Rate and Review: "Replaceable You" (NABF21)

[Charlie]

Geez, and I thought I was disappointed by Nikki in Stealing First Base. Roz was an absolutely wasted character - I was so excited that Jane Lynch was guest starring, I absolutely love her (just like I was excited about Sarah Silverman in Stealing First Base). Terrible design, terribly constructed character, just a total waste of potential. Especially when they basically turned it into a parody of her Glee character. Think of something original, guys. I know it's such a small thing, but something that bothered me was how her costume changed outside of work. It just grates too much with all the regular characters. Also, I hope I wasn't the only one that thought the design of Homer's work station was very clunky, with Roz's panel placed right in front of his. All the scenes at the plant felt very awkward because of the staging.

Just a total lot of wasted potential. 2/5

[EthanRunt]

I liked the Homer Humiliator...
But geez, this episode was a little awful. Too many cut-aways and non-sequiturs, why always Marge in the bathroom? Didn't punch up a joke or add anything.
Terrible writing on this'un, Jane Lynch was wasted, and why such a bad episode to kill off a Springfieldian forever?

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

So I just re-watched parts of the episode and that quick cut to Homer getting hit in the opening is really abrupt and painful on the ears. Doesn't really set a great tone for the episode.

But that is a nitpick and I wouldn't have bothered with a new post for that alone. Did anyone actually notice that on Roz's work station are several Humble figurines, first revealed to be things collected by Ned Flanders in Season 16's "Home Away From Homer." The "Summer Dreamin'" figure in particular appears in both episodes. That's actually a pretty cool little hint of Ned's future involvement, imo. I'm sure some of you may have noticed it before but I totally missed it and definitely appreciate the reference.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

^ Also, the way Bart drew Homer for the Homer Humiliator plan is the same way he drew Angry Dad, which makes sense of course.

[Mr. Trampopoline]

Overseas Animation: Rough Draft

That might be a credits mistake; the whole thing looks like Akom actually animated it.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

I liked this one a lot! I'll trade you all my Bob's Burgers eps for this one,.. Deal?

Okay, at least I get to watch something good.

[Blobulle]

3/5
Btw the dream of Martin was good (except the end) and when he kisses Bart's fist it's not completely out of his personality.
But Milhouse making a tongue contact with his dog was awful.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Replaceable You

When this episode was first announced, I was complaining about how generic the plot is; I mean sure, most of the Simpsons plots are generic in their own terms but this one was unashamedly generic... I didn't have high hopes for the episode because of that but after seeing it in action, I can see that they couldn't even manage to make a generic plot like this at least entertaining...

Almost all of this is an exercise in futility, and I have to question why they titled this "Replaceable You" when the robot seal plot seems to be the first one mentioned off the bat... I mean the title originally referred to Homer and "Jamie Lynch", so why make the robot seal plot the main one and the plot that was originally described the subplot? This is evident when you watch the episode; as you progress along, you'll begin to see more scenes (and longer scenes) about the robot seals instead of Homer and "Roz"... I'm guessing they did that because the plot did not progress as wonderfully as they hoped it would...

What we do get of the plot, it feels unfleshed, disjointed and simply weak... The guest star mentioned in the summaries before the episode even aired was "Jamie Lynch", who Al Jean got after he saw her on Glee (easily a bad sign); the people looking forward to this were hoping that she'd play an original character and for the most part she does, but only in name. Jamie Lynch seems to be channeling her character from Glee in most of her performance, from the way she manipulates Homer to the bad things she does to Homer; it's all taken directly from her Glee character. While Jamie Lynch does seem talented and talented enough to create an original character, I guess her ego got the better of her. (I mean The Simpsons is an "American institution" right? If you appear then you forever have the "honor" of appearing on "The Simpsons", not acting, not trying, just "appearing.")

It'd be more acceptable to believe if we saw more of her and saw the connection between Homer and "Roz" but again, as said before this seems to be given less time therefore resulting in a disjointed story and a lack of believability. I mean we only see like 5 scenes with Roz while the rest are mainly just Homer and other people who happen to be with him... Because of this, I don't see how Roz can be the manipulative/evil type... She acts nice, she reports Homer, she hangs out at the bar and she makes Homer her slave but none of this aids to make sense of her character; none. In fact it makes her character seem more generic.

The moment when Ned Flanders appears and the plot reaches it's rushed climax doesn't appear to have the impact or the believability... or the funny Ned is known for... It is revealed that her secret, her worst secret in the world is... Other people touching her. Yup... I'm sure that the writers were trying to be clever but it just turns out to be really stupid and really insulting... Especially when it's used in the final scene of the plot without any effort or pacing... But hey, at least Homer got his job back and Roz is gone right? right???

Moving on... The main plot is given more screen time in this oddly titled episode. I have to say that Bart was mostly himself but there are parts where he seems out of character; the believability about him worrying about a science product does help to make the medicine down but not by much as instead of showing him struggle, he seems to be somewhat knowledgeable in what he's doing, such as in that Cootie shot that he was working on...

The most interesting part was when Bart was working with Martin; rarely do we get an episode where Bart and Martin Prince working together... There may be some but I can't pinpoint them at the moment; it's interesting but it lacks spark... The only times that we see them together is when they're working together on the Seal Robot, and that's when Milhouse is not appearing ruining stuff... In fact those moments with the Seal Robot oddly work. Surprising, I know... I wasn't expecting them to work so well... Unfortunately these scenes are hindered by some weak attempts at humor and some stuff that went on for too long; more on that later.

I have to say, the plot does transition smoothly from scene to scene... Never does there feel like there's a scene missing, it goes from point to point to point without missing a beat... Well it does miss a beat when it transitions to the funeral home, while I'm guessing the seals entertaining old people was necessary, it does lead to one of the most awkward plots The Simpsons have done... Yup, they're attempt at copying a South Park-style conspiracy involving old people and a bunch a people who we've never seen before representing the funeral homes who want to make people sad by turning the seals against them by using the same trick as shown in the first act of the episode... I don't get why this had to be included but whatever, anything to advance the plot right? I won't get into details here but let's just say that the old people get their seals back and they're happy... Then they go into a montage featuring a famous song and jesus... Yawn, then... The End...

So... Regarding the jokes; part of the reason this episode fails is because it tries to cram in so many jokes that they thought would work or they lengthen a perfectly good joke just because they thought they could get more mileage out of it. An example being the seals being aggressive. At first it was funny but then they dragged it out by having Homer being attacked by the seals; another example. SLH as Darth Vader. They could of shown the dog with the mask and be done with it but they had to drag it out with Homer bowing down to the dog and calling it Darth Vader. (I mean we get that it's Darth Vader, why bash it in.)

Additionally, Homer here was just not funny; there was a very small number of moments where he was funny but those moments where he's not funny outnumber the moments where he is. Specifically, there are tons of moments where he feels pain or goes into a monologue that involves him doing stupid things such as laugh or cry or even not understand; this has been going on for a long time but it's just pushed to the extreme here to a point where you find it hard to notice... You know, there was a time when Homer was more then just a oah who actually cared and wasn't known for mainly doing stupid stuff but I guess that time will never happen again. (That stuff he did when the episode was airing does not count.) The bit where he mentioned the bill was especially cringeworthy...

The only thing I ended up really liking was the stuff in the science fair and some of the stuff that Bart and Martin did... I mean the stuff in the science fair seemed like it was created by someone who put effort into it... The rest of the stuff, it doesn't. I mean a Paul Blart Mall Cop parody? Did anybody really remember that movie to care? At least they took an obvious safe shot about movies but still, no effort. Also what's up with Ralph and Itchy (I guess they ran out of title ideas huh, also the I&S cartoon sucked.), they sound significantly off and weird... I guess the voice actors are wearing thin when it comes to these characters, that or they needed a break from doing those characters...

Also what's up with them making the seals not able to become hostile again at the end... I mean if they were able to do that then why would there be an episode?

So regarding the entire episode, mostly everything about it feels uneven, the jokes don't hit and the plot that was intended to be the main ended up being the sub. The Jamie Lynch guest spot ended up being a waste and it managed to make the Newhart episode look better. What I'd like to know is how could they take such a generic plot and degrade it to a point where you couldn't even recognize it anymore? I guess the answer will never be known.

3.5/10

[The Wiggs]

I liked this one. I got a lot more laughs out of this episode than I have with any other episode this season. 3.5/5

[Snaked]

Once again, didn't bother to watch it.

[cloneasaurus]

It was okay. As others have said though, LOADS of wasted potential. There was good characterisations, a fairly decent sounding main plot, and for once a guest star not playing themselves. And yet this was wasted once again on lousy execution in the form of a rushed ending and an imbalance of the plots. As a result both of the endings felt completely anti-climatic, and Roz came off as overly two faced, she was hardly looked in to at all. And the subplot was just... there. Whilst it provided a few laughs (I found Snake doing the puppy dog eyes pretty funny), it was just weird, and I'm not even sure how it was resolved. They make them non-evil again, and the people that were spying on them just give up and dance.... what? The humour here was also very mixed and there were a lot of poor jokes in the typical late Jean era style. Homer's award-on-head thing was ruined by being stretched out to an inane length. In fact that whole last scene of the "main" plot was very poorly done. The heroin gag, Milhouse being overly freaky, the "pubes" stall and the "i was aiming for your testi" thing were also cringeworthy "edgy" gags that don't belong on the Simpsons, and aren't funny in the slightest. There were also a lot of cutaway esque gags here.

To this episode's benefit though I liked the characterisations of everyone (except Milhouse), which I thought was very solid. Homer came off as pretty likeable and innocent. Also the little touches. The figures from Home away from Homer, the Uter reference, the Marge in the shower call-back thing, the beach ball, a nice (albeit very short) moment of fluid animation in the film Homer watched, and Professor Frink not being dressed in a lab coat for once, which I kinda liked. Plus it had David Bowie at the end. Which is always nice.

On the whole, disappointing, but it had some nice individual moments and characterisations. Still not great though; the more I think about it the less I like it.

C-

[Mr. Krikt]

A return to the point review:

Not funny:
- Don't touch the scab! Totally random!
- Back to the drawing board...
- Martin's daydream joke. Oh I get it, he's homosexual.
- They're all pretty big. What's up with the beach ball and Marge's bathroom comments? Not funny, sorry.
- Burns walking out on his hands. Just totally random.
- Saw Homer eating the butter a mile off. That was after they spent too long trying to dislodge his head from the trophy.

What:
- Milhouse "interacting" with his dog.
- Homer mistaking SLH for Darth Vader and believing that he's something other than a fictional character.
- Same acronym joke that South Park made. Seriously, I find it hard to believe not one person brought it up.
- Heroin joke. Seriously, it's surprising but it's not shock humour.
- Dance scene at the end

Amusing:
- Angry Dad cameo.

I think the writers should just apply to work for Family Guy.

[Toomanygrandmas]

2/5 I will replace this with a longer review tomorrow. This episode was pretty dissapointing.

[Mr.]

I found most of the jokes amusing (I must be the only person who like Homer/Flanders scene) while the plot was simply poorly exected. To be honest I never seen Glee with exeption of few clips on you-tube so I propably didn't got some of the in-jokes/refrences...

[Jims]

Pretty bad.

1. If I had to pick one aspect of the Jean Era's joke-writing that they need to fix, it's this whole "mention something, then show it later" attitude. Milhouse comes into the kitchen and mentions the thing with him and his dog (an all right joke, I guess). Two scenes later, the scene ends with Milhouse and his dog. Bart mentions getting funding for the Homer Humiliator (a good joke) and then a couple scenes later, Homer's getting attacked by it. Are these things we really need to see? All we get is Homer making some, "Ooooow, this is soooo terrible" line, which makes the slapstick gag even worse.

The jokes aren't that clever enough to really warrant revisiting them. They strike me more as the writers just sponging out joke juice out of whatever they have already written.

2. The Darth Vader dog joke was another reminder of how much Homer's character has devolved over the years. He's always been a pretty dumb character, but now he acts more like a one-year-old child playing Peek-A-Boo. This kind of joke feels almost insulting to me.

3. The main Bart storyline was decent enough. It started as a weird mix of "Bart Gets an F" (with Martin) and "Duffless" (the Lisa/Bart science comp) and then morphed into shades of "Grift of the Magi" (robots) and "The Old Man and the C Student" (helping out the old folks). The science in this episode was just a little distracting, due to the implausibility of the robots... But, at the same time, The Simpsons have pulled far worse stuff in the past (like Linguo), so it's not like it sinks the thing or anything.

It did get a little worse toward the end when the scientists are somehow re-working the robots remotely like that, though. It appeared that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and just decided to use magic to get out of it.

4. The Jane Lynch plot was a clever idea, but the Bart storyline took up so much time that they couldn't really do much with it. So this plot felt really barebones. They don't really build up her dramatic change in character at all, we just have to assume the character would turn on a dime like that. They don't foreshadow her phobia of being touched at all either, so that seems to come out of nowhere either. It seemed a little lazy, too, to just have Ned Flanders just dump the solution out to Homer like that... Made the characteristic seem arbitrary and pointless.

A better way to do it would be to subtly show her throughout the episode being unwilling to touch anyone or be touched, so that the final solution would be earned. Instead, it was just obvious that they needed a way to get rid of her, so they pulled a phobia out of a hat. Maybe they actually did foreshadow this and I'm complaining about nothing? I may re-watch to see if I'm wrong.

5. There is no Number Five.

Ultimately, I think why this episode feels so weird is that they had a lot of plot pieces sliding in and out of the plot, and it was hard to get a handle on what they were going for. At first it looked like a Bart/Martin story and then it looked like a Bart/Lisa rivalry story... But then it morphed into a story about the retirement home, and then finally brought in a funeral home conspiracy. Simpsons plots do tend to have ADHD (compared to other shows), but this episode in particular felt like the writers were having trouble focusing on one plot concept for too long.

2/5.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Yes, I agree with Jims. Homer used to be lovably dumb, but now he just points out things so blatantly obvious for a cheap laugh. "WHY DOES THIS ____ DO WHAT IT SAYS!?" And his quizzical "hmm" gets on my nerves a bit too.

[HMS pinafore]

A few good jokes here and there aside this was a mess. I don't know who Jane Lynch is and why she needed to even have a guest spot. Both plots were paced so awkwardly just did not care about what would happen. Roz was such a one dimensional character (who I assume the writers just said that people will know who she is from glee so we won't need to develop her in the episode. The subplot (or was it the main plot?) with Bart and Martian was forgettable and rushed. Also the show needs to stop mill houses over creepy characterization now.

Over all I will give it 2.5/5

And despite the fact that it was pretty bad it was still the best of the season so far imo

also 400th post, wonder If i can get it to 500 for the 500th episode

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

A better way to do it would be to subtly show her throughout the episode being unwilling to touch anyone or be touched, so that the final solution would be earned. Instead, it was just obvious that they needed a way to get rid of her, so they pulled a phobia out of a hat. Maybe they actually did foreshadow this and I'm complaining about nothing? I may re-watch to see if I'm wrong.

Nope, was not foreshadowed one bit... (If you count her offering Homer to shake her hand then maybe, but I thought of it as being polite.) It really did seem like it was pulled out of a hat and morphed into a "we're hyping this up to be really big but instead it's just really simple, gotcha!"; problem is, it does not fit in well with the story so it ultimately collapses upon itself.

- Same acronym joke that South Park made. Seriously, I find it hard to believe not one person brought it up.

I noticed it as well... Just didn't find time to mention it in a scathing way so I included it in the all bad jokes point I was trying to make.

[alex_on_ice]

Boy, this episode was a lot more enjoyable than the Treehouse Of Horror XXII. I gave this episode a 12/20 (3/5), six points more than I had given to the Treehouse of Horror (probably the worst one I ever saw - 6/20).

The ending of this episode was quite strange... and I didn't like Martin's little dream. For me, the Seal story was more entertaining than the Homer and Roz story. Best episode of the season so far. But I hope I'll be able to go higher than 12/20 this season.

Grade Summary for Season 23:

The Falcon And The D'ohman : 8/20 (2/5)
Bart Stops To Smell The Roosevelts : 9/20 (2.25/5)
Treehouse Of Horror XXII : 6/20 (1.5/5)
Replaceable You : 12/20 (3/5)

[D DEBBS]

I liked Bart's story more than Homer's (even though it resembled the Funzo/Evil Krusty doll episodes).

[Mr. Krikt]

The ending of this episode was quite strange...

It felt a bit like last week's THoH. They didn't know how to end the segments so here's a Spider-Man parody/God/a bunch of crazy animals. This week was here, have a dance segment.

Also, was Homer promoted back to his old position at the end of the episode?

[HMS pinafore]

How many episodes need to end in a dance? It has been overdone

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

HEY EVERYBODY


SURF'S UP!

[lolcats]

That NAMBLA joke? It was funnier on South Park imo...

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Also, was Homer promoted back to his old position at the end of the episode?

As usual, I don't think they'd threaten the status quo even though Homer had all of those jobs in the past that he quit his old job for.

[Dark Homer]

the good people at dead homers pointed out that martin only had two lines during the last 2/3s of the episode

http://deadhomersociety.wordpress.co...martin-prince/

[Diversity Pumpkin]

How many eepisodes need to end in a dance? It has been overdone

Yes. Yes. A million times yes.

[Monty_Burns]

I thought the episode was going to be about Homer's assistant replacing him, but they spent more time in the boring robot seals story. aside from a few jokes, the whole episode was meh.

[Jgr9]

I'm sad to say that I am unsurprised that this is already looking like it will be the new worst season ever, even with just 2 episodes. I have finally reached the point where I am insulted by watching the Simpsons. And I thought there might have been a little hope for improvement from a couple episodes last season...

[bovine_university]

Not good, in fact it got worse as the episode went on. After the first two mediocre episodes, the Halloween episode and now this, I'm getting worried about this season.

It started off fine really, I liked seeing Bart and Martin working together (though it's been done before) and it led to some good laughs here and there. Lisa getting second and Bart getting first place due to a cutesy project felt a little too much like Duffless, but I was still with it by the time the senior citizens stepped into the picture. It just fell apart however, by the time the funeral home people stepped in. It was odd how Lisa just disappeared from the plot in general and Martin had less and less to do as time went on. It was amusing to imagine the funeral representatives upset about the loss in business, but their involvement just led to a bunch of weird gags and plot developments that just made less sense and were less funny. How did the funeral people rewire all the seals? Frink can apparently just remotely change all the seals back by flipping a switch? All the senior citizens get the toys back and everyone is happy again, including the funeral homes? It just felt lazier and lazier until it just ended, so very frustrating.

Then there's the plot about Homer and Jane Lynch, which really should have just been its own episode. Jane Lynch was okay I suppose, but the writing didn't do her any favors, maybe they should have let her improvise some dialogue, that could have been funny. In the end, she's a very thin character thrown into a very thin rivalry with Homer that is resolved with a very thin plot point. If they had given her some more time to develop as a character or given her and Homer some more scenes bonding we might have cared more when she backstabs Homer, instead we all see it coming. I was even hoping there would be some twists about how we are led to believe she tattled on Homer but it was someone else, or even more scenes where she is friendly and lovable to everyone except Homer. It all ends up being for nothing, we just get a very simple development about her that puts her in her place, and a very long and unfunny scene with Homer getting a trophy stuck on his head (I could have sworn they've done the butter joke before too).

On top of all of this, the humor was very awkward at times too. Some of the early gags were funny, but others were weird or disturbing, like the fact that one of the senior citizens we've seen many times before is now apparently dead, or Milhouse kissing dogs, or the Jetsons gag that had no purpose at all. This was another disappointing episode. 2/5