Tell-Tale Signs of a Bad Episode

I'll start.

• TV Guide's description starts with "Homer gets a..."

• "The Simpsons are going to _____!"

evan

• "Guest starring: ____"

4. " ...panda..."

"Digital Puer" wrote in message news:[email]...

5. "Lisa..."

• "Marge gets a new job as a..."

In article , "Uniblab" wrote:

7. Simpson writers start listening to the cry-baby voices of "fans" from the newsgroups.

Maybe if they did we'd stop crying!

evan

Daddy, I need upsies!

["Uniblab"; Tue, 05 Aug 2003 01:46:11 GMT]

No:

6. _____ gets a new job as a ______.

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 21:02:04 -0500, J44xm wrote:

I thought "Bart gets a new job as a bartender" was pretty good.

["Alan Hamilton"; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 07:34:15 GMT]

Okay, that's our exception.

J44xm wrote in message news:...

I think "Look Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner" is a pretty good episode, with a lot of funny jokes and a good amount of references. Especially in the first 2 segments. At www.snpp.com I read a lot of reviews for it, but I think if the job thing wasn't used on the truck driver episode so recently the food critic episode would have been received better.

By the way, I'm having trouble coming up with a really good episode that's come out in the last 3 years. So, basically you can know a Simpsons isn't good without going to check the TV Guide.

[email] (Spivey McSpivey) wrote in message news:...

Mr. Krusty Goes to Washington was pretty damn good.

Andrew Burns "You call this a bicameral legislature!"

Not sure if I've seen it, or if I have, I don't remember it that well. On a tangent, I thought Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington was one of the best Simpsons episodes ever.

[email] (Andrew Burns) wrote in message news:...

[email] (Spivey McSpivey) wrote in message news:...

Yeah, I gotta agree with you there. But don't try quoting lines from that ep when you're doing patriotic speeches in school.

Andrew Burns And that's why I almost failed 1st semester speech.

wrote in message news:vjzXa.3311$[email]...

"... goiter!"

Yours truly, Some bozo

[email] wrote:

2. "Special Guest Voices _______, _________, ________, ________, and
________, with special musical number by the [ex-drummer / former
bassist] of __________ !"

wrote in message news:vjzXa.3311$[email]...

There for a while it was any time the description started with a consonant....

wrote in message news:...

2. Major plot change five or ten minutes in - it's obvious they took two or three stories and tacked them together

3. You've never heard of the celebrity "guest voice" or he's presented in a way that he never would be in real life (e.g. Jay North dressed as Dennis the Menace)

4. Lack of continuity - the episode is inconsistent with past characterization, or it leaves things in a way that is ignored thereafter (and it isn't a Treehouse of Horror)

5. It involves any job, relationship or medical condition that lasts only for the duration of the episode.

In article , [email] (The Digital Dragon) wrote:

6. Fox replaces the Simpsons with "201 things found in the human body", hosted by Traci Lords.

["John Taber"; Tue, 05 Aug 2003 22:54:38 GMT]

Hey, if Lisa suddenly doesn't care about ponies and horsies, that's none of our business!

It's an episode of "Oliver Bean"...

Jim

• It's Season 12 or later.

"Simpsfan" wrote in message news:[email]...

HAHAHAHAHAHA....oh, you're serious?

"Jamie" wrote in message news:...

I don't think he was serious. It should have said Season 10 or later.

"Maynard!" wrote in message news:[email]...

news:...

Or season 9 or later maybe.

I love how the "jumped the shark" point gets later and later every year for these supposed conniosseurs. It's always the last three seasons or so, without fail. Because of course, seasons 10 and 11 were reely reely grate, weren't they? Mmmm yes.

"Jamie" wrote in message news:...

I think the "jump the shark" point will always move later in the court of public opinion. If you feel the show jumped 6 years ago, as opposed to 3, you probably gave up arguing a couple years ago. I, personally, have practically given up on hearing people say, "but I love that Hoemr always has a new job. I was bored with always seeing the Power Plant." In my experience, the more cynical you've become towards the show; the less vocal you become.

["Jamie"; Thu, 07 Aug 2003 22:21:47 GMT]

Holey rusted metal, Batman!

The episode contains self-mocking references. (i.e. Bart saying to Homer, "Don't you have a job?") This has become a rather grating trend in recent seasons, as if the writers think they can save a poor plot with references to how poor/repetitive they are.

i think the best episodes are the ones in which the writers actually satirize something about their society (politics, the media, religion, whatever..). For example, my favourite episode is the one in which Homer is accused of sexual harassment after removing a gummi Venus de Milo from his kids' babysitter's ass and is then hounded by the media who assume he's guilty. (Kent Brockman: "This is hour 57 of our live, round-the-clock coverage outside the Simpson estate. Remember to tune in at 8:00 for highlights of today's vigil, including when the garbage man came and when Marge Simpson put the cat out.. possibly because it was harassed, we don't know.") i thought it brilliantly satirized the scandal-obsessed media in the U.S. and how public opinion is rarely swayed by facts. it was very well-written and almost every line is funny (to me) - i never tire of watching it.

the episode in which the simpsons join the Movementarians is also hilarious in the way it satirizes organized religion (at first i thought it was just satirizing cults, and i missed some of the subtle humour until it dawned on me what they were getting at). anyway, my point is that the weakest episodes are the ones which are just a string of one-liners without any satirical underpinning. some of them have their funny moments, but what makes the simpsons great is that it's a satire, not a just sitcom in the usual sense - if anything, it's a satire of a conventional sitcom family.

btw, to the person who mentioned the panda episode..other than the part where homer gets raped by the panda, i thought it was a very funny episode; i just wish the writers had shown a little restraint, instead of marring an otherwise pretty good episode with that totally unnecessary & sickening scene.

On 10 Aug 2003 11:40:50 -0700, [email] (chris) wrote:

I am not so sure. For example. The episode with Lisa's homemade Linguo the robotic grammarian. While it was completely disjointed it showed the same 'reality' from each character's perspective and each and every one was 'fun' the first 10 times I saw it.

DB

It was 'fun', but not anything more than that. I agree with Chris. The best episodes are the ones that take the time to staterize issues from society. They are 'fun', but are also entertaining on a whole other level. I guess that's something that has always impressed me about the Simpsons, different people can watch an episode and can get different things out of it.

Sam.