Well, everyone else has done it, so now it’s my turn:
Worst. Episode. Ever. This season has just blown chunks so far. This episode didn’t even make me smile. The jokes were incredibly obvious, a number of them were totally unfunny, the characters were out of character, etc.
Usually I’m the one defending The Simpsons, pointing out that even the bad episodes are better than average TV, but I’m starting to lose the faith.
Thats strange because I feel that this season so far has been better than the last few, except for the Halloween episode, which was lame. Yes it was predictable and seemed to have been a rehash of several other episodes, but I found it interesting enough.
Um … wasn’t that a repeat?
I don’t think it was a repeat, at least it wasn’t for me.
I got a chuckle out of the Fox News van with “Bush/Cheney 2004” written on the side. 
Especially when the HUGE Fox media truck rolled by blaring “We Are The Champions” with the Bush/Cheney sign on the side.
Still, I wished they had stuck with the Quimby sex scandal illegitimate baby idea, rather than another flashback to high school episode.
“Thinking is for suckers!”
“Thanks for helping me make up my mind, Bart!”
“Thank you for breaking my fall, Lisa.”
“Huh? I didn’t break yo-- Oof!”
It was no Saddlesore Galactica (it’d be hard for them to throw under that), but yeah, that was pretty lame. “Oh look, Marge’s best friend in high school (who we’ve never heard of before in 16 seasons) has returned!” It’s not like it couldn’t have been a good episode, but they haven’t seemed to be trying this season.
I didn’t think it was that bad.
That’s “the best friend with whom she shared a strong interest in journalism that we’ve also never heard of.”
The first half was fun. The second half, starting with the fight between Marge and the guest star, sucked eggs.
I thought it was actually quite good all around. There was les focus on gagas for the sake of old, tired, already-been-used-on-this-show gags, and more actual plot. To tell the truth, it kind of reminded me of the show in it’s early years.
That’s odd. My roommate and I thought it was the best one this season and the among the funniest of the last several seasons.
The Chinese dance was inexplicable, stupid, and even kind of ugly.
Wasn’t Marge supposed to have a high school fascination with art, not journalism?
Terrible episode. They’re not even trying to keep them in character anymore, or make the storylines logical. (Why, for instance, did Lisa sneak away in Chloe’s car? Chloe would have let her go.) I also really hate any episodes that revolve around a character from the past that we’ve never heard of before but are supposed to care about all of a sudden. It works sometimes (like for instance with Homer’s mom) but nine times out of ten it’s a formula for weak characterization. As it was here.
I don’t think I laughed once the whole episode.
Good plot, but wasn’t put out well. And the last two gags weren’t funny- Marge at Lake Placid wasn’t that funny, and the SpongeBob-as-God joke was just weird. That said, there were a few good lines:
Coincidentially, I was going to start a thread with the following hypothetical: If you were to be on a challenge to bring The Simpsons to an alien civilization that never heard of it, what five episodes would you secretly get rid of? This would be one of mine.
Homer, to Marge: You stay here with the women where you’ll be safe!
[the women at the conference boo]
Homer: Okay, you go and I’ll stay with the women.
[the women boo louder]
Homer: There’s just no pleasing you!
Not an exact quote, but I thought it was hysterical nonetheless.
I checked and it was indeed a new episode. I missed parts of it but I could have sworn that I had seen that bit with Lisa praying to Buddha, Jesus, SpongeBob before. I thought that was kind of funny though, SpongeBob’s “Screw her!” and maniacal laugh was perfect. Then again SpongeBob really weirds me out so that seemed like something SpongeBob would do.
The last line was IIRC “What do women want?”
Only thing that made me crack a smile in the entire ep was the two-headed crime-solving goat.
I think when a show is so out of ideas that it recycles “about to be killed by a volcano” jokes it’s time for the fork.
I thouight it was pretty damn funny: the SpongeBob god, the two-headed, crime-solving goat, the Christian Science flat tire “Let’s wait for God to jack us”).
I liked Brokaw and Rather playing keep-away with Kent Brockman’s mike, but that’s about it. The jokes were all mis-timed and it just wasn’t funny.