Let’s start with the good stuff. Dave and I both laughed when the car hit Bambi. That was funny. Um, then there was the “nipple slip hotline” on Flanders’ speed dial, that was . . . okay. The rest of the episode was so thin on ideas and humor as to be transparent. Clock eating, comedy free sequences include:
- Long ass traffic scene at the beginning
- The “suspense” sequences surrounding the witches
- The “Sideways” moonshine/wine-tasting montage
- The pointless, yet exposition heavy, trial in the courtroom
- Moe’s two bizarre scenes, especially the mob one that pushed this tired thing over the finish line
Classic Simpsons could’ve crammed every one of tonight’s plot points into about a five minute B-story (plus it probably would’ve had, you know, jokes).
There is one other thing that bears mentioning. I don’t know if it was a national spot or just on the local affiliate, but there was an honest to Jebus detergent commercial. A woman in a hospital bed sees an astonishingly handsome doctor (bathed in angelic light) who tells her about the benefits of some liquid detergent. At first I thought it was one of those ads that takes a well worn stereotype and uses it for another purpose. Nope, straight up detergent ad. If there’s one thing that marks formulaic, crappy television it’s ads that are usually broadcast during daytime soap operas.
Dead Homer Society 
5 responses to ““We’re 13 minutes short, does anyone have any ideas on how to make this longer?””
Boring, boring, boring. Wasn’t even embarrassing enough to complain about satisfactorily. You know, this is The Simpsons, and if it’s going to be crap, I expect it to be complete, buttock-clenching crud of the lowest standard. None of your half-measures. This must be a result of the global recession, they can’t even afford decent crap any more.
Can’t wait till this episode reaches Australia. Sounds riveting.
D.N., out of curiosity, what’s the lag time between the US and Australian airings?
I’m not sure. Channel 10 is quite inconsistent with when it airs the show – I think season 20 only started showing here after it had already wrapped up (or was close to wrapping up) in the States. Even then, 10 only showed about a half-dozen episodes before reverting to re-runs. They might have gone back to new episodes at some point after that, for all I know. We probably won’t be getting season 21 until next year sometime (certain shows, i.e. police dramas and the like, get fast-tracked from the US, so episodes are aired only a week or so after they’re shown in America, I think to try and dissuade potential viewers from just watching episodes online. But that policy doesn’t seem to extend to The Simpsons).
The Simpsons also screens on a cable channel, Fox 8, and there are an ungodly amount of re-runs on there – although, as I think I mentioned in an earlier post, nothing older than season 5 seems to be shown. Most times you flick onto an episode, chances are extremely high it’ll be Zombie Simpsons.
I watched it over the internet, so I’m sure you can too, not that you’re missing anything if you don’t. There are videos up now at http://www.free-tv-video-online.info/internet/simpsons/season_21.html and you can scroll down to the bottom for this one.