When did The Simpsons jump the shark for you?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by beatlesfan9091, Oct 14, 2021.

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  1. beatlesfan9091

    beatlesfan9091 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle
    I’m making my way through all 32 seasons of The Simpsons on Disney Plus. I just finished up Season 8 last night, which is often seen as the last season of the golden age of The Simpsons. Truth be told I actually found the season weaker than 3-7 (what I’d consider the golden age). More at the level of Season 2 - still great, still better than most shows, but not quite golden age material. That said the best episodes of season 8 (You Only Move Twice, Homer’s Enemy, Hurricane Neddy, El Viajo Misterioso de Nuestro Homer) are among the best in the show’s history.

    Anyways, when did The Simpsons lose its touch for you? Or are you still watching and enjoying it today?
     
  2. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    I'm currently finishing season 8, myself (finally went ahead bought the Homer head season 6, which I've been somewhat foolishly avoiding this whole time) and based on this season, I think season 9 is where I'll stop buying/watching, at least for now. That's only because I already bought it. If I hadn't, I'm not sure I would be in a hurry to, now. I thought seasons 6 and 7 were fantastic, in different ways, but I've definitely lost focus with season 8 more often, and I'm not up to watch as many episodes in a row.
     
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  3. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    I think many consider the death of Phil Hartman to be the end of the golden age.
     
  4. LeBon Bush

    LeBon Bush Hound of Love

    Location:
    Austria
    According to this video, season 9's episode with the 'real' principal Skinner was that moment:



    IMO, it would really be S8. Where plot lines started going just a bit over the top. S10 was where that really got obvious to me.
     
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  5. skinnyev

    skinnyev Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    I think it was around season 8 that the show became less consistently funny. But some of my favourite episodes come after though, especially when Homer starts inventing things and wants to be like Edison or when Homer and Ned get married to those women in Vegas. The great episodes just became too far apart after this season. There are normally still laughs in most episodes, but I haven’t seen much ch from the past few years.
     
  6. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    For me, it was when the writers killed off Maude Flanders [sic?]. And they had Homer make cruel comments to her widower, Ned.

    For me, a line had been crossed, in the service of easy laughs in a lame episode. It seemed like the writers (who I assume were a constantly changing crew) now considered the denizens of their Springfield creation and all their hardwon continuity as disposable.

    I realize it's a bit weird to be annoyed at the death of an animated, fictional character, and a tangential one at that, but that plot just seemed . . . cheap. And not in the spirit of the show at all.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2021
  7. Ignatius

    Ignatius Forum Resident

    The one where Homer and Bart get involved with racehorses and an underground kingdom of jockies. It was funny stoned, but in retrospect...
     
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  8. Eleanora's Alchemy

    Eleanora's Alchemy Forum Cryptid

    Location:
    Oceania
    ... 20 years ago.
     
  9. Moonbeam Skies

    Moonbeam Skies Forum Resident

    Location:
    Phoenix, Arizona
    I thought The Simpsons had a excellent run from 1991 to about 1998. I remember thinking in 1999 it was still funny but they were running out of ideas, and it was getting harder to pretend that time was standing still as Bart, Lisa and Maggie were still the same age they were in 1987. There was a rumor that 1999 would be the last year of it. But then they signed a contract through 2005! I couldn't believe they wanted to keep it going that long. And yet here we are.
    Now I think it will still be on the air every season at least until the year 2500. They will replace voice actors and writers as necessary. Bart will still be in 4th grade then.
     
  10. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    It's been a while since I've done a marathon of all the DVD season sets... but as I recall, the last time I watched them in order, I was pleasantly surprised at how many "post-Golden-Age" seasons were still very funny and of high quality. People tend to look at Season 9 or so as the point where the show started going downhill, but there's still plenty of classic episodes and funny moments during seasons 9-12, and even into season 13 and beyond.

    Having said that, I don't think I've seen more than a handful of episodes from any season past about 20 or so... wherever they left off with the DVD sets would be the last full season I've watched.
     
  11. Season 8 was still great but you could begin seeing cracks form in its once impeccable comedy. The drop-off is steep in Season 9, though you still get some funny episodes sprinkled throughout Seasons 9 and 10. By Season 11, the show is already a shell of its former self and the transformation into hack comedy is almost startling.

    A lot of fan sites mention "Behind The Laughter" as the real demarcation, a final goodbye to the Simpsons' prime. It's the last episode of Season 11. Probably the last great episode and works as a fine ending to the series.

    Seasons 12 through 16 are nigh unwatchable, the worst stretch of episodes before the most recent seasons. The show bounced back a bit during the 20s until finally cratering in the past 3 seasons.
     
  12. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI

    Same here...

    And it's not that I don't think I'd still like the show, I just have other things I'm watching.

    I always liked being able to 'catch up' on the previous seasons' episodes when they would release the seasons on DVD. Of course that stopped with "The Simpsons" quite awhile ago, and now even another one I'd play catch up with, "Family Guy" isn't seeing anymore DVD releases... Now that The Mouse is at the helm, I think home video releases of the shows aren't gonna be happening anymore, which is too bad...Even if they just made them available as MOD, rather than wide-release, that'd be cool, but I don't see that happening either.
     
  13. Michel_LeGrisbi

    Michel_LeGrisbi Far-Gone Accumulator ™

    I don't think they've ever "jumped the shark"
     
  14. Kyle B

    Kyle B Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    The show’s best years, when it was most consistent, were seasons 1-6. Sam Simon was the showrunner for seasons 1 and 2; Al Jean and Mike Reiss were the showrunners for season 3 and 4; and David Mirkin was the showrunner for seasons 5 and 6. I actually thought the show become less grounded in reality when Mirkin came in but it was still very consistent and funny. To me, it’s when Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein started running the show in season 7 when the quality become less consistent. That’s not to say there aren’t good episodes from season 7 and beyond; it’s just that the success rate declined.
     
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  15. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    Oh, I think I know the true 'shark-jumping' moment:
    When Homer started a 'grunge' band!
     
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  16. pig bodine

    pig bodine God’s Consolation Prize

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY USA
    Pretty sure it was season 11.
     
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  17. Season 8 was probably the last of the really great seasons for me, but seasons 9-12 still contain many excellent episodes. Season 12 has ‘Skinner’s Sense of Snow’, one of my all-time favorite Simpsons episodes.
     
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  18. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    The first bad season is season 9, when Mike Scully took over as showrunner. There were a few season 8 holdover and fill-in episodes during season 9, not EPed by Scully, which were noticeably better than his work in that season (like Oakley/Weinstein's wonderful "Lisa the Simpson" and David Mirkin's quirky "The Joy of Sect"). Almost every Scully episode was shockingly bad, unfunny, had poorly constructed plots and was not even close to the quality of anything the show had done before. It was like watching a bad '80s comedy sequel, like CaddyShack 2 or Meatballs 4. Season 10, also EPed by Scully, was even worse, with few to no "fill-in" episodes to bring up the average. I remember seasons 11 and 12 rebounding a little, at least not being absolutely terrible, but I gave up somewhere around that time as the show was still a pale imitation of its former self. Trying to watch it in recent years sometimes, it's not as egregiously cringeworthy and distasteful as Scully's years, but it's very bland and uninspired.

    Season 6 is the peak of the series I think, with hilarious gags, good plots, sincere emotion and some very cinematic animation. I would actually extend that to the first 8 episodes of season 7, which is an absolutely outstanding lineup of some of the series' greatest episodes. Season 7 after that, and season 8, weren't as funny as seasons 4, 5 and 6, but still had very consistently intelligent writing, great stories and animation. Season 7 and 8 still have extremely impressive work and are easily recognizable as part of one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2021
  19. JCRW

    JCRW Forum Resident

    For me it was around Season 12, that year had some of the worst Simpsons episodes of all time (Lisa the Tree Hugger, Pokey Mom and I'm Goin' To Praiseland) and there were not many redeeming episodes in the season other than 'The Great Money Caper'. Still pretty amazing that the show had a 10 year run of fantastic material.
     
  20. HaileyMcComet

    HaileyMcComet Forum Resident

    Location:
    中華民國
    Troy McClure was the best character not performed by Harry Shearer.
     
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  21. TAF8184

    TAF8184 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC
    Though season 9 has obvious clunkers, it's still pretty good. There are good episodes in every season but you have to looker harder to find them. Sometimes it's just a good line in an episode. Season 10 is alright, 11 & 12 are a low but I will stick up for seasons 13 & 14. Those are the best post 90's seasons for me. 15 was just ok, 16 was better then another drop in quality with 17 & 18. 19 seemed better just because the previous ones were bad. 20 was nothing great. After that I watched up to 25 but don't recall my opinion of them. After season 8 or 9, jump to 13 and 14. Try 16 if you want an extra season.
     
  22. jbmcb

    jbmcb Forum Resident

    Location:
    Troy, MI, USA
    I stopped watching regularly, probably, in the early 2000s. So that would be somewhere around season 11 or 12. It went from being one of the funniest shows on TV, to being kind of funny, to somewhat amusing.

    I tried watching a new episode a few years ago and tuned out after about ten minutes.

    I think it fell into the same issues any long-running TV show can run in to. After a few years, the original writing team wants to work on something else, so they train and bring on new writers. The new writers also do a good job, but are then hired away by other shows. After ten years or so you wind up with a third or fourth generation of writers who may have different ideas on what the show should be, or not understand the mechanics of the show, or, quite frankly, might just not be very good.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2021
  23. mr. steak

    mr. steak Forum Resident

    Location:
    chandler az
    Season 9. It went from Peanuts to Beetle Bailey.
     
  24. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    OR....it went from The Beatles to Wings!
    :hide:
     
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  25. Kyle B

    Kyle B Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    The other issue is that after so many episodes, the plots feel exhausted. At the beginning, it was smart not to age the kids but I wonder if it would have been better to let them age a bit over the years. Not in real time - of course. But having Bart and Lisa go to middle school and Maggie go to grade school would open some story possibilities.
     
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