I stopped watching about two years ago. The occasional more recent episode that I have seen has not made me regret that decision. When I realized they’ve beaten the “We’ve been on so long we’re not funny anymore!” jokes to death it was time to end it.
They’ve reached the point in the DVD releases that I’m not buying them any more; season seven is the last one I got and I had to think hard if there were enough episodes there that I enjoyed to make it worth my money.
Well, I’ll say that if TPTB @ the Simpsons are reading this thread and take your suggestion to heart I’ll have to come and hunt you down.
The decline in wit may be disappointing, but it’s still one of the best shows produced these days.
They’ll have to pry Homer out of my cold dead hands. Umm, you know what I mean.
I’ve read calls here for The Simpsons to be cancelled for years. But Sunday’s episode was the first one where I thought to myself that the show had reached its end. A Perfect Storm bit? Too old to be topical, and too recent to be a good pop culture reference. Not that I think the show should be cancelled; just that I thought the Perfect Storm was a poor choice that might indicate the writers are losing their touch.
But wouldn’t you rather see the show you love go out with a bang, rather than this laboriously, drawn-out whimper?
Not a trap, but an honest question. I’m a bit baffled by people who say, at the same time, that they haven’t watched something in years, yet they know it’s not worth watching. (Although I do appreciate the “trap” inherent in the situation: why would you watch something if you didn’t think it was worth watching?)
I have seen episodes in recent years that were bad enough I wish they hadn’t made them, and if all the episodes were like that, I’d agree with the people who want to put the show out of its misery. But I’ve also seen episodes lately that I’ve really enjoyed and laughed out loud at. And I’m not alone. With just about every new Simpsons episode that airs, a Cafe Society thread opens up, and some people report liking the show, or at least finding things to like in it, and some don’t. And quite often the person who likes one week’s show doesn’t like the next, and vice versa.
Overall, I think the show has gotten better in the last year or so. And there’s no reason why it couldn’t get better still. And as long as I enjoy the show a significant part of the time, and a significant number of other people enjoy it a significant part of the time, I’m clearly in the camp that says: If you don’t like it, you don’t have to watch, but turn it off and let the rest of us have our fun!
I think one of the problems is people watch the show too analytically. It’s like they’re saying, “There’s the setup. Here comes the punchline. I wonder if I’ll laugh.”
Yumblie made the relevant point here - the longer the series runs, the more and more polluted the syndication pool becomes. I don’t care if they want to keep running the show and have people continue to watch on sheer momentum, and somehow convince themselves that it’s still funny.
But I like to watch the re-runs of the actual good shows from the 1990s. I wish they could somehow cut off the re-runs at the year 2000. It’s a crap-shoot now, you don’t know if it’s going to be a good one or one of the crappy “new” ones.
It’s MAS*H all over again. They show re-runs all the time, but that show ran so long, and the syndication pool got so polluted, that you have no way of knowing if it’s going to be some hilarious Hawkeye and Trapper hijinks, or some preachy, overwrought B.J. and “kindler, gentler Hawkeye” melodramatic garbage.
“Damn it, it’s a Shelley Hack! That’s like getting a Shemp!” -Cotton Hill
Okay, you do make a good point, one that I hadn’t considered because I hardly ever watch the show in syndication, just the new episodes and the DVDs. But since the bad ones are out there already, I’d want to see them make more good epsiodes, if possible, to improve the odds.