Greater focus on religion in Season 16 ?

[Imperciph]

Did anyone notice season 16 focussed a good deal on religion ? It included Jesus appearances more than other seasons (I myself noticed 3 appearances : Mobile Homer, Thank God Its Doomsday and The Father, the Son, the Holy Guest Star). It also referenced The Passion several times (Ned's subplot in Hail Mary Pass, The Salad Of The Christ gag in Pranksta Rap). It as a whole seemed quite ambitious to deal with recent religious phenomena such resurgence of preachy religious programmes in tv and movies and prediction of the armageddon and such. Compared to other Jean sasons which mostly devoted only episode to religion (like She Of Little Faith in season 13 and the abysmal Pray Anything in season 14) it had 2 episodes and one subplot : Thank Gods Its Doomsday, The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star and Ned's subplot in Hail Mary pass. All three deal with different aspects : Ned's subplot dealing with preachy religious propaganda in media, Thank God Its Doomsday dealing with how people may approach the rapture and The Father, the Son, the Holy Guest Star dealing with age-old catholic-protestant debate.

Now in season 17 there haven't been any Jesus jokes, Flanders hasn't shown his conversative fundamentalist side as often and perhaps only one upcoming episode deal with religious aspects (The Monkey Suit, proably ?). It is kind of intriguing or may have I am looking too much into it.

What do you think ?

[Adamm R)))]

I assume that it was to keep up with current affairs. Religion seems to be playing quite a big role in things lately (or is that just me?). I don't know why it wouldn't be shown as much in season 17 though...

[HOMR]

There was a joke about Jesus in Homer's Paternity Coot.

I think it's a good thing that it's not so focused on religion this season, it's getting kind of old.

[Homer Jay]

I really don't think that Ned's subplot in Hail Mary Pass really counts because it is more of a parody of the Passion of the Christ and the controversy surrounding that than a true religious episode. On the other two may very well have fueled each other. A writer might have suggested doing an episode that deals with religion and then the ideas for Holy Guest Star and Doomsday came up, and they both worked.

[bluemoose]

Well, in Hail Mary Pass, it became the main plot at the end, when Homer and Flanders' stories came together.

[Rest your giant head]

No,I didn't notice that!
Probably because I haven't seen the most of season 16.

And that's weird,because there were only a few episodes about religion before season 16.

[TheFlandersMan]

I didn't like Thank God it's Doomsday very much...

[Jamie]

I enjoy religion humor, it's something that you don't really see much of in most shows

[Sarcastic Guy II]

I like the religion based episodes. Thank God It's Doomsday wasn't great, but it was pretty good and well above average for the past few seasons.

TFTSATHGS was season 8 calliber if you ask me.