I thought it was a fine episode. Sure, it didn’t rock my socks off – so it wasn’t on par with Homer’s Guatemalan Insanity Pepper-induced Carlos Castaneda odyssey, but The Simpsons remains one of television’s finest half-hours.
There was enough Ralph to keep me happy. “Bart’s my bestest boyfriend!” Heh heh.
Nelson’s a great character, and he’s always had that comic/tragic thing going on.
I think the writers were in a particularly melancholy frame of mind for this episode, and managed to get some good laughs out of it. The denoument wasn’t a feel-good cop-out, none of the things that the characters were anxious about were really resolved – they just got a little something that made their still-crappy situation bearable for them. I like that.
I thought it was better than last week’s episode (the bake-off) but not by much. It was surprisingly dramatic for a Simpsons episode. I’m still pretty pissed they cancelled Futurama but leave this on the air. It’s like they’re trying to turn it into Family Guy (hence the twisting of characters) but they don’t have the timing that makes FG so funny. They should really just let it die.
The “How to Draw Homer Simpson” lesson was cute. The ending was as good an episode ending spoof as they ever done. I love it when they do those things.
“And Lisa, what did you learn?”
“Nothing! I, like most other women, still have an unhealthy obsession with my weight.”
“Oh… But talking about it is the first step to solving the problem!”
“Eh, maybe. But I’ve still got a loooong journey ahead of me.”
“Come on! Say something conclusive!”
I guess I’m in the minority here, but the last two episodes have surprised me - they are much better than I would have expected. The stories were interesting, and the humor was good. Nelson has had some great lines recently, last season too…
This part made me chuckle because I spent my entire summer dealing with 5- and 6-year-olds who did the exact same thing.
I haven’t watched The Simpsons in 3-4 years because I just haven’t found them funny. This episode was “meh”. The Simpsons aren’t as great as they once were. And I don’t much care for the argument that they’re that much better than anything else on TV. For one, it’s not true (I agree with cheddersnax). Also, I don’t have to watch TV. The Simpsons shouldn’t lure me in on the premise that it’s better than what’s on the other channels, it should attract me on the premise that it’s better than anything else I could be doing for that 30 minutes. (If that makes sense–I’m kind of out of it tonight and I apologize.)
Well, to be fair, I’d say that the Simpsons was at least more coherant than last night’s Super Milk Chan*…but on the other hand, “Milk Chan” actually made me laugh once—which was once more than the Simpsons did.
Of course, I did change the channel after about five minutes of the Simpsons. I didn’t need to eat the whole egg.
*Which obviously wasn’t hard.
I guess that’s my point. Normally my reaction to negative Simpsons comments is exactly this. Sure, it’s not a great episode, but it’s still better than everything else. And I did recognize some good moments in the show (First/Second Twin Magazines especially).
But this is the very first time ever my overall reaction to an episode has been negative. Seriously negative. As was mentioned upthread, I felt the impulse to change channels mid-episode. This has never happened before.
Don’t discount the Rerun Phenomenon, folks. There’ve been quite a few episodes when an initial viewing left me underwhelmed, but when I saw them again (and again and again), I thought they were hilarious.
Just as some foods are better after being reheated, so are some Simpsons episodes.
I thought it was pretty decent. Not great, but I definitely not worst ever.
The storyline with Nelson really hit home. Me and two friends took the school bully to a Charlotte Hornets game once and he softened up and said – in all seriousness – “This is the best day of my life.”
Didn’t like this episode. I thought it was badly written. Trite, obvious payoffs, and the characters did not behave like themselves. For example, Marge let Nelson bully Bart in her own house. Marge would never do that. Nelson’s character was all over the map, changing with each scene. Homer was nonexistant.
But worst of all, it just wasn’t very funny. I thought the Treehouse of Horror episode that opened the season was much better.
I thought Nelson’s mom’s panties falling down around her ankles was a good touch.
Also funny was Marge’s rant “Don’t have intercourse with anybody on the way home”, although it’s much funnier if you hear it as “Don’t fuck anybody on the way home” in your head (which was prolly the way the writers envisioned the scene, changing the wording to the awkward “intercourse” because of the realities of TV.)