For a while it seemed like they were going to pull another Armin Tamzarian on us, but they pulled it back at the last second in a pathetic attempt to be heartwarming. I could see that Dr. Hibbert’s bit with the T-shirt was ALMOST funny, and the stove thing at the end was mildy amusing. The rest of the jokes were like gag-shaped blank spots in the story that one would fill with selections from a comedy sticker book.
Wow, that sucked.
I’ve started watching the new episodes this season, but I haven’t kept up with the Simpsons since around 2001 or so. Have they really become this consistently bad?
This was one of the weakest of the season, so far. I liked the couch gag (apparently Homer’s going to die in two years), but that was the high point, IMHO.
I dunno… I liked it quite a bit, though it wasn’t outstanding. Somehow the William H. Macy cameo struck me as funny, though it’d have been better if they had him meeting Flanders somehow.
The set-up for that episode made the story of Final Fantasy Tatics read like Dr. Seuss.
Marge and Lisa see a commerical for a store so they attempt to drive to it only to be stymied by a toll booth. Marge and the rest of the town take the non-pay road instead until it gets shut up, forcing them to take the toll road. Marge decides that she won’t pay and attempts to back up, bumping all the cars behind her onto those road spikes which will damage your car if you back up on them. All those cars’ wheels get fed onto the Springfield tire fire, which causes the ice on a mountain to melt, which causes a postman to be found encased in ice. His letters are delivered and she discover a love letter written to Homer’s mother from her lover, hinting that Homer might not be Abe’s.
On one hand I’m impressed by the Mouse Trap-like sequence of events. On the other hand WTF!?
I liked it over all. Loved the fan “conversation.”
And, as is often the case, they completely forget about the setup once its job of delivering us to the main story is done. I was curious what happened to the toll road after all of that.
I like it when they poke fun of that convention… the africa episode was probably the best in that respect. "So, do you suppose they’ve settled the bagboy strike??
How many more freakin’ times are they going to retcon Homer’s childhood? It was interesting when Grampa confessed about Homer’s half-brother. It was cool to finally get an explanation for Homer’s mom’s absence, although that required de-aging Homer, making him four years old during Woodstock, when previously it had been shown that he was in his early teens for the moon landing the same year. This, however, was just ridiculous.
How many more episodes will they do? It’s an unavoidable part of the fact that they need more stories, and of the fact that the characters don’t age. A year or two ago, Homer had a funny line about being a kid in the early 50s or late 60s or something like that. He wasn’t even sure.
