all Simpsons that had come before it. The show was at its absolute best during the early-to-mid '90s, but that was almost a decade and a half ago, with its last truly shining year being the 1994-95 season.

Seriously, I'm just so damn sick of the show. I gave up watching the new episodes a good eight years ago, and still occasionally check a new one out simply due to morbid curiosity. I'm then quickly reminded how much the show reeks now. It offers a scarce laugh or two here or there, but the show's soul was sucked out a long time ago.

Now, it's all "A"-list guest stars overtaking the spotlight from the main characters, meandering plotlines, and silliness for the sake of silliness, with no real interest in reminding us of why we once actually cared about these characters. The bad seasons have become so numerous now that I'm reluctant to watch the show even in reruns, because there's a greater than fifty-fifty chance that I'll catch a bad ep instead of a classic oldie.

Put another way:

I already own the first six seasons on DVD. Beyond the seventh, I have no plans to purchase any more.

It has gone on far too long, and every subpar episode to come out now diminishes the memory of what a great show it once was.

 

[RoryR]

I agree. I remember some great episodes and was shocked to find they were made in 93 or at the latest 96 - shocking. Who is the current show runner, out of interest?

I think it was ultimatley best during the Conan O'Brien years and stayed good right through Oakley and Weinstein - dropping through the Scully years.

 

[Wezzo]

Al Jean, I believe.

 

[AnthonyC]

Who really cares if the show keeps running? Don't complain that it's a bastardization of its former self; just stop watching if that bothers you so much. Honestly, it's still a decent show and this is a great season; but when you compare it to the days of S4 - S8, you're never going to be satisfied.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would prefer season 1 to the current seasons.

 

[Ocean Phoenix]

I think Al Jean's doing a pretty good job. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the newest episode, but most of the time, I'm one of those fans who says "the show has been dead to me since the last season I loved" (which is season 8, in my case). At the same time, I admit that there has been the occasional excellent episode since that season. Al Jean has steered the ship around somewhat, but of course there's no way the show can recapture the magic of its glory years, circa seasons 2-6. It might be possible if the movie gives it a MASSIVE boost, but I doubt that will happen, no matter how good the movie is.

 

[RoryR]

The problem is its not the writers, its not the producers...its just age. I don't blame Mike Scully (he seems to be Springfields Most Hated) and I do watch occassionaly. I for one would not say anything pre-Season 3 is particularly good, but I never like the early years of a show in comparison.

 

[joshEH]

Actually, I *did* stop watching. Around 1998, as I mentioned above. Admittedly, I've heard in a few other places lately that this current season's a slight cut above the past six or seven years preceding it, and I plan on giving it more of a go...but once the writing staff began using Amazing Super-Retarded Homer (who seemed to be getting more and more super-retarded as the seasons progressed) as their "go-to" crutch at the expense of the hitherto richly-developed ensemble of years past, I threw my hands up in disgust.

Suddenly, it became all about Stupid Homer, episodes specifically written around "A"-lister guest stars while throwing rest of the main cast to the wolves (also known as "Will & Grace Syndrome"), more Stupid Homer, and general pratfall-wankery simply for the sake of pratfall-wankery, without any of the heart or the sense of simple connectedness to these peoples' lives that we got during seasons 1-7.

Someone else -- and I'll never remember who it was, but they totally nailed it -- said not long ago that the writing staff from first several seasons cut their teeth on other comedic endeavours before ever doing The Simpsons, and/or wrote their own personal, original material as stand-up comedians...but then this new generation of young writers now in charge of the series grew up with nothing but The Simpsons as their main influence, and now that's their only real frame of reference in writing the show. It's like a Xerox of a Xerox.

Just as the writers of the original Star Trek were WWII and Korea combat veterans, airline pilots, and policemen before they ever went to Hollywood -- thereby gaining a rich depth and diversity of personal experience (and even trauma) to mine for their stories in the 1960s -- the ST writers of later decades had no such "real-world" life experiences, largely being nothing but professional scriptwriters their entire post-college careers. And thus spent most of their time rewriting simply what they knew cold, which was the original show's concepts, never breaking out of their decades-old mental "Star Trek box." Again -- frame of reference.

When you look at the quality of the writing in The Simpsons' early years and the quality of the later years, the difference is total night and day.

Season 3 is where the series truly began to hit its stride, I absolutely agree, with that writing team being probably the best on television at that moment in time...but I'll still take the crude "purity" of season 1 over what we've gotten recently any day of the week.

 

[TravisR]

Dude, it's just a cartoon.

 

[MarkHastings]

^^ LOL! Yeah, as much as I am a hard core fan, I do realize it's just entertainment.

I may not belly laugh like I used to, but it doesn't anger me to sit there and watch it. I still like it. Sure, the quality may not be the same as it was, but no need to get violent over it.

As long as "Reality-TV" shows are going to plague the airwaves, I am glad that there's still something on TV that makes me smile.

 

[Kieran Brown]

When do yous think we'll even hear some sort of new of Season 8 release? So how many seasons do yous think we'll get this year?

 

[TravisR]

Just a guess but I think they'll release two seasons at the same times they did last year. Season Eight late in the summer and Season Nine at the holidays.