I've been watching The Simpsons since the Christmas Special airing. I was part of the original craze. While I never bought a t-shirt, my enthusiasm for the show only grew over the run of the show, at least up through sometime around the 7th season.
I still watch The Simpsons. I have every released season, and usually put an episode on before falling asleep.
The show hit a stride of perfection around the 4th season, and this stride continued, with some minor variation, through the 6th season. Starting with the 7th, we had some weaker episodes. Many of them are still considered classics, but episodes like Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming and Marge Be Not Proud are good, but don't stand up to repeat viewings as strongly. There are still a few solid classics in there - Team Homer is still fantastic, and I've had a real affinity for Homer the Smithers.
The 8th season continued this trend. Some of the episodes have bits that people remember and really love, especially ones like You Only Move Twice, or A Milhouse Divided. I've never had great feelings about Burns, Baby Burns, and I find Mountain of Madness to be kind of dull most of the time.
This season also hit with Homer's Enemy. This episode severely split fans, and not in the way that some of the others did. Some really viewed it as being in bad taste. I remember I didn't like it at all at first, and now I've come to respect it.
Season 9 is where things tipped a little more toward the 'weak' side of the spectrum. The Principal and the Pauper really bothered some more people. I never cared much about it. But I found episodes like The Cartridge Family and Bart Star to be unusually poor. Their clip show episode, All Singing, All Dancing was one of the worst I had seen to that point. There were still some good jokes, but there was also much more filler and weak material.
It's this point that soured a lot of casual fans. There are a lot of people who just can't get past how fantastic the show was during the 4th season.
This show has gone through many, many writers, many show runners, and most importantly, many, many episodes. They aren't all going to be as spectacular as the best of them.
Also, the show has changed, and it no longer has the same type of satirical edge that it had. It's a bit more obvious.
I've accepted this. I still find the point, starting in the 9th season, and declining around the 12th or 13th season, to be hard to watch, mostly because the jokes haven't aged as well. But after that, the show rebounded in quality. It's still more silly than it was, but it's considerably better.
What bothers me is that so many people seem to take pride in how little they've watched the show since their youth. Or how much they assume that a decline in quality is permanent.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Under The Dome
I love Stephen King's work. I've seen nearly every movie based on his works. In fact, I'm going to consult a list right now. The things I haven't seen-
The Dead Zone
Pet Sematary Two
Sometimes They Come Back... Again
Hearts In Atlantis
The Mangler 2
Firestarter 2
Riding The Bullet
The Mangler Reborn
No Smoking
Children of the Corn: Genesis
Carrie (2013)
Battleground (1986, Soviet?)
Golden Years
The Revalations of Becka Paulson
The Dead Zone (TV series)
Kingdom Hospital
Bag of Bones
Anyway, I cut King a whole lot of slack He tends to write stories that are remarkably compelling, but work toward an ending that doesn't live up to the promise of the rest of it. There are exceptions, of course.
I like the premise of Under The Dome. There's a lot of promise, and I've heard that the book is great. But I can't abide this absolutely terrible TV show.
First, the cast is a real problem. Most of the actors are trying to channel other, better actors. Big Jim? I can't look at his acting without seeing someone trying to play Jack Nicholson. I would love to see Jason Segel play Junior.
Second, the scripts are terrible. I'm not talking about structure yet, or even plotting. I'm concerned about the terrible writing. Basic exchanges between characters are packed with lines that don't actually make sense. They exist only to pad out the scenes, and give a sense of urgency. There are lots of instances of these, but I can't recall most of them offhand. In this last one that I watched (the 11th of this season, I think) one of the kids that can touch the mini-dome helps Barbie out with trying to save the girl who was shot. Somehow, as a result of seeing this happen, the kid reaches this nonsensical conclusion that Barbie is supposed to be crowned the king inside the dome. This would be fine, if the kid were supposed to be an idiot. But he's supposed to be fairly logical, and does a lot of his work by the numbers.
Third, the momentum that this show has is all over the place. They try to divvy up the action enough to keep things interesting for a whole season. Instead, the show just comes across as completely unbelievable. I think that each episode is supposed to take place over a single day. That's pretty good. But it's also a difficult problem for people writing episodes. There's a bit of riot, which I think happens around the 3rd or 4th episode. People seem to have calmed down since then. I think the town would have really disintegrated a little more over 11 days. Instead, they're craving entertainment, so they participate in a fight club as an alternative the barter system.
The Dead Zone
Pet Sematary Two
Sometimes They Come Back... Again
Hearts In Atlantis
The Mangler 2
Firestarter 2
Riding The Bullet
The Mangler Reborn
No Smoking
Children of the Corn: Genesis
Carrie (2013)
Battleground (1986, Soviet?)
Golden Years
The Revalations of Becka Paulson
The Dead Zone (TV series)
Kingdom Hospital
Bag of Bones
Anyway, I cut King a whole lot of slack He tends to write stories that are remarkably compelling, but work toward an ending that doesn't live up to the promise of the rest of it. There are exceptions, of course.
I like the premise of Under The Dome. There's a lot of promise, and I've heard that the book is great. But I can't abide this absolutely terrible TV show.
First, the cast is a real problem. Most of the actors are trying to channel other, better actors. Big Jim? I can't look at his acting without seeing someone trying to play Jack Nicholson. I would love to see Jason Segel play Junior.
Second, the scripts are terrible. I'm not talking about structure yet, or even plotting. I'm concerned about the terrible writing. Basic exchanges between characters are packed with lines that don't actually make sense. They exist only to pad out the scenes, and give a sense of urgency. There are lots of instances of these, but I can't recall most of them offhand. In this last one that I watched (the 11th of this season, I think) one of the kids that can touch the mini-dome helps Barbie out with trying to save the girl who was shot. Somehow, as a result of seeing this happen, the kid reaches this nonsensical conclusion that Barbie is supposed to be crowned the king inside the dome. This would be fine, if the kid were supposed to be an idiot. But he's supposed to be fairly logical, and does a lot of his work by the numbers.
Third, the momentum that this show has is all over the place. They try to divvy up the action enough to keep things interesting for a whole season. Instead, the show just comes across as completely unbelievable. I think that each episode is supposed to take place over a single day. That's pretty good. But it's also a difficult problem for people writing episodes. There's a bit of riot, which I think happens around the 3rd or 4th episode. People seem to have calmed down since then. I think the town would have really disintegrated a little more over 11 days. Instead, they're craving entertainment, so they participate in a fight club as an alternative the barter system.
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