Part of Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein’s vision as showrunners was to have about fifteen or so mostly realistic stories about the family, plus scattered yearly themed episodes, with one episode specifically set aside to be about Itchy & Scratchy, … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Eighteen, “The Day The Violence Died”

We’re back to another Simpsons-style riff on a classic sitcom setup. I think the show has a really good sense of when it can lean in on a cliche and when it can’t; it can’t really pull off the ‘staying … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Seventeen, “Homer The Smithers”

This must be the second-most controversial Golden Era Simpsons episode. I think most people just roll with it, but there is a significant contingent of fans who are outraged not only by the characters covering up the truth for the … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Sixteen, “Lisa The Iconoclast”

I often say that this show’s most underrated virtue is its worldbuilding. Not only in the sense that so few sitcoms go out of their way to develop the feel of a specific place that Springfield does, but in the … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Fifteen, “Bart The Fink”

I think there are very few Simpsons episodes where my reaction has so radically evolved over the years the way it has with this one. That’s the strange thing about art – you get older and change and it stays … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Fourteen, “Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield”

We’ve talked about the increasingly sitcommy nature of the show this season, and much like Bob Dylan going full country on Nashville Skyline in 1969, this episode consciously brings that to the fore. It’s that old cliche of a popular … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Thirteen, “Two Bad Neighbours”

As regular readers will know, I generally divide episodes of The Simpsons into one of three loosely defined and even more loosely named categories: heartwarming, satirical, and just funny. This feels like the first episode all season where the A … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Twelve, “Team Homer”

This is one of a small handful of Simpsons episodes that has been collectively filed under Too Real, alongside “$pringfield”, “Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield”, and “Miracle On Evergreen Terrace”, where people genuinely find the emotional pain presented … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Eleven, “Marge Be Not Proud”

I would argue that this is the episode that has aged the most dramatically out of all classic Simpsons. Sure, the collective response to some aspects – like Apu – has shifted, but I think you’d have to work very … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Ten, “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular”

This is a very rare Golden Age Simpsons episode that I’m not a big fan of. Bob’s episodes suffer a little bit of diminishing returns after a point; “Cape Fear” is a rollicking comedy adventure and “Sideshow Bob Roberts” is … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Nine, “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming”

You know, I never actually thought about how the Sixties hang over The Simpsons before now. In fact, a lot of the imagery and ideas it riffs on are hangovers from the Fifties – the house in the suburbs with … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode XX, “Mother Simpson”

What makes Homer generally likable and sympathetic even through his childishness and destructiveness is the genuine joy he gets out of what he does, and I think this episode is a great example of that. No matter your feelings on … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Seven, “King-Size Homer”

I always enjoy how the “Treehouse” stories can do three different things with its three different shorts. “Attack Of The Fifty-Foot Eyesores” is one of the more deliciously satirical “Treehouse” shorts; there have been other satirical shorts, but I really … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Six, “Treehouse Of Horror VI”

Lisa episodes are often dismissed as boring and preachy. This is in part because post-Golden Age, the character was reduced to the writer’s liberal mouthpiece, but I can see it based on how so many of her Golden Age episodes … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Five, “Lisa The Vegetarian”

I’m always willing to admit when I’m wrong and handsome. I kicked off this season suggesting that the show was done being as philosophical and would become more traditionally sitcommy, but if anything that traditional sitcom plotting is only letting … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Four, “Bart Sells His Soul”

This is such a weird premise for an episode. I know we’ve had stories of, like, Homer going to space, but even that feels like a more likely sitcom premise than racing against time to prevent a baptism. The flipside … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Three, “Home Sweet Home-Diddly-Dum-Doodly”

“Radioactive Man” has what might be the fastest pace this show has had up to this point. Pace in storytelling is actually something really easy to quantify: the shorter the distance between action and its consequence, the faster the story … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode Two, “Radioactive Man”

So, yeah, the baby did it. If “Part One” was all buildup, this is all winding down – the consequences for all those actions. I’ve always been struck by the elegance of the plotting of this episode. Each act has … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Seven, Episode One, “Who Shot Mr Burns? (Part Two)”

You know, having gone through this whole series, breaking down each episode in eye-bleeding detail, “Who Shot Mr Burns (Part One)” feels like something momentous in a way catching it on reruns or seeing it on DVD didn’t. I missed … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Six, Episode Twenty-Four, “Who Shot Mr Burns? (Part One)”

It honestly awes me that an episode of TV this good was allowed to happen – if you asked me to write down my top five, this would easily make it – hell, if you asked me to make my … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Six, Episode Twenty-Three, “Lemon Of Troy”

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a ‘first’ anything on this show. I stand by my belief that the Golden Era is seasons four to eight, with the first three seasons being the show’s Experimental Era, where it … Continue reading The Simpsons, Season Six, Episode Twenty-Three, “The Springfield Connection”