“Thank god we’re back in Hollywood, where people treat each other right.” – Movie Guy

No sooner do I make fun of Zombie Simpsons for its relentless Hollywood navel gazing than they spend an entire episode navel gazing in Hollywood.  Starting with that interminable Itchy & Scratchy thing and running through awards ceremony cliches and a stunning number of glacially slow short films, this thing was one long exercise in entertainment industry self congratulations.  (I’m sure these sorts of things will get people at L.A. area cocktail parties to praise them, but for the rest of us it’s a little less fun.)  In between all that we were treated to some truly bizarre set pieces that had nothing to do with anything.  Was Lisa hallucinating when the Pixar lamp attacked her?  Was that the theme music for Jurassic Park and, if so, why?  What ever happened to the chair guy? 

This episode was like watching one of Michael Bay’s more impatient films.  Characters and storylines appear and disappear at random, most scenes have nothing to do with the ones before or after them, and all the pyrotechnics can’t conceal how poorly constructed the whole thing is.  You’ve got twenty minutes to fill, you shouldn’t be worried that people are going to click to a different browser tab every ninety seconds.  These are not YouTube videos or, at least, they’re not supposed to be. 

Anyway, the numbers are in and while they’re up from last week they’re still bad.  Last night’s unintentional warning about the dangers of attention deficit disorder was left on by 6.35 million people while they clicked around Twitter and Facebook.  That’s the second lowest number all season, though it’s going to need to get worse if Season 22 is going to take Season 20’s crown for least watched.