The New Simpsons

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Drummond

Drummond

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Jun 13, 2005
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So for whatever reason it was IQ'd on my Foxtel so I thought I'd watch it and see if it was half decent. It was the premier of season 18 and IMO one of the worst, most boring, cringeworthy episodes I've ever seen. Here is TV.com's recap in case anyone is wondering...

At school, Lisa befriends a boy named Michael, who happens to be the son of mob boss, Fat Tony. Fat Tony is put out of commission by a rival family, and Homer and Bart get involved with the mob, when Michael, who is nothing like his father, is not interested in the “family business.”
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I cannot watch the new Simpsons, well anything from about season 12 onwards I can’t tolerate. I’d say I’ve seen maybe 3 or 4 episodes in its entirety from this point onwards. I have seen many bits and pieces due to the fact it’s always on in my house but I can’t put myself through the new episodes. See the thing is, even if they have a decent storyline which promises something, they let themselves down by stale jokes and strange directions. Take Tuesday’s episode for instance, the whole Otto and Metallica thing was just ridiculous, Fat Tony’s joke about Finding Nemo was rubbish, the sequence with Lunchlady Doris was some of the biggest tripe ever. I think I laughed maybe twice in 30 minutes, and every other minute I found myself rolling my eyes at how pitiful the attempts of humour was.

Why can’t they just end this show? I guess one of the main reasons why is because some people out there still think the rubbish that they dish up these days is funny. I mean I thought Tuesday’s episode was complete and utter rubbish but it rates as a 8.4 according to TV.com. And about half of the reviewers have given it a score of 9+. I guess people are blinded by their love and they refuse to accept the state of the show. It was the best show of all time and now, at least IMO, the past 10 seasons has damaged it’s reputation. Sure at it’s peak there was no rival but 50% of the show is rubbish, think about that, 50% of the episodes or close to it are rubbish. Homer’s character has been ruined, Bart has always been rude and loud but now he’s just so random. I hate the Fmaily Guy comparisons, mainly because I detest Family Guy, but there’s little doubt the past few seasons have been very much in the mould of Family Guy.

Is it just me? Does anyone else hate the new stuff as much as I do?
 
whippersnipper said:
Theres a thread about halfway down which suggests they do.

The Simpsons has been unwatchable for me since 1998. The last watchable episode was the final episode of Season 10 - Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo.
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You didn't rate Behind The Laughter?
 

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Behind the Laughter was the last great (or even half-decent) episode, sadly.

The threads are piling up on this topic, I've given up on the new Simpsons a while ago, won't be watching another new episode (unless it's the finale).
 
i haven't watched a new episode since about 2004, and from about 2001-2004 i rarely watched the news episode and the ones i saw were ordinary....

it's a shame.

was easily the best show of the 90's
 
Heh, I just scanned through wiki and realised I was growing disullisioned by Season 9/10...and it's now Season 20.

Lost what made it great a long time ago, IMO. In particular I remember being disgusted with the way that entire episodes were driven by celebrity cameos. Though far from the only reason I think it's gone downhill, it's symptomatic of the way it changed - from clever comedy to overly self concious piece of pop culure.
 
thejester said:
Heh, I just scanned through wiki and realised I was growing disullisioned by Season 9/10...and it's now Season 20.

Lost what made it great a long time ago, IMO. In particular I remember being disgusted with the way that entire episodes were driven by celebrity cameos. Though far from the only reason I think it's gone downhill, it's symptomatic of the way it changed - from clever comedy to overly self concious piece of pop culure.
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Agreed. This weeks episode was a sorry example of what you're talking about. The humour level is up there with Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans brand of "referencing something is parodying it, right?" humour.
 

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King Elvis said:
They aren't bad.

It's just they are no where near as good as they used to be, which makes them harder to watch.

The disappointing thing is, they could be great again, they should fire all of the writers, get the old ones back, and watch the first 12 seasons to remind them of when the show was epic.
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I doubt that would make it any better. Simpsons was gold for a good 10 seasons with a high turnover of writers. It's not like a lot of shows where the original creators/writers leave and it's all over, it's like a lot of conventional sitcoms where they have a myriad of writers (and not just animated writers, TV writers). It's just a sign that there are few good writers out there anymore and I think the old writers wouldn't be able to find that spark.

Since 2000 or so how many great American comedies have there been?

Family Guy is ok but it's sketch comedy writing more than sitcom writing, South Park is good but is a different style, American Dad is probably close, Futurama is ok, Arrested Development, Scrubs and Curb Your Enthusiasm are probably the only other pure sitcom comedies to come out and be any good since 2000.

In the 90s The Simpsons had some of the best writers from good tv shows become writers for them, back when shows like Saturday Night Live were good and there were a lot of good, if not solid, sitcoms and comedies around.

The Simpsons is just a victim of the declining quality of TV.
 
jorel6669 said:
I just can't stand anything after season 4. Even though they've been repeated to death, seasons 2-4 are the golden age.
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I would stretch the golden age to season 8.

To be honest I can't see anything remarkably different in quality from Season 4 to Season 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_simpsons_episodes#Season_5

In fact I would rate season 5 better. Season 7 is just as good with some classics. Perhaps it's because I'm much more of a Simpsons humour fan than a general TV fan and the humour was getting more specialised; Homer got dumber (not as unbelievably and inconsistently dumb as he is now) and the storylines were a vehicle for the humour rather than them both being pretty equal.
 
One of the key differences between golden age Simpsons and the modern slosh is their target demographic has changed. When we were all younger the Simpsons was aimed at teenagers/people in their 20s. So the jokes were smarter and the writing was more solid because it had to be. Then somewhere around 1999/2000 that all changed, and the show became essentially a dressed up G-rated show aimed at 6-year-olds. The jokes are pathetic, the stories are utterly asinine and the characterisation is so different to what it used to be that it's hardly the same show. They've reduced Homer into being something so different to what we grew up on, now he's stupid for the sake of it to make a 6-year-old laugh. Before he was dim but at least it was funny.
 
The show went downhill after Phil Hartman died really. I refuse to watch the new episodes and I saw the movie with a friend for the sake of it, and left the cinema with my head in my hands. The Simpsons franchise has just turned pissweak. Why did they have to ruin it?:(
 
There are still some very funny episodes of the Simpsons after season 11, but you probably can count them on one hand.

The episode where Burns outsources the Power plant to India, the episode where Sideshow Bob helps catch the person trying to kill Homer and the Tall Stories episodes are the only very funny episodes that come to my mind at the moment.

There are probably others but I don't feel like looking through garbage to find the others.

Examples how they screw up jokes is like the most recent episode. It was a take off of lady and the tramp and Homer says "you are feisty for an upper class bitch." then Marge says "I like how you used the technical term for a female dog.". Homers line was funny but they didn't have to have Marge explain the joke to the audiance. A lot of their jokes don't make sense and often come across as trying to hard.
 
PrinceDaniel said:
The show went downhill after Phil Hartman died really. I refuse to watch the new episodes and I saw the movie with a friend for the sake of it, and left the cinema with my head in my hands. The Simpsons franchise has just turned pissweak. Why did they have to ruin it?:(
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I disagree with the movie being bad. I really enjoyed the movie.
 
Its been poor for a fair while now. There comes a time when you simply just run out of jokes.

I wonder though what people would think of the newer episodes if there wasnt the flood of The Simpsons on Ten/Fox for the past 10+ years, if it would have any effect at all.
 
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