To say that The Simpsons has been a major influence on me would be an enormous understatement; from an early age (apparently, my second-grade teacher told my parents that I shouldn't be allowed to watch The Simpsons; after all, it taught dangerous concepts like "those in power are often malevolent, clueless, or both"), The Simpsons shaped me in terms of my outlook on things, my sense of humor, and in many cases, I saw things being parodied on The Simpsons before I even saw what they were parodying; among other things, this caused me to nearly burst out laughing during my high school American Government class when I saw the library scene in All the President's Men for the first time, after having seen Sideshow Bob Roberts:
Here's my opinion on The Simpsons, season-by-season. If you want an episode-by-episode recap and review, then I'd recommend Mike Amato's excellent blog, Me Blog Write Good.
- Season 1: To a certain extent, this season was more of an experiment than anything else; the show was in many ways still finding its feet as a full-length show after being previously featured as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show. As a result, for fans of the classic (and modern) era, watching the first season can be a jarring experience; Homer's Walter Matthau-esque voice, the bizarre animation, and several moments of out-of-character behavior can at times make it seem like you're watching a different show. Despite all of this, you could still begin to see the classic Simpsons take shape; so while it may have been unusual to see Marge getting drunk in There's No Disgrace Like Home (and Homer being so embarrassed by his family's behavior that he pawns the TV to pay for therapy while Marge tries to talk him out of it), there are other parts of that episode that ring true, like seeing Mr. Burns' enormous mansion (and Burns informing his guests that the hounds will be released). Elsewhere in season 1, you see many other classic elements of The Simpsons for the first time, such as:
- The Simpsons satirizing both sides of an issue; in Bart The Genius, both regular public schools and elite gifted schools get made fun of. Also in that episode is the first example of "art shift", with Bart's mental imaging of an overly complicated math word problem being animated in a much different style from the regular animation.
- The first travel episode, The Crepes of Wrath.
- The Telltale Head introduces the population of Springfield as an easily-swayed mob.
- Moaning Lisa shows how Lisa's intellect and creativity is unappreciated, especially in a place like Springfield
- Krusty Gets Busted: The first Sideshow Bob episode, which means Kelsey Grammer's first appearance. It also shows the extent of Krusty's merchandising empire, his sordid personal life, and one of the first really dark jokes in the show: when Krusty has a heart attack on-air, the children in the audience laugh because they think he's making funny faces.
- Albert Brooks' first appearances, in The Call of The Simpsons and Life on the Fast Lane.
- Season 2: The first season that could really be called "classic", the voicework, animation, and characterization is much truer to form, but there are still some niggles; Flanders, for example, in this season is more of a yuppie than a religious extremist; he even mixes and serves drinks at a party in the War of the Simpsons. Important milestones for this season include the first Treehouse of Horror episode (and the only one actually taking place in Bart's treehouse), and the first appearances by Phil Hartman as Lionel Hutz in Bart Gets Hit by a Car and as Troy McClure in Homer Vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment, and the first flashback episode in The Way We Was (which also features Arnold Schwarzenegger parody Rainier Wolfcastle in his first appearance as McBain). Itchy & Scratchy & Marge is the first episode to use show-within-a-show Itchy & Scratchy as an episode-long commentary for The Simpsons (and, just like in Bart the Genius, parodying both sides of the issues of things like cartoon violence). Lisa's Substitute shows that The Simpsons can also have genuinely heartfelt episodes that aren't sappy or overly sentimental.
- Season 3: More classic Simpsons. While the first 2 seasons were fairly grounded in reality, from this season on the show starts getting more and more outlandish. Milestones include: Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, the first travel episode in which the entire family goes somewhere together (The Crepes of Wrath had Bart going to France alone), Like Father, Like Clown, introducing Krusty's Jewish background (and making his earlier endorsement of Krusty-Brand Pork Products even more hilarious in retrospect), Michael Jackson's uncredited appearance in Stark Raving Dad (which also doubled as a perfect parody of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), and the amazing coincidence of Bart The Murderer being first broadcast right around the same time Goodfellas came out (given the turnaround time needed to make an episode of The Simpsons compared to a show like South Park, there's no way they could have seen Goodfellas and then made the episode), and Sideshow Bob's first return in Black Widower.
- Season 4: This is the first season of The Simpsons I (vaguely) remember seeing when it came out (resulting in the above teacher's admonition to my parents not to let me watch the show). Things get even zanier, with the widely-acclaimed Marge vs. The Monorail being possibly the most outlandish of any episode of the classic era. Other highlights of the season include A Streetcar Named Marge (which included a song whose lyrics led to Bart writing "I will not defame New Orleans" on the chalkboard in the next episode's opening credits), the show's first flash-forward in Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie, New Kid on the Block having quite possibly the best B-plot of any episode (Homer at an all you-can-eat restaurant, and his subsequent lawsuit after he's thrown out), Mr Plow, and Last Exit to Springfield, which is frequently cited as the best ever episode of The Simpsons.
- Season 5: This is the first season I remember seeing in detail, and the most outlandish. It's also one of the most consistently hilarious seasons of The Simpsons; if I was only allowed to view one season of The Simpsons, I would choose this one without any hesitation. Nearly every episode is packed with terrific moments from start to finish, but the ones that stick out for me are Homer's Barbershop Quartet, Burns' Heir, Homer and Apu, Deep Space Homer, Rosebud, Homer Goes to College, Bart Gets an Elephant, Homer Loves Flanders, and The Boy who Knew Too Much. One thing I liked about this season was how many of the episodes focus on individual characters, including those from outside the Simpsons family such as Mr. Burns or Apu. Much of this season's humor comes from being by this point a well-established show with familiar characters. That way, Homer's sudden friendship with Flanders is funnier since it's coming after 5 seasons of enmity, as is seeing Bart bond with Skinner outside of school after having had an antagonistic relationship with him both before and after this episode.
- Season 6: I find this season to be something of a breather after Season 5, but still a very good season. It's not that outlandish things don't happen in this season (they do), it just doesn't feel quite as filled with wall-to-wall insanity the way the 5th season did. This season has my favorite travel episode, Bart vs. Australia, and two of my 3 favorite Lisa episodes: Lisa's Rival, and Lisa on Ice. It also features the first episode in which a significant portion takes place in the future (Lisa's Wedding), as well as part 1 of Who Shot Mr. Burns, the only 2-part episode of The Simpsons. Other favorites of mine include Homer the Great, Sideshow Bob Roberts, The PTA Disbands, Homie the Clown, Bart's Comet, and Lemon of Troy, which contains quite possibly my favorite bit of animation: Homer's Shelbyville rival biting into a lemon like it's an apple.
- Season 7: Another good season, it starts strong with part 2 of Who Shot Mr. Burns. Other episodes I particularly like are Lisa the Vegetarian (my favorite Lisa episode, with my favorite Troy McClure film: Meat and You – Partners in Freedom [a Meat Council film, part of the "Resistance is Useless" series]), King-Sized Homer, Mother Simpson, Two Bad Neighbors, Homer The Smithers, Bart on The Road, and A Fish Called Selma. Special mention needs to go to 22 Short Films About Springfield, for its bold (and successful) experiment in structure and the fact that it gives so many otherwise peripheral characters some time in the limelight, as well as the CGI-animated Homer³ sequence from Treehouse of Horror VI. A milestone in CGI animation, it premiered a month before Toy Story came out. The animation of this sequence was spectacular then, and still holds up well today; a particularly well-done sequence is when Homer (and later Bart) pass the boundary into "the Third Dimension" and you can see them transition before your eyes from 2-d to 3-d. On the season 7 DVD, there's a well-made featurette on the making of this sequence that's really worth watching. Another episode worth mentioning is the fourth-wall-breaking 138th Episode Spectacular.
- Season 8: This is the last season I'd consider a classic from start to finish, but some of the issues that would plague later seasons began showing up in this season. Some of the episodes started out strong but kind of faltered or petered out in the 3rd act; other times, there would be a solid B-plot but weak A-plot (or vice-versa). That said, this season does feature my favorite Treehouse of Horror episode (VII), with my 2 favorite sequences being The Genesis Tub and Citizen Kang. Other favorites of mine from this season include You Only Move Twice, Bart After Dark, The Twisted World of Marge Simpson, Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala-D’oh-cious, Homer Vs. the Eighteenth Amendment, Lisa's Date With Density, In Marge We Trust, and the ever-controversial Homer's Enemy. El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer is almost on that list; the first-act sequence of Homer's Guatemalan Insanity Pepper-induced freakout is nothing short of amazing, but it's too hard of an act to follow; the 2nd and 3rd acts of the episode have their moments but ultimately pale in comparison (compare this with the Homer³ segment, which was placed at the end of the episode).
- Season 9: The first season I'd consider as having a significant drop in quality, it nonetheless has several terrific episodes. As a lifelong resident of the New York metropolitan area, even if all of the other episodes were complete trash, I'd still feel that The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson made up for all of them by itself. Fortunately, there are still quite a few good episodes in here, including Lisa's Sax, The Trouble with Trillions, Realty Bites, The Cartridge Family, King of the Hill, and The Last Temptation of Krust. The episode The Principal and the Pauper is an especially controversial and despised episode among fans, but I think it had potential, but needed several rewrites (and possibly being made as a 2-part episode). I'll probably write a separate blog post about this particular episode sometime in the future.
- Season 10: More bad than good this season, but when they made a good episode it was still almost on par with classic-era episodes. Bart The Mother, D'o'h-in' in the Wind, Lisa Gets an "A", They Saved Lisa's Brain, and 30 Minutes Over Tokyo are quite good, but surrounded with filler.
- Season 11: I stopped regularly watching new episodes of The Simpsons in the middle of this season, so there's a chance some of the episodes I haven't listed are quite good (but I'm not holding my breath). Of the ones I've seen, I remember Brother's Little Helper, Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?, E-I-E-I-D'oh, and Behind the Laughter being the better episodes of this season.
- Season 12-15: By this time, my viewing of new episodes was sporadic at best but every now and then I'd see a fairly good episode. Trilogy of Error, I, D'oh-Bot, She of Little Faith, The Lastest Gun in the West, I am Furious (Yellow), Moe Better Blues, and Margical History Tour are the best of a bad lot.
- Season 16+: Who cares? I pretty much stopped watching new episodes at this point. Every now and then I'd see one from these seasons, but it would invariably remind me of better episodes with a similar theme; for example, Goo Goo Gai Pan and The Regina Monologues reminded me of much better travel episodes from the classic era. Don't Fear the Roofer, The Debarted, and The Italian Bob were OK, but 24 Minutes was probably the only episode from this era that I thought was genuinely good without any other qualifications (for example, I feel that The Debarted is an excellent episode if you've already seen The Departed, but probably a confusing mess if you haven't).
- It goes without saying that I saw The Simpsons Movie; I thought it was like watching 4 season 9-quality episodes back-to-back. While some of the jokes fell flat, I still thought the writers tended to hit more than miss and felt the movie was quite good overall. One thing it did not do, however, was get me to start watching the TV show again.
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