Rate and Review: "The Book Job" (NABF22)

[NoOneFamous]

What's with the "really short openings" (and no gags over the title) lately?

Its a good thing... it means they're actually writing more content instead of relying on a ridiculously long intro/couch gag to eat up minutes.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

And the most brilliant part is... I don't even know how to read!

Holy crap, let Matt Selman showrun The Simpsons from now on. It's not classic, but it's entertaining and funny again!

[Gatorgod]

I always give my page turning finger a brief lick before it goes into action,.. fyi
I licked this episode a lot. It was almost more fun than book reading. 5/5

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Well theres Hulu, or just torrent it or search for it, I mean come on, its 2011 man!

Eh, yeah, I never thought of Hulu.

Damn, by the looks of the poll results, this is the episode I shouldn't have missed.

[alex_on_ice]

Boy, I really enjoyed this episode. The atmosphere was great (and I loved the combination of: Skinner, Frink, Patty, Moe, Bart, Homer and Gaiman --> even Lisa was somewhat part of their group in the end). I really laughed at the joke with Moe's green troll blood. And that small part at the end between Moe and Gaiman on the beach of Shelbyville was great too. 15/20

[lovebug]

Hm, that was actually pretty good. Nothing about it really annoyed me about it but I kinda wished that the jokes were funnier. 2.5/5

[Blobulle]

Another good episode for this season.
So Matt Selman showran it ? He did the 2 best episodes of this season so far.

I liked the plot, the structure of this episode was very novel, Homer was pretty good for once , in brief it wasn't boring at all, but very entertaining.
Neil Gaiman was an excellent guest star ! I also enjoyed to see Patty, Moe, Lenny, (Homer, Bart & Lisa) Skinner and the professor Frink together.
The beginning with the dinosaurs was nice, I liked all the "NO FAIR !".
The recruitment part was really funny :

-Do you have a computer ?
-Eh, hum, yes...
-You're in.
-In what ?

I also liked when they were imagining the story of their book :

...The music throughout this episode was awesome. (what is the name of this music?)

And the whole part when they were writing their book, whereas Lisa was cleaning her window, was superb.



I'm just a bit disappointed by the end, Neil Gaiman stealing the place of Lisa and poisoning Moe... (but great line, "I don't even know how to read !")
But overall, very good episode. 4/5

[MagicMeg]

I loved it. I can relate so, so much to how Lisa kept finding ways to avoid writing her book. Dear lord, I've been there.

Also, the format used reminds of the episode 24 minutes. In a good way.

Loved it!

[Friz]

You know what... still nowhere near classic status, but I did laugh out loud a fair few times. Bravo, Selman. Gaiman's reading was fantastic, and he was animated really well too.

[cloneasaurus]

This episode was just plain fun and definitely the best of the season. I really enjoyed the heist film atmosphere and the music, and whilst relatively low on jokes the story still managed to be entertaining. There was some stuff that was hard to believe, like Moe writing some novels and having green blood, and Lisa was kinda annoying at points. Plus the beginning with the dinosaurs was kinda weird. But once this got going it was surprisingly strong, for current Simpsons. 3/5 and B-

[Gran2]

Here it is, the episode every says is great so I just have to watch it... And you know, it wasn't classic, I'll probably never watch it again, but fair is fair: that wasn't all that bad.

Some poor stuff, 'jokes' going on too long etc. But Neil Gaiman was a classic, properly used guest star: they actually made fun of him, he appeared in more than one scene, and his performance was fantastic. He did still just appear from nowehere for no reason and they did fawn over him a little bit initially, but I'll let it slide. The First Act actually had something to do with the main plot, the episode was pretty well thought out and plotted. And I laughed, and not just the standard zero times. It wasn't that memorable or really all that funny, but there wasn't actually anything outwardly offensive.

I don't particularly like Selman (at least based on the way he comes across in interviews and the commentaries) but here's hoping he usurps Jean. It wasn't great and it never will be again, but this is better than most of the recent morsels that have fallen off the decaying corpse that is this show.

[EthanRunt]

Well done Dan Vebber, one of the most consistently hysterical, interesting, entertaining episodes in years, I think the only joke that didn't work as well as it should have was Gaiman's American accent beat, but that showed he was game at the very least.
Great style, genius notion, lots of fun, good use of characters, although Frink was wasted, but just so bloody funny through and through. Loved it.

[D DEBBS]

The moment the Simpsons were in that dinosaur museum, I expected a Barney gag and I was right!

I could have told Lisa that these days, authors have ghostwriters do their work: the 'Sweet Valley High' and 'Flowers In The Attic' trash (and I do mean trash) series were NOT written by either VC Andrews nor Francine Pascal in later years.

[Bleedin' Gums Murphy]

I would first of start by saying that this is by far the best episode of season 23 thus far. It was entertaining enough and the plot was pretty decent however it was disappointing that the show just can't be consistently funny anymore, and only once in this episode did I properly laugh:

*Homer and Bart standing at Professor Frink's door*

Homer: "You have a computer?"
Frink: "Ya uhm yes"
Homer: "You're in"
Frink: "In what?"

The rest was just entertaining I guess but it still has too many wacky and zany moments in it. I mean this was a big improvement on recent Simpsons episodes but it's still a pale pale imitation of what Homer et al used to be like, particularly tragic that Lisa has become such an annoying character. Also I don't know about anyone else but surely they could have fitted a joke or some funny dialogue between Skinner and Patty about the time they went out 22 odd years ago and how they've both never aged and/or how being with him might have made her a lesbian or something. Anyway I think a 3/5 and a 6/10 is fair. Deserves a pass but by what should be the shows high standards, it's not a great pass.

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

My apologies for not being here last night, my internet crapped out Saturday and was only restored a few hours ago. Ironically, or perhaps just coincidentally(or perhaps neither), the people who are usually harder on modern Simpsons actually kinda like this one while I, who am normally very soft on the series, did not care much for it. My main problem I suppose is I just watched it last night and remember basically nothing about it, which doesn't happen for me very often. It wasn't really funny and I had only a slight interest in the plot. Basically I kinda feel like the episode was just "there." I remember thinking throughout I bet I'd enjoy this more if I got the movie references I assume all those montages were from. I won't say it was bad or anything as it wasn't, but I definitely preferred last week's episode and probably liked every episode this season so far at least as much as this one except the Halloween show. My opinion can change and I hope it does(for the better) after a re-watch, but 3/5 seems fair for now.

PS: I liked Neil Gaiman's initial scene but not much from him after, and I knew we'd have no opening again. I would honestly prefer one but won't actually complain as at least a lack of one shows the episode had a lot of time spent on it, as has been said.

[Toomanygrandmas]

Bah. I've been meaning to getting around to write a long review for both 'Replaceable You' and 'The Food Wife', but like Lisa in this episode, I've procrastinated, and now 'The Book Job' has aired, and I need to (or more like want to) write a big ol' long review for all of them. B'oh.

Anway, what about the episode itself? 'The Book Job' was actually reasonably decent. Unlike the other episodes this season, this episode didn't really have any major issues. The premise was decent, and the plot was executed quite well. I'm know little about the publishing industry, but the messages seemed to ring true. The whole 'crime' feeling to the episode was interesting, though I do feel that it broke up the episode, into what sometimes felt like separate clips. Interesting, nonetheless. I also liked the gang getting protective over their idea, after it gets changed by the publisher. Also, unlike some of the episodes this season, this episode actually had a few moments to smile, or even laugh at. I thought Neil Gaiman was a good guest star, and I liked his last line about not being able to read. Even though it was a strange start, there were also a number of amusing moments at the dinosaur show. All in all, as I said, there weren't really many major issues with this episode. The writing group was a bit random, I guess, and the characters of the members of the group weren't really utilised much, but at the end of the day, it didn't bug me too much.

Overall, not a bad episode, and probably the season's best.
3/5

[suttsteve]

I enjoyed it. I gave it a 4/5.

[jbauer]

She's just an actress they used for the cover anyway...
Seriously, you expect these newer writers to follow the show's canon? Nope.

There were a few funny jokes that saved me from rating this a solid 1/5. So, for a "meh" episode, a "meh" rating: 2/5


So, uh, when did Lisa develop ADD... and hasn't she written a book before?

Newer writers?

Valentina Garza's been on staff for 5 years, and she was the last one hired. Matt Selman's been on for 15 and still going. None of the writers on the show are "new", certainly not Dan Vebber, who first joined Futurama almost 13 years ago.

[Bert Stanton]

thoroughly enjoyed this episode, felt the beginning was fairly disjointed although still enjoyable. I will echo others in that finally a guest star has been used properly, the ending line was delivered superbly. solid 4.5/5. round up to a 5.