While Charlie tends to his liver this morning, I have the pleasure of bringing you another Sunday Preview. Tonight’s Zombie Simpsons seems like a routine Sideshow Bob episode, except that we all know these types of episodes stopped being funny after “Brother From Another Series.” This latest installment is called “The Bob Next Door” and SNPP tells us that
Bart is so convinced that the new next-door neighbor is Sideshow Bob that Marge takes Bart to the prison to prove that Bob is still there.
Again, nothing remarkably vile. One does have to admire the writers’ gall, however, in wringing the Bart/Sideshow Bob relationship dry, especially when they haven’t been able to add anything new to the mix in years. Then again, that’s been the overriding will of the show for over a decade now. In other words, move right along, nothing to see here.
(Thanks to Simpsons Channel for giving us the promo pic to defile.)
Dead Homer Society 
4 responses to “Sunday Preview: “The Bob Next Door””
Surely there is no more liquid left in the Sideshow Bob cow, as you say. I used to like Sideshow Bob as a character, but people should realise when there’s only so much one can do with a particular character. Mind you, they haven’t noticed they’ve done more than is feasible or funny with Homer et al for several years, so.
“Brother From Another Series” was the perfect last chapter to the Bart/Bob saga. Everything after that has just been a huge disappointment.
Agreed. Bob’s heroic turn in “Brother from Another Series” should have been the swansong for the character. It seemed wrong making him revert to villainy after that – they could have at least stopped using him after the Frank Grimes Junior episode (at the end of that episode, Bob admitted he had no desire to try to kill Bart anymore. Then, what? Every episode after that, he was back to trying to kill Bart again).
For some time now, the Sideshow Bob episodes have stunk of the writers just cranking them out purely because they feel obliged to have a Bob episode every season, not because they can think up anything new or funny to do with the character.
I didn’t bother watching it and I feel, well, less wasting time. The Simpsons has been my favorite TV show since I was a kid, but somehow I still pulled myself to watching it until somthing like last year, when I just couldn’t take that much boredom anymore. Some of the episodes are written as if everything having happened before is taken for granted, and the writers take you for either a complete idiot, or someone who just likes turning on the TV while doing something else and just pitch in for an occasional giggle at Homer trying to do some obviously dumb shit again.
I guess that you guys are right to call the current show “Zombie Simpsons”, as it’s even wrong calling it “The Simpsons” anymore. It just doesn’t feel like part of it anymore, rather some crappy spin-off that started bad and keeps getting worse. And I share all your p.o.v. when you say that the original show had run out of ideas. And it’s true, because even considering the fact that suppose one day they start making them funny, there was so much shown with the Simpsons already, that unless they start injecting the show with cutaways a la Family Guy, it would just look wrong. Because it would either contradict the original storyline, or simply events already shown in the previous episodes (like the one with Bob and Cecil, precisely).
I don’t know why they wouldn’t end it. The ratings are awful. Nobody in the US wants this now. Even the merch isn’t selling as well anymore, except for the third world when it hit them like 10 years after so they’re watching Season 10 right now or something. It’s a lingering show, and like an old dog that’s been a good friend of yours but grew so old it has to be put down, every time I watch the show that’s exactly what I feel.