with all that is happening at the moment i thought i'd go in for some easy viewing. i've seen them many times but never in order. i'm on season 4 and you forget just how great it was! good stories and simple plots and great humour trivia: their 50th high school reunion is in 2024!
Good luck after you get past season 10 or so. Years later, it can be like rediscovering an album you didn't initially care for but you also remember why you didn't care for it. I watched the show up to the end of season 25 and for years wondered why I was still watching. There are still good episodes in there but there are a number of just ok to not too good ones also. Season 14 is my favorite post 10 one. 13 & 16 are good too.
I do get the impression that they make 'filler' episodes for each season....One can only hope that there may be one (or two) decent episodes for the 21st century seasons. Note: There was a time when they made a bunch a quick-jokes meant to be 'paused' so you could read all the 'puns'. Can't tell you what season this actually started, but, I don't think they do it anymore.
i don't think there is a 'bad' season, i think they just ran out of ideas and started trying to 'be smart' as opposed to being smart naturally. some episodes are much of a muchness but some are still very good. if i recall, season 29 picked up again after a lull
The two eps. I can think of was "The Book Job"; TONS of joke titles that go by just too fast to see. Then, there was a Christmas episode where Marge turns the houses into a bed & breakfast. There's a 'first-person shooter' video game, where joke-titles go by so fast, and I can barely read one or two of them.
Seasons 1-10 are really great and contain so many memorable moments. After that I lose interest, though there have been a few good ones here and there.
There are so many highlights to the show pre season 10. Probably my fave is the one where they visit NYC. Another few standouts are the one where Homer stumbles on a huge pile of sugar and takes it home and then there was an episode where they were obviously making fun of Disney with lawyers slinging suitcases ninja style.
i really liked it but it signals, in my opinion, a shift in the series. the first ten series were for the most part about their normal lives: school; work; relationships etc. season 11 seems to be the start of the move towards a less contained world which gets more absurd by the time they hit the 20s. i have been amazed how many of my 'favourite' episodes, most quoted etc. were within the first 11. i can't think of many later episodes which i know by heart and quote in conversation
Any comedic show that lasts close to or over a decade inevitably gets sillier as they get farther away from their beginnings. Silly can be good but it's usually the bridge between good and not so good anymore. That's where the shark that gets jumped lives; under the bridge. It happens so gradually shows don't even realize they "jumped" it. I'm surprised that concept hasn't been applied to individual people yet; "Bill really jumped the shark when he was 34."
Season 12 has one of my all-time favorite episodes: Skinner's Sense of Snow. A brilliant episode that easily matches (and often surpasses) the quality of the seasons 2-9 episodes.
I still can't believe Brooks & Groening haven't put the Michael Jackson episode back into rotation. Thanks to them, Season 3 is now a collectors item. P.S. Other people on the show were accused (i.e. Charlie Rose and John K.) didn't have their episodes pulled.
At some point, the characters started acting towards each others in way that contradicted their well-established relationships from earlier seasons. One episode I’m thinking of now that did this is the one where the nuclear plant employees go to a ski resort for a trust-building exercice. Mr. Burns ends up in a buddy-comedy situation with Homer. This makes no sense, considering all of their earlier interactions: there’s no fear on Homer’s side, no haughtiness on Burns’ side. There is no consideration of the boss vs employee, millionaire vs working class guy difference that was always present every time they interacted. You get the feeling it’s not the same Homer that once was terrorized at the thought of Mr. Burns coming home to have his portrait taken. I think that when you have a series, the writers should have a big board with every main character’s character traits listed, and always check against that board if every storyline or character reaction they write fits in with the basic traits of every character.
I don’t know The Simpsons well enough to know when it changed, but to me it always seemed like at some point they started going for Family Guy type humor. Lots of pop culture references simply for pop culture references’ sake, as if simply doing that was funny in and of itself. Which it isn’t, at least in my opinion. And it changed the feel of the show; it stopped feeling like classic Simpsons smart humor. Now much of it just feels like lazy writing by a younger generation of writers.
i'm doing it because there's never been a season when i haven't enjoyed episodes. yes the ratio of good to meh or bad drops but i still like them very much! and i've rewatched my other favourite series too much and hadn't seen the simpsons for a while!
that's true of all series. even my favourites: west wing, buffy the vampire slayer, x files, fraiser etc. had massive drop offs. that the simpsons remained 'good' in series after these had finished is credit to them