Final Analysis/Rate and Review: Season 23

[Homer I Am]

not only the worst season of the simpsons, but the worst season of any show, ever

Yeah, it's worse than season 11. Especially episodes like Holidays of Future Passed and The Book Job.

[parklife]

those episodes may have been a refreshing change from a decade of blandness, but compared to essentially any pre-jean era episode, they're just another example of simpsons mediocrity

[zach]

Holidays of Future Passed is overrated as hell. it's not even good. i never laughed once, never felt for anyone. in my opinion.

[Homer I Am]

That's a load of bullsh -- oh wait, it's Jerkass Homer .

[zach]

ehhh!

[Homer I Am]

That's a nice picture of you, Jerkass Homer. I say, did you get a new tan?

[The Governor]

Holidays of Future Passed is overrated as hell. it's not even good. i never laughed once, never felt for anyone. in my opinion.

If it aired in the exact form during Scully's reign of terror, you'd be saying it was better than the classic era.

[zach]

well...no because it had no jokes that i laughed at.

[TriforceBun]

All in all, S23 soured me a bit on the show. It's unfortunate, because there were still some bright spots that had a little life in them, such as...

-The Book Job: a clever, fun heist parody that knew what it wanted to be and ran with it
-Holidays of Future Passed: I don't love it but it's still an ambitious and well-written character-driven show
-The Spy Who Learned Me: a surprisingly enjoyable gag-driven show that managed to hit the right notes for me, humor-wise
-How I Wet Your Mother: Inception parodies are overdone, but there was enough creativity here to work
-A Totally Fun...: starting to get a lot of hate around here, but I thought it was solid and actually had some nice story decisions and a focused plot for once

On the other hand, S23 hits new lows for my personal rankings by delivering a whopping SEVEN D-range episodes...and Ds are pretty uncommon for me. Let's take a look...

-THOH XXII: I'm not sure what's sadder: a segment that involves a paralyzed Homer communicating through farts...or the fact that that wasn't even the WORST segment of the episode!
-The D'oh-cial Network: I generally can't stand The Simpsons' technology-driven stories/jokes. It always feels so forced and blahhhhh
-Politically Inept With Homer Simpson: Comedically Inept With Modern Simpsons is more like it. Thank you, thank you
-Lisa Goes Gaga: Never before has a butt been so thoroughly kissed on the show, and Lisa's plight was completely glossed over
-The Ten-Per-Cent Solution: I just remember this being one of those really bland Jean eps that you completely forget the next morning. Except with worse humor than usual
-Beware My Cheating Bart: The ep's rather sexual premise was just too much and pervaded the whole squicky show
-Them, Robot: Really dumb and wacky, which is a shame because the first act was surprisingly strong

The middle episodes are all pretty tepid and forgettable. I will say that I didn't hate Rags (C-) as much as most other people. It was weak and felt a lot like a trilogy ep, but at least it tried something kind of new and dynamic, and that actually can go a long way in my appreciation of an episode. It's the boring, uninspired, and laughless romps that really get the low grades from me. See THOHXII and D'ohcial Network.

Unfortunately, I have to say that S11 has been dethroned as the worst season.

[parklife]

If it aired in the exact form during Scully's reign of terror, you'd be saying it was better than the classic era.

'holidays of future passed' essentially exists in the classic era in the form of 'lisa's wedding', a bottom-tier 90s episode if i ever saw one

both shows suffer from lack of humour and the amount of 'depth' this board attributes to the writing is not nearly as enveloping as something like 'marge be not proud'. i feel that 'holidays' is going to be the go-to episode in the future to explain why season twenty-three was 'not that bad', but in the grand scheme of the simpsons, 'not that bad' essentially means 'slightly less revolting than the seasons that preceded it'

[Disgrunted Martian]

Season 23 - Top 3
- The Book Job
- How I Wet Your Mother
- A Totally Fun Thing Bart Will Never Do Again

Season 23 - Bottom 3
- Treehouse of Horror XXII
- Beware My Cheating Bart
- The D'oh-cial Network

In my opinion, it's not the worst season, but definitely one of the worst.

FOX, please, get Al Jean away from the show.

[Sinister Burns]

Sorry to disappoint you, but FOX can't touch him.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

But hopefully he can get mauled by a fox.

[Dobbie]

The season that tells you that Al Jean's time is truly up. Some have been saying this for years, but this season's 'quality' just confirms that fact.

The first season where I said to myself 'Ugh, I'm not arsed to watch this!' or my mind just shuts off after 3 minutes of watching an episode. The only episodes with any sort of credibility in my opinion are The Book Job, Holidays of Futures Passed and The Wettest Stories Ever Told (even though I appreciated Holidays for it's good nature characters and ideas, I don't remember any jokes from it!). Then you have disasters like Inept, Gaga and Robot which are quite frankly embarassing to watch and then forgettable episodes you don't even realise they exist until you see the episode name pop out (Falcon, Roosevelts, Pants, Kwik-E-Mart, etc.).

Overall it's been a very weak and boring season and I think the viewer numbers demonstrate that perfectly. I've never seen such a list of flat, uninspiring episodes following each other (in past seasons, there would be a decent episode or two somewhere, but this one it's time to deliver good episodes).

Season 24 simply cannot be any worse. -D and that's being a tad generous.

[Financial Panther]

The Wettest Stories Ever Told is from season 17...

[Prune Tracy]

The Wettest Stories Ever told is from season 17...

If I had to take a guess, I'm thinking Dobbie meant How I Wet Your Mother.

[The Governor]

'holidays of future passed' essentially exists in the classic era in the form of 'lisa's wedding', a bottom-tier 90s episode if i ever saw one

both shows suffer from lack of humour and the amount of 'depth' this board attributes to the writing is not nearly as enveloping as something like 'marge be not proud'. i feel that 'holidays' is going to be the go-to episode in the future to explain why season twenty-three was 'not that bad', but in the grand scheme of the simpsons, 'not that bad' essentially means 'slightly less revolting than the seasons that preceded it'

I'l agree LW wasn't the funniest and it's not one of my favorite episodes, Marge not be proud--A Scully written episode!--is NOT deep, either. MNBP is very sitcommy in it doesn't really offer anything that's beyond standard sitcom fair, besides having likable characters. Season 23 is shit, but Holidays is a great episode.

[Dobbie]

If I had to take a guess, I'm thinking Dobbie meant How I Wet Your Mother.

Indeed. For some reason I keep calling it the Wettest Stories Ever Told!

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

I've never truly hated the show's post-classic run until season 21.

[parklife]

I'l agree LW wasn't the funniest and it's not one of my favorite episodes, Marge not be proud--A Scully written episode!--is NOT deep, either. MNBP is very sitcommy in it doesn't really offer anything that's beyond standard sitcom fair, besides having likable characters. Season 23 is shit, but Holidays is a great episode.

i dunno man, you can downplay the writing of 'marge be not proud' and say its got a formulaic 'sitcom' structure, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. it's a formula that works in that episode and allows top-notch humour and emotion to flourish. i feel like i could rewatch 'marge be not proud' again and again because it makes me smile and it makes me feel something, but 'holidays of future passed' is, like the rest of this season, sterile and boring. sure, it's 'nice', but i'll never feel the urge to watch it again, and i'm perplexed why anyone else would.

i feel the exact same way about any of the 'standout' episodes of the past ten years. not one of them is worth seeing again

[Jesse Pinkman]

s23 is the first season where i didn't care if i missed any episodes from it. in fact, i still haven't seen anything past The Daughter Also Rises, and I'm honestly in no big hurry to either. Book Job and Holidays are my favorites, but i mean, the rag episode and the d'ohcial network... come on.

[Cartoonnetwork]

I've been looking the lists of episodes. Season 20 and 21 had several good episodes and I think they are pretty decent seasons, even if season 20 doesn't get really good until the HD episodes (I think both The Good, The Sad and The Drugly and Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh are probably in the top ten of Jean era) and season 21 includes some forgettable ones (but it also has fantastic episodes like The Devil Wears Nada). Season 22 was mixed and closer to season 23 in its highs and lows...but it will probably still have a bigger number of decent to good episodes.

I personally think the three episodes listed above (TGTSATD, Waverly Hills and TDWN) totally exemplify how good the show could be today, I kinda like those three cause they are not format-benders and they are not extremely surreal stories, because those episodes being better than average are kind of a given nowadays. But these are pretty realistic episodes that just have good visuals and animation direction and conflicts that are somewhat new for the show.

I wish they managed to do episodes like those more often instead of the crappy premises and developments we had in this last season, or the good but extremely surreal and/or especially structured format benders outings that we have in every Jean season.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

The Simpsons: Season 23

In the long line of Modern Simpsons seasons, there have been seasons where none of them really stood out either in quality, terribleness and notability. Sure, there were seasons which looked like The Simpsons were out of ideas but those managed to have some saving elements in them that made the seasons merely mediocre. This season however manages to do the thing that other seasons have not, stand out; because a majority of this is terrible.

Things start off okayish with "The Falcon and the D'ohman" which while better then last seasons opener, manages to be a bland, forgettable and often confusing episode wasting a Keither Sutherland guest spot; as time goes on it seemingly manages to find it's footing bringing what could be considered the two best episodes of the season. "The Book Job" and "Holidays of Future Passed". Both of those episodes are good because they contain things the other episodes don't, charm, comedy, unique ideas, decent execution, and an enjoyability factor that while not comparable to the classic era, is still pretty good nonetheless. "The Book Job" manages to twist the world of children's books into a Ocean's 11 type heist that's serves as the perfect basis of the episode, mixing in decent plot and decent commentary complete with a guest star who more then holds his own ("Neil Gainman") while "Holidays of Future Passed" manages to do something the Jean has had trouble doing, making the characters involving, seemingly believable and making the entire episode heartfelt, sensible and somewhat funny though it's not exactly flawless. After both of those episodes however the season never seems to offer the same heights. In fact it seems to go downward, creating the largest number of episodes which rate in the lower section of the rating scale; which is disappointing considering the number of decent episodes that existed in Season 22 compared to the two good episodes here.

One has to ask how they manages to make tons of subpar/terrible episodes, and the answer lies within the episodes themselves... Movie parodies like "The D'oh-cial Network", "The Man in the Blue Fannel Pants" and unfortunately "Treehouse of Horror XXII" aren't parodies per say; mostly they're Simspons characters being reduced to playing the roles of the characters from the movies without any hint of their characterization, mostly following the plot bit by bit without any variations or even adjustments to fit within the world of Springfield; sure they parody some of it but those parodies manage to end up being "homages" that don't even mock the movie. The scene where Homer is in a deer tractor in "TMITBFP" is an example of this, they just took the scene bit by bit from Mad Men but added some Simpsons twist to make it different and the annual ToH is unanimously the worst ToH ever, why? all of the stories aren't even parodies of horror or sci-fi (excluding one) and those stories seem particularly painful to watch; especially considering the fart jokes in the first segment, the senseless kill fest that tries to parody Dexter in the second segment and the pathetic Avatar parody that tries to be edgy with sex in the third segment and the intro which rips off Scary Movie 4. Non-simpsons character centric episodes such as "Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts" and "The Ten-Per-Cent Solution" try to give some depth and exploration into the characters shown but the secondary characters aren't given traits that make themselves look interesting and are often thrown into haphazard plots that are inconsistent, poorly constructed and serve to focus on one thing rather than the other. Poor Krusty and Chalmers deserved so much better; especially since those episodes revealed and established some of their character.

The writing of the episodes seems to have degraded significantly, in many episode we have plots which are as contrived as they are predictable. Many times the writers inability to have confidence in the audience is shown as a lot of obvious stuff is repeated, stuff like "you don't know what you're doing"; while that may be fine to the audience Jean wants, for a smarter audience they'll want something more then just repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again like a sledgehammer. Alot of the times the episode writers take an episode and add some odd concepts into it that hurt the episode; take for instance "The Food Wife", it has Marge as a foodie but then they introduce odd stuff like CBG being a foodie, the bad Tim & Eric rap, Homer ending up at a meth lab, E4 and some sort of competition to be considered cool dad or cool mom; none of the things meshed well within the narrative of the episode and they turned what could of been an average plot with some decent moments into an odd excursion that involved a homage to foodies everywhere, odd characterizations that worked against the plot and an awkward ending at a meth lab; no matter how many decent jokes they include, they can never offset the oddness of what's seen. They've also seemed to become more generic in their plots, "Replaceable You" (sharing the same name as a Newhart episode.) is a generic Homer gets a new boss, new boss is nice but then new boss manages to screw him and Homer manages to get the boss back and while the best writers can do something with the plot, what they do rings generic as Homer and the guest star from Glee go through the sitcom tropes without even a sense of anything from both him and the guest star; what's worse is that they don't even care whether it gets explained further or not (especially since the better subplot got more airtime then the main plot), as long as everything is okay at the end, the world keeps spinning.

Format benders like "Moe Goes From Rags to Riches" and "How I Wet Your Mother" proclaim to be something different and may of possibly offered the best of Season 23 but they end up being bad and in the case of one of the episodes listed, infamously terrible. The rag episode is by far the most terrible format bender ever, with a talking bar rag guiding us through moments of history populated by Simpsons characters that somehow turns into a morale lesson that your true friends are all around you; there is nothing unique or interesting about seeing a rag being tormented and abused and traded through time in the most unfunniest of ways; the rags history is interesting but that's not the point, it basically made a mockery of what a format bender is, especially when they included an unfunny subplot involving Bart & Milhouse; I mean who includes a subplot in a format bender episode? "How I Wet Your Mother" is a bit better but not by much as it manages to get a Homer & Mona plot muddled within an Inception parody that references more then it parodies, with a majority of the time going to the Inception parody and little going towards the Homer & Mona plot. (which was sorely needed as that scene in the end isn't enough to gain critical acclaim in my opinion.) Format benders are usually the episodes where the writers break free of their shackles and write whatever plot they have in mind that might be clever, a decent character plot or even something out of the ordinary (see "500 Keys" from the previous season for an example.) but in this case, it seems like the writers are shackled, writing plots that are no different from the trife of this season and don't show the enthusiasm that these writers ever so proclaim they have.

As expected, the jokes are less than par (especially the outdated movie parodies), overexplained and random; the characters themselves have lost all definition and individuality becoming more like people who cause chaos, act stupid, act like thugs with overly layered opinions and get into arguments all for the sake of plot/comedy rather and the entire town of Springfield turned into something resembling Los Angeles but what makes this different is that it's more noticeable this time around, compare Season 22 to 23 and you'll know what I mean. There are attempts where they make the characters charming and appealing, episodes like "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again", "The Daughter Also Rises", "Ned 'N' Edna's Blend", "Beware my Cheating Bart" and unfortunately "Lisa Goes Gaga" aim to provide some sort of semblance that the other episodes haven't but none of these manage to be truly worthy of mentioning; "TDAR", "N&EB" and "BMCB" have the formations of plots that would seem to create decent Simpsons episodes ("BMCB" had something that would of been decent under the right light; ie Bart babysitting a teen.) but ultimately create the blandest of episodes as though they manage to get the moments and the characters down, they can't get the heart or appeal or even the uniqueness that at least provided something to those episodes; leading to episodes that though containing some unique ideas (especially the Ned and Edna one) will ultimately evaporate from your memory as soon as the episode stops airing and leave you with disappointment, (especially the Ned and Edna one) even the guest stars that populate these episodes can't save them. "A Truly Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again" does have Bart acting like a kid but that is undermined by the muddiness of the extravagant cruise ship plot (especially the second half) and the episode's attempts to create some sort of clever morale involving penguins that though will captivate 85% of the audience, will ultimately turn the rest of the people off with pretentiousness and nausea.

The season finale, "Lisa Goes Gaga" contains Lisa acting sad and some very decent acting from Yardley Smith and while that is rare considering her behavior in the earlier seasons; it's ultimately wasted as it's paired up with Lady Gaga who manages to make the emotion shown from Lisa really, really shallow. Lady Gaga also manages to make an episode into a promotion of herself with songs that came directly out of her studio albums, satire that mainly focuses on how extravagant, expensive and sexy Gaga is and how many costumes Gaga can fit into with the other stuff being put on the backburner. (though they do parody it somewhat but still.) It's actually sickening to see a Lisa plot revolve around a shameless Lady Gaga performance, it'd be less shameless if the whole appearance wasn't over-the-top but it just seems like they forced Lisa's inner-self plot and revelation into Lady Gaga which ended up being honored more then parodied. There are some decent jokes in the season, though they're in a severely lesser amount and "Them, Robot" and "Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson" seem to have some ideas on how to use those decent jokes (the political aspects and some of the robot stuff is decent) but both episodes manage to have stupid moments that outweigh the flashes of brilliance that exist and both waste their highly promoted guest stars in roles that don't suit them at all, (Ted Nuget did better work in ATHF and the TNG guy, well...) plus the endings that they have are simply terrible, reflective of the episode's content I guess... Then there are episodes like "Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart" which is an episode that people seem to like but seems unfunny, convoluted, confused and desperate; containing a weak graffiti parody complete with guest stars, ton of unfunny gags and a Homer & Bart plot (which starts off and ends poorly) that doesn't seem to get a proper focus. "The Spy Who Learned Me" compared to "Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart" is better but it's confusing, mostly unfunny and contains an inconsistent Marge & Homer marriage crisis plot that attempts to be clever with an imaginary friend and ends up failing; I'll admit, it is stupidly funny but still...

I don't know what the writers were thinking when they were making this; they seemed to be living in their own little world, not thinking much of the outside world and thinking that they were still as great as ever when in actuality their work was getting worse, the people not living in that world saw what was happening but couldn't luster up the care to get involved, mainly because these people were so involved in their own world that they couldn't be taken out of it; they only thought only of themselves when they made these episodes, inserting jokes that they thought were funny and stuff that they thought was clever. I mean look at the milestone episode "At Long Last Leave", the writers wrote it thinking that it would be a cinematic masterpiece that perfectly captured the feeling of the Simpsons family as they left Springfield when it reality it provided the opposite, it portrayed the family as property destroyers from the Scully era just so they could fit the description, it had a town with no personality and no exploration, it had romantic scenes that attempted to compensate for the crappiness of the plot and worst of all, it had an ending that attempted to be charming and happy but ended up being stupid. They write this stuff thinking that the Simpsons is as good as ever when in actuality it shows why the Simpsons is in the rut it's in. These people don't even treat the show like they're in as a show anymore, they treat it like a personal hangout; having fun, joking, comparing themselves to Pixar, it's like they don't even realize that this is a show that we watch; hell, even the voice actors feel the same way. It's funny how people can delude themselves when they've work for a show that critics still praise is the most culturally relevant animated series in history; especially in a way that makes the people ignorant to reality but I can't blame them... they keep getting renewed, they keep getting indications that this is okay and they keep getting stuff that further desires them to stay in the bubble and the longer they stay in the bubble, the lesser quality the work gets. It's a shame; I get that the bubble is the best place out there but they have reality to contend with and that bubble needs to burst sooner or later, I mean I get that you don't want the Simpsons to end, you'll have no place to hang out but all things must come to an end and this is no exception. Sure, people will miss it when it's gone but we'll move on more quickly then they'll think.

Again, this season is the worst season of the Modern Simpsons era. Seasons like this show why television shows that run for too long need to be canceled. It's clear that the production team is in a rut; creating episode after episode after episode that is painful to watch. One of the problems is that a ton of the episodes here don't even feel like the Simpsons, instead they feel like some alternate comedy that just happens to share the Simpsons name and characters, what with the randomness of the comedy and the shallowness of the parody and the different characterizations; a lot of that harms many of the episodes in the season, diluting what could of been salvageable episodes that would of at least made Season 23 decent; there are some salvageable episodes but those episodes end up being really bland and unmemorable. There are two really good episodes but despite how good those episodes are, they're not exactly good enough to offset the bad, which consists of the majority of the season. There is no doubt in my mind people's faith in The Simpsons will be shook after seeing this, it just screams out the current state of the show today and how low it has gotten. There is no reason for anybody to truly watch this.

3.0/10

Best Episodes: "The Book Job", "Holidays of Future Passed"
Worst Episodes: "The D'oh-cial Network", "At Long Last Leave", "Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart", "Them, Robot", "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again", "Treehouse of Horror XXII", "Lisa Goes Gaga"

[Cartoonnetwork]

While some of your criticisms about specific episodes and about the season in general are applicable to the whole modern Simpsons I think you are kind of exaggerating about some of them.

I personally didn't find "Holidays" and "The Book Job" as exciting as everybody else. Of course they were some of the best of the season, but I really think episodes like The Food Wife, The Man In The Blue Flannel Pants, How I Wet Your Mother, The D'ohcial Network, Exit Through The Kwik E-Mart and even At Long Last Leave are taking too much crap. Yes, they are flawed. Some of them are extremely forgettable. But I don't see such a huge difference between the two episodes everyone decided to "save" and these ones.

I agree with everything else. Of course we all agree "Rags" and "Politically Inept" were terrible, "Robot" and "Repleacable You" being pretty bad, and "Gaga" problems are clear even if some of us are less or more tolerant about them, we all agree. And "A Totally Fun Thing Bart"...is really a case about watching the glass half- empty or half- full cause it was really like 50 per cent good/50 per cent bad. And almost of us agree "Ned'n' Edna" was a good attempt but not great, "Falcon" and "Roosevelt" were decent but bland and "Ten Per Cent" being awfully forgettable, and terribly mediocre, I'll say pretty bad, because of it.

But let's take a look at those other episodes in the first paragraph.

The Food Wife is not written in a very "classic era" style but it does have a down to earth premise that tries to include a new conflict and IMO it's comparable to pretty much the average episode of this kind in Jean era, in fact, it's one of the "quite good" ones. I have a love for this episode that most people doesn't seem to share, and it's quite simmilar to my defend of All Is Fair In Oven War when that was aired. I think the premise of Homer being the cool dad and Marge not was a new conflict after all these years, I thought the rap song was pretty damn funny and had clever lyrics and I thought the ending at the meth lab wasn't as crazy as the usual "action" endings. Why does this episode take the crap while a more crazy episode like "Apocalypse Cow"- which I also liked it, but less than this one- is considered mostly ok and not a problem? "The Food Wife" is the type of good episode that "Beware my cheating" and "Daughter" tried to be. But those two, while tolerable, had the problem of making the relationships too shallow and unbelievable. "The Food Wife" may had some forced dialogues or typical Jean era problems but I was entertained, I found it funny enough and I find the way Marge and the kids bond quite believable, plus it included some satire about a subject that hadn't been explored too much before, high cuisine, and it's not like the jokes were super original, but they worked for the most part.

The Man In The Blue Flannel Pants was an homage to Mad Men. I've only watch an episode of Mad Men and didn't especially love it. But is it really that bad that they decided to do an homage instead of a satire to a show that actually gets good reviews? And yes, Homer may be acting a little out of character, but it's kind of developed in the plot, it's not totally convincing but it's not like he is written like a totally different character out of the sudden as some of you want to make it look. And then, the conflict and jokes are pretty much average Jean era, but with a focused plot, so I don't really see what makes this one so much worse than "Spy" for instance, which may be a little funnier but had bigger flaws IMO. Also, as far as Homer's problems at job goes, "Flannel Pants" is quite better than , say, something like "He Loves To Fly and He D'ohs", which I thought it had redeeming points but a totally absurd plot. In the end, "Flannel Pants" is a little forgettable and dull but it was focused, it was playing an homage to a "quality" series (instead of something popular, like Twilight or Gaga or Avatar) and I kinda felt Homer's conflict even if he acted a little closer to the main character in Mad Men than he'd usually do...which wasn't that bad, cause it made Homer look a little more clever for once which it's sometimes good. It's pretty much about the same quality of "Falcon And The D'ohman" IMO. A forgettable but pleasant outing (as opossed to "The Ten Per Cent" or " Repleacable", which are forgettable and UNpleasant because of the bad jokes and horribly boring development). Nothing to be too ofended about.

How I Wet Your Mother has flaws, like making a whole premise about wetting the bed being considered a good idea or something that could lead to an emotional story about Homer and Mona, having an awful title, being too surreal for a non THOH episode or the actual conflict between Homer and Mona at the end not being as emotional as it could have been. It's also a very creative episode that includes things like the Tracey Ullman short and mostly good jokes during the whole episode. And it tells something when they make jokes about bed wetting and it kind of works. Fart jokes in THOH didn't quite work this way. And about the whole homages/parody thing and this being too close to Inception, that's the most unfair criticism of it all. The whole thing was Simpsonized. None of the characters acted like any of the characters of Inception. There were scenes from the movie, yes, but they also took almost every scene from the movie in The Shinning segment. And that was funnier and it had better jokes but did it really parody the movie a lot more than this did with Inception? It had more jokes and funnier ones but it didn't really make fun of the movie that much, cause the movie is actually a Kubrick masterpiece. Going back to "How I Wet" , like I said, the whole thing was Simpsonized. Proffessor Frink was in it and not a spoof of some character from Inception, the whole thing lead to a story between Homer and Mona, Lisa's dream reflected her character and, besides it all, Homer dreams reflected his character, with the food town climax and Moe being on every corner. In some aspects it was reminiscent of "Send In The Clones" to me, cause it was a story that brought back some of the energy and creativity of classic THOH episodes, and both include allusions to Homer's naive nature and his love for food in creative ways (one includes a giant donut, the other a whole town made of food). In visual terms it was a creative outing, it had fun jokes, it's not forgettable, it was entertaining and yes, it was true to the characters. Incidentally it did have some satirical jabs to the movie as in the "dreams have rules?" dialogue or the ending. This should be considered one of the best of the season, as it was better than other format benders like 500 keys or The Color Yellow IMO, and probably close to Gone Maggie Gone or even the somewhat overrated Eternal Moonshine. Heck, I actually like this one better than The Book Job, which, to me, felt like a good South Park or American Dad episode more than The Simpsons, while "HIWYM" felt like a extended THOH Simpson episode or a Futurama episode, so it's more in the "Groening series" style. In fact, if it were a Futurama episode people would probably be a lot less nitpicky about it being "too close" to Inception or the ending not being emotional enough and it would just enjoy the ride.

The D'ohcial Network had awful story structure but it didn't really copy The Social Network that much either. It was watchable except for that awful scene at the end with the twin brothers. It wasn't a good episode, but I found it tolerable, and I don't really see what's the awful problem in referencing new technologies. I didn't see how it looked so "outdated" or whatever. Very average, terribly mediocre but not awful or something we don't see often in Jean era. I thought it was a little like You Kent Always Say What You Want in the sense that both actually have a good story to tell and even some good moments but they spend most of the time in the uninteresting and unrelated details.

At Long Last Leave failed at the ending and in the fact that they didn't manage to make Simpsons new life or their new neighbourghs interesting but the scenes at Springfield, both in the first act and the ...third act? (I think) were quite good. Not great, but good.

Exit Through The Kwik E Mart was another average Jean era episode that I find funny and mainly focused for Jean era standards (yes, the conflict between Homer and Bart was a little weird and it had a kinda unrelated first act...nothing we have not seen in seasons 17-18 or maybe 13-16 at some points). Yes, the graffiti guys weren't so necessary...but they weren't so problematic either and the episode was about this subject, so it's ok. If some guys who do crosswords can appear in Homer And Lisa Exchange Crosswords, I can take this. Anyway, it has decent jokes and the story was a little more interesting than "The Spy Who Learned Me" for instance or even "Beware My Cheating" or "Daughter", and the conflict had Homer and Bart mostly in character, I mean, Homer didn't become a crazy psycho like he did in "A Star Is Born Again", for instance.

So, overall,what I'm trying to say is ...no, it wasn't a very good season and there were awful episodes in it, and probably not a single episode that was "A" worthy...but it was not AS awful as some of you make it out to be, it wasn't season 11 or 12, or it wasn't one F episode after another. It was especially uneven and it had a bunch of bad episodes, but it also had a lot of them that were not so different to what Jean era has offered since season 17. Don't get me wrong, it DOES deserve criticism as some of the stuff we are getting is unbelievably bad or mediocre but sometimes it looks like some unoffensive episodes get doomed for mostly unfair reasons.

[Ragged_Clown]

I'l agree LW wasn't the funniest and it's not one of my favorite episodes, Marge not be proud--A Scully written episode!--is NOT deep, either. MNBP is very sitcommy in it doesn't really offer anything that's beyond standard sitcom fair, besides having likable characters.

I think you're allowing your anti-Scully agenda to cloud your judgement here. That's a phenomenal episode, one of the highpoints of Season 7 and a great throwback to the earlier, Seasons 1-3ish Simpsons. Beautiful and moving in its simplicity.

[TriforceBun]

Yeah, Marge Be Not Proud is easily one of my all-time favorites! The characterization is outstanding, and it's probably the most sympathetic Marge and Bart have ever been. Also, it's completely hilarious. Great, great episode, the best thing that ever came from Mike Scully.

[zach]

yep. fantastic episode.

[Financial Panther]

That's got to be the most divisive episode between here and the Dead Homer Society. I don't visit that site often, but I do know that they dislike it, and I just finished the Zombie Simpsons book, in which the author criticizes the episode for bearing too much resemblance to a regular family sitcom. It also supposedly tarnishes Bart's bad-boy image.

[The Governor]

I don't hate MNBP, I just think it's a "B+" episode and not as 'genius' as people make it out to be.

[Cartoonnetwork]

I don't hate MNBP, I just think it's a "B+" episode and not as 'genius' as people make it out to be.

I agree. The emotion is pretty well done I guess but I don't find it hilarious and I never got why some spanish fans find Don Brodka so funny. It's an ok character but it didn't get too much laughs from me.