Season Fifteen Best Episode: Part Two (The Way We Weren't Wins)

[Channel Surfer]

"The Way We Weren't", easy choice here. Like the very best flashback episodes, boasts a strong storyline with engaging characterizations of Homer and Marge and, like "The Way We Was", contrasts between their two younger lives. Lots of great little scenes between the two, and a somewhat interesting narrative by Homer and Marge (and us) only really learning what went on when sharing their own separate perspectives keep what could be a tiring format fresh.

[Xt'Tapalatakettle]

Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore, followed closely by Fraudcast News. To be honest, I think if I watched those two back to back, I'd probably say Fraudcast News because of its great media monopoly satire, but I remember on first viewing, I like MDLHA better, despite its lack of satire.

[brody]

"The Way We Weren't" although I didn't really care for it on first viewing. Modern classic, possibly.

[Speedy Boris]

This is hard. Very few of those do I enjoy. I'll choose Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore, though even that one suffered when I rewatched it. I think that I liked it so much when it first aired because it wasn't uncharacteristically goofy and wacky, but it's still missing something that makes it "modern classic" material. Maybe it was the bad ending.

Smart and Smarter is a close second.

[BrideofMoleman]

Simple Simpson for me. Didn't have as many lame jokes as the other ones, and was truly an entertaining episode to watch. Not to mention I'm a huge fan of Hero-Homer (as in any Homer form that has him helping others) and that it was a great parody of comic book heroes, showing Burns' old ways a bit as well. Dalai Llama's appearance was kind of dumb, especially with his flying out the window, though Homer revealing himself and no one believing him was a pretty funny twist. I also loved that Spiderman-esque kiss between Homer and Marge. Not to mention the ending with "Cupcake Kiss"

So yeah, though some of the plot points were a bit vary, Simple Simpson was an overall strong choice.


The Way We Weren't is a very close second, only reason I gave it to Simple Simpson was because I would be more excited to watch the latter

[J-Spot]

This batch isn't as strong as part 1. The first two are both decent, if not spectacular. Catch 'em if You Can is fun, but doesn't hold up as well on repeated viewings. I though Simple Simpson would be horrible when I heard the plot, but it turned out to quite funny. I'll give it the nod.

[Raymond]

Well, I was the first to vote for the one I voted for in each half of this season.

[grissom]

Simple Simpson. Awesome superhero parodies, lots of great humor, excellent episode. Lots of honorable mention-type episodes in here.

[TheForbiddenDonut]

Not having seen Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore, I voted for 'The Way We Weren't'. Sure, it had it's fair share of problems, but looking more at how good the good aspects were as opposed to looking for flaws, this episode was pretty great.

[Snack Related Mishap]

Way We Weren't. Basically what channel surfer said exactly. Although, I think Fraudcast News came in a close second. Besides the infamous "you better be good at making out," tacked on line, it is easily one of the best from the Jean Era.

[TriforceBun]

The Way We Weren't is my favorite Jean episode. The storytelling is oustanding, the character-based gags work great, and the emotion is present and accounted for. If you ask me, this is an episode that would be great in any season.

[Xt'Tapalatakettle]

I don't understand the love for Simple Simpson. I don't even think it makes my top 5 out of this list. It was decent, but about as pointless as the Spiderman movies it parodied.

[Imperciph]

Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore has the best Bart and Lisa interaction in the last 4/5 years. It was not contrived faux emotion like in Bart Vs. Lisa Vs. The 3rd Grade ( shallowest character-based episode of all time) or On A Clear Day I Can't See My Sister but it was really organic and sincere and both Bart came off as very empathetic characters. However, the episode didn't have have a very smooth plot transition, Homer's panhandling subplot was only mildly funny and the handling of Bart's sadness was actually a bit overdone at first. And damn fucking ending spoils the episode completely. Why the fuck did they have to ruin the ending of the most sincere Bart and Lisa episode of the last 4 or 5 years by making some references to The Jeffersons and some meta jokes about scmaltzy endings ? I don't care if that gag's clever, it still should have ended with the hugging.

Fraudcast News has decent characterization of Lisa and Burns with Burns being closer to his classic evil meglomaniac self than the wacky senile boss we've seen since season 9. While Burns's motivation for buying all media in order to improve his image was slightly contrived, Lisa's motivation was well-done. Burns and Lisa interacted well and produced some great moments (Burns : "Are you always on?" , "Get out of my office", "my mom doesn't come pick me up until 1 hour) and the satire of Burns taking over all media was fairly well-done with the Itchy and Scratchy short and Burns's slandering of Lisa in his newspaper being among the best satirical moments of the Jean Era. The ending of everybody creating their own newspaper also works well.

Where this episode falters is in humour. While there are some great inspired gags like Homer's "That was totally worth it", Burns's fight with an ant or Milhouse's "Way to go, moon Milhouse" the episode bombs with some lame gags like "BOOOOBS". And Burns's decent characterization is greatly damaged by an overload of bad anatomy jokes (eating insects, crawling like snakes, his brain falling out of his ear). I mean, how can a character appear to be menacing when he is sucking on a mother mole ?

So, in the end, I am voting for The Way We Weren't, which features storytelling of classic quality, has great callbacks to The Way We Was, some of the most innovative well-animated gags of s15, empathetic characterisation of Homer and Marge and is not hampered by rough plot transition or too many bad gags.

[joe]

I know it is hated here, and I was tempted to vote for Fraudcast or Milhouse Doesn't Live Here.. but I have to go with Bart Mangled Banner out of these choices.

[lindsay]

All these episode are pretty good, expect for like 2 (Bart Mangled Banner and My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Although, I haven't seen any of them in a while, so my opinion may have changed. Anyways, I went with The Way We Weren't

[Sniper Squirrel]

I chose freudcast news for the return of tyrant burns, but I also really enjoyed the way we weren't

[bovine_university]

I'd love to see Millhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore or Simple Simpson win, but I'm going with The Way We Weren't. With all of the episodes about Marge and Homer falling in and out of love, it's hard to believe that the show managed to put a refreshing spin on a sweet story, and make it work as well as it did. Seeing the major and minor characters as kids was fun (though not exactly original), the way the story unfolded was engaging and interesting, the jokes were quite funny, and the emotion felt genuine and touching. The only thing I didn't really like was Marge's reluctance to forgive Homer in the present day, since it gratuiously slowed things down and broke up the seriousness of the situation. Still, the ending was very sweet and the episode overall was just very well-rounded and entertaining.

[Ryan_]

Catch 'Em if you Can. Best of the season.

[Adam R]

TWWW has grown on me over time, I voted for it. I also enjoy Fraudcast News and MDLHA. I like Smart and Smarter's humour, definately one of the funnier ones in a dry season. CEIYC and Simple Simpson are meh, I never understood their love. Also here we have the two worst episodes since Scully (although last season's SAOTM would come close) in Bart Mangeled Banner and Co-Dependant's Day.

[Simpsons Forever!]

Simple Simpson

[Nebuchanezzar]

I was never a fan of The Way We Weren't, nor was I ever a fan of Simple Simpson (it's on my worst list). Milhouse Doesn't Live here Anymore is very good and realistic, and is just what a Simpsons episode ought to be, but The Wandering Juvie was just a little bit more entertaining (if I'm thinking of the right episode here).

[Kiyosuki]

This is actually a really, really tough choice for me. This section has some actual bonafide favorites of mine.

I eventually voted for Milhouse Doesn't Live here Anymore and I'll tell you why. Quite possibly one of the best Bart & Lisa episodes of them all. Its so endearing without being overly sappy and devoid of humor that I just can't not vote for it despite the incredibly cheap out of nowhere last gag in the ending. Honestly, I just pretend it ends with Bart and Lisa hugging...where I truly think it should of ended. I'm all for well times random humor, and that was just terrible timing.

I think this episode's ending could of been very reminicent of Mother Simpson's if it wasn't for that "lets break the fourth wall because this is too sappy!" cop out joke. Just real tragically ill-timed humor.

It was a great look at Bart, especially in his modern form, and a real endearing depiction of a more innocent...not in "protest" mode Lisa. She just wanted to play with her big brother. ;/ Man Jean...what were you and the writers thinking with that ending?!

I generally like all of these episodes, Fraudcast News almost got my vote. Way we Weren't and Catch em' if you Can are my other favorites. The one weak entry in this I think is Bart-Mangled Banner. While a real ingenius idea to poke fun at shallow patriotism, it just got real weird later for me.

[Postmaster]

A lot of these are episodes that have all gone downhill in subsequent viewings for me.
MDLHA on 2nd viewing didn't really seem that intresting or engaging, and really didn't have much going on humour-wise. Smart & Smarter seemed ok to me at first but then, when I saw it again just felt really silly, sappy and saturday morning ish, Simple Simpson wasn't quite as funny as I rememberd.
Nor was The Way We Weren't, there's a decent amount of character stuff, but not enough proper jokes, and the fantasy sequnce, really goes on too along, and really isn't especially funny. But the bigger problems are in the story, and how Marge has such a problem that Homer would have kissed someone else before her, and then even after he gives an explnation for why he missed the date, she still seems upset. It's not as bad as other modern day marriage crisis episodes, but it was still a weak bit of writing that reeked of padding. Fraudcast News also has some really uneven humour, and the story just doesn't feel quite as exciting or dynamic as it should, it has that s17 feel hate where something that should have some strong dramatic tension, just feels quite flat. Nonetheless, I think I'll say Fraudcast, it does also have a lot of great jokes and a good sweet ending.

[Ben Allman]

I don't understand the love for Simple Simpson. I don't even think it makes my top 5 out of this list. It was decent, but about as pointless as the Spiderman movies it parodied.

Please explain. The pointless bit, not the Spiderman bit.

For me, Simple Simpson is a great and refreshing episode that shows how to be wacky and have fun, yet still maintain the balance of characters and be consistently funny. Oh, and it is beautifully directed. Season 15 was a suprisingly entertaining year!

[George Cauldron]

I've given my vote to Simple Simpson, with the same reasoning as I did for I D'ohbot and Fat and the Furriest in the other thread (though I didn't vote for those) - that the episode sounds silly, even stupid on paper, but once written, acted and animated, it actually really works well! It's funny, the animation is quite outstanding, I liked the use of colour, the parodies were well done, and crucially, there were very few questionable moments or jokes.

And now for my quick analysis of the rest of the episodes.
Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore, is, for the most part, a nice, touching episode about friendship, but Imperciph earlier on got it spot-on about the ending, ruined the episode completely. I don't care if it was schmaltzy, the level of schmaltziness was just perfect and didn't need a joke for joke's sake.
Smart and Smarter was an episode that I enjoyed on its first viewing, but subsequent watchings of the episode didn't live up to that first viewing, which is odd, because it's usually the opposite for me - I tend to not fully appreciate an episode first time round, only to improve my perception of it later on.
The Ziff Came To Dinner is, well, it's okay really. Okay okay, it's got a brilliant couch gag but perhaps that's all the episode has going for it. Though I liked Artie squirting the prisoners' cigarettes, and the groaning in the bedroom turning out to be Artie struggling to get his socks off.
Co-Dependent's Day - One word for this episode: "Yawn!" I really can't remember this episode too well.
The Wandering Juvie was okay as season fifteen episodes go. Par for the course. Decent, but nothing outstanding, didn't do that much for me, I have to say.
My Big Fat Geek Wedding, again, is an episode I quite like, despite its almost universal loathing by everybody else. I agree that it's not a brilliant episode, and parts of it feel contrived as anything, but it has enough humour in it which endears me to the episode somewhat. And if Principal Skinner in a Catwoman outfit doesn't tickle your fancy, quite frankly, I don't know what else will.
Catch 'Em If You Can, I remember being a good, fast-paced episode, and the parody of the opening sequences to the movie it's based on was quite well done (was that done in Flash by the way?), though it did go on for too long, and if you haven't seen the film, the whole point of that sequence is completely lost on the viewer.
The Way We Weren't is a decent episode. I admit that I did not like it at first, I found it uninspired. However, like the hair on my legs, the episode has grown on me over time.
Bart-Mangled Banner, I have never really liked. Other people have explained their reasoning for not liking the episode better than I have. All I can say is that I'm not sure why I don't like it, I just don't like it.
And as for Fraudcast News, it does a mostly good job, particularly in the satire department, but as a whole, it's just not as good as the episode I voted for.

[Veryjammy]

The Way We Weren't by a considerable margin. Definetely the weaker half of Season 15, this episode stands head and shoulders above the rest. Charming and inventive, it's also very funny, with an intriguing story told from two different perspectives. The dream sequence is one of the best moments of the season; maybe not particularly funny, it is nevertheless superbly put together and great fun to watch. The only real flaw is the wraparounds; the opening is weak, and the subsequent conflict between Homer and Marge is contrived and actually doesn't make much sense the more you think about it. Regardless, this is one of the best Jean episodes.

I've never understood the appeal of Simple Simpson. Silly, blunt and dull. Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore has a poor first act with lots of forced dialogue, but improves in the second and third acts. Problem is that the panhandler subplot is unnecessary and means that the Bart/Lisa angle doesn't get the development it deserves. Something like the burial mound or whatever it was feels like a very empty plot beat just to give Bart something to tell Milhouse about rather than something organic and truly meaningful and relevant.

[Nameless]

The Way We Weren't easily, followed by Simple Simpson.

[coltonwiggum]

FN and TWWW were close, but I voted for Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

[Speedy Boris]

The main thing I didn't like about "Simple Simpson" is how absolutely stupid the townspeople were. The fact that they wouldn't recognize Homer just because he was under a mask was just too unbelievable for me to enjoy the episode, despite having a few funny gags. It got even more ridiculous in "See Homer Run" when people couldn't recognize Homer just because he was under a lizard costume, with his head clearly sticking out.

[Number 10767]

^ Well, Simple Simpson was an obvious superhero parody, and what you pointed out is an obvious superhero cliche that they were making fun of. I really enjoy that episode, as well as The Way We Weren't. On a different day I might vote for one of those, but today my vote goes to Fraudcast News.