“Well, I guess this is it.” – Lisa Simpson “You mean, like, goodbye?” – Nelson Muntz “Let’s just call it, smell you later.” – Lisa Simpson Around the edges of “Lisa’s Date with Density” you can see the problems that, given a few years, would swoop in and eat the show from the inside out. The emotions are a bit contrived in places, Nelson’s not quite the bully we know, and the plot has to cheat a few times to wrap itself up. But in Season 8 those things are peripheral, the core of the story and the episode fit in with the place we know as Springfield and the characters who inhabit it. Just as importantly, while there’s no denying that Lisa and Nelson are acting a bit more adolescent and less kid like than they should, there’s still a recognizable childishness and humanity to them that makes the story work. Lisa doesn’t, for example, develop her crush on Nelson because of some cliched contrivance. He doesn’t save her from something; nor does she glimpse him in a candid moment of tenderness when he thought no one was looking. She just laughs at him being him, in this case tormenting Groundskeeper Willie. This is one of those things that just works in The Simpsons. We in the audience get to laugh at Groundskeeper Willie; Nelson (in detention) and Lisa (in band practice) are being themselves (and so are the other kids with their “x likes y” refrains); and the main story moves along without resorting to nonsense. “And that’s how Willie waters.” By contrast, in “The Daughter Also Rises” Zombie Simpsons employs a “meet cute”, one of the more hacktacular ideas ever to come out of the entertainment industry. (It’s a concept so durably overused that it has its own article on TV Tropes and Wikipedia.) That they call it a “meet cute” isn’t a joke, it’s just them describing what’s happening. Where’s the joke in Lisa gushing and her new beau throwing a fork in the air? Or their stilted flirting as they instantly anticipate a love for the ages? There isn’t one, the whole thing is dead-eyed, paint-by-numbers crap. Hollywood is littered with writers and actors who can do this scene in their sleep, because it’s not just a trope, it’s an adult trope for adult performers and adult characters. Things just get worse from there. Lisa and Nick go through three goofy set pieces, each one the same kind of sly, fake-clever horseshit. First they’re at an outdoor cafe, where this supposed kid is looking all charming and suave in a gray suit. Then they’re in a montage where they hang out a balcony, on top of a climbing wall, and Moe’s (of all places) as they go through a few vaguely Hemingway type situations. And finally, Nick shows up at the Simpson home with a bottle of wine before he charms both Marge and Maggie (we’ll get to the after-dinner fiasco in a second). None…
Tag: The Daughter Also Rises
Crazy Noises: The Daughter Also Rises
As part of our tireless efforts to demonstrate the many ways Zombie Simpsons fails to entertain, Season 23 will be subjected to the kind of rigorous examination that can only be produced by people typing short messages at one another. More dedicated or modern individuals might use Twitter for this, but that’s got graphics and short links and little windows that pop up when you put your cursor over things. The only kind of on-line communications we like are the kind that could once be done at 2400 baud. So disable your call waiting, plug in your modem, and join us for another year of Crazy Noises. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “homunculus”). We give Zombie Simpsons a lot of grief for repeating jokes, but “The Daughter Also Rises” contained a impressively craven double dip on that count. Not only did they rip off one Valentine’s Day episode for another, they repeated an Itchy & Scratchy segment almost shot for shot: “I Love Lisa” (1993) “The Daughter Also Rises” (2012) Zombie Simpsons upped the gore and lost the humor in the process, but other than that they slavishly copied Season 4. Now, maybe nineteen years is long enough that a segment can bear repeating, but if you’re going to do that, why not just rerun the old ones on Sundays at 8? Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to get started? Mad Jon: Yes Charlie Sweatpants: Where shall we begin? Mad Jon: The top is as ‘good’ a place as any. Charlie Sweatpants: Well, the couch gag certainly took a long time. Mad Jon: Indeed. But what a way to celebrate 499 episodes. By pointing out that next week is the 500th. 500 is a large number, especially for a show that died 15 years ago. Charlie Sweatpants: The emphasis on milestones like that is just another indication of how the show now exists for the sake of existing. Like Fry, existing is basically all it does. When they were still putting out good episodes they blew through 100 with just that chalkboard gag about NOT celebrating meaningless milestones. Mad Jon: Yeah well, it was pretty much par for couch gags in the last few years. Charlie Sweatpants: Oh certainly. Mad Jon: Anyway, brushing past the 56" HDTV in the living room, it was nice of Kirk Van Houten to show up for a few minutes, I haven’t seen him since the last time he and Luanne got back together/got divorced. Charlie Sweatpants: That was pretty bizarre. Though why Bart and Milhouse would be opening valentines together is also beyond me. Mad Jon: And why Bart would have so many. But whatever. Don’t you usually open those in class on Valentines Day? Are we that old that things have changed so much?!? The important thing is that the lopsided valentines haul led to them having a Myth Busters thing to work with or something. Every time they went to do something, I could hear Moses from the…
Strange Twists and Collapsing Ratings
“I’ve had one of my unpredictable changes of heart.” – C.M. Burns About three quarters of the way through “The Daughter Also Rises”, the episode took a weird turn. Lisa went to ask Grampa for advice, which led, without any setup whatsoever, to her, Grampa and “Nick” being chased by the police, which in turn lead to her and “Nick” rowing a boat out to an island. No reason is given for why things went from relatively sunny and untroubled to dire and suspenseful. They just did. Similarly, “Nick” went from being suave and charming and generally very Colin-from-the-movie to a whiny weirdo. We didn’t see what changed his mind or why he might suddenly have become skittish around Lisa. One moment he was charming everyone in the Simpsons’ living room, and in the next scene he was a wet blanket. Pretty much the same thing happened with Bart and Milhouse’s B-plot, one minute it was going one direction, and the next minute it was going the other way. What makes these weird plot turns so frustrating is that, sometime last summer, a group of professional writers sat around a table at Zombie Simpsons HQ. They read aloud a story about Lisa getting a boyfriend, which for some reason turns into a chase, which is only resolved when Marge puts on giant water shoes. Not one of those trained, experienced professionals asked why the chase happened, or why it suddenly became so dire, or whether or not Marge should care. It’s malpractice. Anyway, the numbers are in and last night’s terrible excuse for an episode is the new champion of low ratings. Just 4.33 million people were confused by that ending. That shatters the previous record of 5.00 million set by Season 22’s “The Great Simpsina”. Even better, we’re only four episodes in to the typically lower rated post-New Year’s part of the season, and three of those episodes are in the bottom five all time: Season-Episode Airdate Viewers (in millions) Title 1 23-13 12-Feb-12 4.33 The Daughter Also Rises 2 22-18 10-Apr-11 5.00 The Great Simpsina 3 23-10 8-Jan-12 5.11 Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson 4 21-11 31-Jan-10 5.11 Million Dollar Maybe 5 23-12 29-Jan-12 5.12 Moe Goes from Rags to Riches Season 23 is now a mortal lock to be the least watched season in the history of the show. The only question is how low it can go.
Sunday Preview: The Daughter Also Rises
As always, credit to Dave. Football season is over; and Zombie Simpsons must grind itself to a conclusion: Marge & Lisa’s mother-daughter Valentine’s Day plans take a turn when Lisa meets Nick, an intellectual romantic who shares the same passion for culture, history and literature. Lisa and Nick fall head over heels for each other in a fairytale romance and make a secret getaway to Mulberry Island to profess their eternal love. Meanwhile, Bart & Milhouse are inspired by the hosts of “MythCrackers” to “crack” Springfield Elementary’s own legends. Enjoy Hallmark Day, everyone. It’s just another target Zombie Simpsons can’t hit.