Note: This is my honest opinion on the show. Keep in mind when reading this that my expectations are sky high.
Season 1
I'm undertaking an impossible task in my mind. I'm trying to review and grade what many consider to be the greatest comedy television show ever made. In theory, I'm approaching the series as a person who will be untouched by nostalgia and will be one person's voice on how the show has aged in the two decades since it aired.
My credentials for why I'm the right person for this task: Outside of maybe a few episodes I have no recollection of having watched, I had never seen the show before I started. I think I saw The Simpsons Movie, but I don't remember liking it and I don't remember basically any of the movie. Then again, my tastes in 2007 were much different than they are now.
I'm not quite totally sure what I expected, but this show is different than whatever that expectation was. I didn't expect the characters to be like... human beings. I didn't expect - except for the occasional visual sight gag - for it to be easy to envision these characters existing somewhere in real life. It was rather foolish of me given its reputation, but that is something that for whatever reason caught me off guard.
I also expected it to be a lot funnier. Am I alone on this? It seemed like a lot of the humor came more from satire and the situations, and rarely resulted in anything more than a slight chuckle. I will say the season gradually got funnier and funnier as the season progressed. Still, I'm talking like one or two laughs in episode one to four or five by the end. It's a little low for its reputation.
The good news -for me at least - is that the second season marks a strong improvement on the first. The momentum is rising and its not hard to believe that the peak of the show is on the horizon. To put it in another way, the weakest episodes of Season 2 reminded me of the best episodes of the first season. That may be a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.
I know there are maybe a couple episodes in this season that are considered "classic" episodes, but I can't say I agree a lot. To me - and this is coming from a newcomer so feel free to take this with a grain of salt - a classic episode of The Simpsons (and this is rather arbitrary) contains a hilarious episode of television coupled with social satire and strong character beats.
This is my expectation at least because I don't think the second season provided me with it. The show nailed down the character beats and social satire, but they haven't quite figured out in my mind how to couple that with laugh-out loud humor. I don't require my comedies to have laugh-out loud humor, but I feel this show is the exception only because I have extremely high expectations. I wish I could approach this having no knowledge of the show's history, but I do and that will of course color my perception. Classic may be the wrong word. Perhaps "one of the best episodes in the series" would be better.
A few episodes however did stick out in my mind. They either were funnier than the rest of the pack, had a more touching story, did something that stuck out as original, or I just happened to like it better. I loved "Treehouse of Horror", which I'm excited about because I know it's an annual feature. "Dead Putting Society" had its weaknesses, but I loved the Ned Flanders scenes (and I'm aware some of the things he does in this are inconsistent with what he became, but that doesn't really affect a newcomer).
"Bart Gets Hit By a Car" is good mostly for Lionel Hutz, as voiced by Phil Hartman. It's also the first appearance by unethical Dr. Nick Riviera. "The Way We Was" lacked humor but was sweet and also featured the first appearance of McBain. I don't think I'll ever not find McBain funny. "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" was pretty brilliant for going the unusual route of condemning the common man and for Danny Devito, who made a memorable and sympathetic character in 22 minutes. (Well him and the writing)
"Lisa's Substitute" is a great episode of television not because it's funny, because it's got three great story lines that are harsh and real - things I don't think cartoons did before this show. It seamlessly interjected Bart's run for class president, Lisa's crush on a substitute teacher, and Homer's feeling of inferiority as a parent. You are emotionally empty if you don't find the ending of this episode to be touching. Episodes like this are what I didn't expect from The Simpsons.
The second season managed something the first season did not in another aspect. It sneakily made me care about the characters. I can't pinpoint an episode or time when I started to care what happened to them, but by the end of the season I did. I feel like Homer is a fully fleshed out character at this point as is Lisa and Marge. Bart is very much a caricature in my mind and I'm not sure he ever becomes a character, but this season wasn't it.
Overall, this show seems right on the brink of greatness. It's got everything except for the laugh-out loud humor. I don't know if this show will ever get to laugh-out loud humor, but that is my lone complaint about the show thus far.
I am completely geared up to love the third season. I care about the characters, the show's quality has improved drastically since it's inception, and it gets funnier each episode. I've been introduced to guest characters and already have a fondness for certain ones. (McBain, Flanders, Lionel Hutz) I don't know when I'm going to start the third season, but I can virtually guarantee that it will come a lot faster than the time between the first and second seasons.
Hope you enjoyed this and since this is a post on a very well-known and loved series, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my post.
Playlist
1. "Vitamin C" - Can
2. "Incinerate" - Sonic Youth
3. "Lovely Day" - Bill Withers
4. "Bad Moon Rising" - Creedence Clearwater Revival
5. "Stabbed" - Brotha Lynch Hung ft. Tech N9ne & Hopsin
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