I just started a rewatch of The Simpsons. I was only planning to watch the first 10 seasons though, juat because of the drop off in writing quality.
my pirate collection stops exactly at season 9
i guess i can now call it my “criterion collection of the simpsons yaaaar”
I have it all because hoarding.
I’ve never watched past season 13. The last season I could get through is 12…
There’s some bangers in 10-12 though.
my ancient hard drive used to have up to 12 i think. and you are right it was hit and miss there were a few goodies but so many bad as well
and then whatever happened with the really late seasons where the show basically became family guy i get sort of secondhand embarrassed watching
Gods, how right you are. I stopped after 12 watching as it came out, 10-12 had some great eps but many that I was just… bored watching.
I’ve seen a scattered few from 13-20 and they were nigh unwatchable. You’re totally right about the Family Guy-ication, and it’s not even early (good) Family Guy. It’s like watching newer Spongebob, after the writer (director?) quit.
I need to watch the Gaga episode. It sounds truly awful. I don’t know if I’m ready for that psychic damage.
Why was 9/11 such a poorly rated episode in an otherwise solid season. Hmmm 🤔
The
towrating collapsed…Season 9 episode 11 was an inside job!!
It’s a clip show episode musical without the normal effort they put into clip shows like the self-aware 138th episode spectacular in season 7 episode 10.
Laughter can’t melt steel beams!
The graph represents my experience with The Simpsons. Back when they got their movie for the 10th anniversary, the serie was already struggling with the audience. I believe that was the point where they changed the animation to a horrible 3d rendering and, at least in my country, the started having troubles negotiating with the original voices we all grew up with.
Honestly at this point I believe I haven’t missed much from the series since the 9th season. They should just let it die at this point, as they should’ve done it in 2007.
3d?
Some objects are 3d renders, most notably cars.
The movie came out in 2007, mate. Nothing to do with the 10th anniversary.
Also, you probably referred to the move from hand drawn to software animation. Because there is no “3d rendering” happening in the usual sense.
How an episode of The Simpsons is made: https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/25/9457247/the-simpsons-al-jean-interview
What happened at episode 23.22?!
That indeed is interesting, had to look it up. Episode Lisa goes Gaga, Lady Gaga guest starring the episode perhaps warranted the 38% of one point ratings. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2403733/
Looks like Lady Gaga randomly popped up to boost Lisa’s spirits when she became literally the least popular person at school.
Would love to see this mapped to who the primary writers and producers are on each episode. I wonder if there are patterns.
I actually stopped watching when I stopped wathing most over the air. the problem is the streaming free options being to convoluted with the gatekeeping. once I miss epsiodes im just sorta out.
Losing a point or two over decades isnt bad entropy.
If copyright protection legnth wasn’t so insane, the Simpsons could be in the public domain soon (if not already) and others could take up the quest for better simpson episodes.
I was about to say the pattern of declination is not significant.
There are other factors to consider as well. Such as the quality of the critics and audience in general.
I was a major adult fan in my twenties who worked with people who could finish a Simpsons joke when anyone started a line from the show. I remember coming in and sadly announcing that I thought I didn’t like the show anymore. That was in the oughts. It had been in decline for a while at the time.
A very nice wave seeing the series decline… The only problem with it is it seems a little skewed to have 5.5 in strong red…
I think the idea is that probably around 4.5 it becomes un airable on national tv
How people rate things is skewed. 5 really means there isn’t anything redeemable about it.
For someone to mark below the midway point it tends to be because they are offended or upset about it. At that point a quality rating isn’t appropriate, it should be 0.
Why are you assuming that there’s some uniform rating standard that every person is committing to?
That’s just how humans are. The average rating is 7. If it was perfectly even it would be 5. But it isn’t. We are objective or rational when we’re asked to put a number to our personal opinion.
what’s the deal with 9th episodes being good every now and then
Maybe the last episode before a season break or something?
Maybe the 9th ones are the Treehouse of Horror ones?
For anyone wondering the top rated episodes here, all at 9.2 are:
S5E2 Cape Feare
S6E6 Treehouse of Horror V
S6E25 Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One
S8E2 You Only Move TwiceAnd just as I was finishing that, I noticed that one episode has a 9.3, d’oh!
S8E23 Homer’s Enemy
Love how even IRL people forget about Frank Grimes. good ol Grimey
Change the channel Marge!
I watched the Simpsons as a kid. Never thought much about it, but Homer’s Enemy is the one episode that resurfaced in my mind as an adult decades later.
Just want to add that nobody is talking about the decline of tv itself. Its not only the simpsons but the whole media.
Exactly. This needs to be baselined with aggregate ratings for TV or at least the genre.
I went into ye olde Plex server to see what 8-23 is about and immediately went “yep. That tracks.”
Episode 3 of season 6 is such an outlier. Too much romance for the Simpsons audience apparently.
It’s a clip show. Both low rating episodes from the first seasons are clip shows. That’s why. Clip shows are typically unpopular, even tho for The Simpsons, each clip is original and not a reair of a previous one. They’re “filler” episodes.
I agree with the graphic.
However, I recently completed a straight watch-thru of every Simpsons episode, and while watching the lackluster episodes from seasons 20-30, I have to acknowledge one thing:
Quality of the show and its writing have noticeably improved since around Season 32.
The most recent episodes feel more centered on the family and much less on bizarre cameos and really outrageous situations. It actually feels like a show about the Simpson family and treats the characters more age-appropriately.
I don’t like that they lost/recast established voices of minority characters (Apu, Carl, Dr. Hibbert, etc), I do think the quality and the focus of the show is much better than it has been in almost 2-decades.
Thank you for actually acknowledging this.
The way the Internet talks about the Simpsons is so damn annoying. The vast, vast majority of them haven’t actually watched an episode and formed their own opinion on it in over a decade, they just keep repeating the same tired meme over and over again.
Long running shows have different writers coming and going, therefore quality fluctuates up and down over time. That’s one of the nice things about a long running show: it gets to experiment and let new blood invigorate new life into it. There is no singular “death”, there’s just hills and valleys.
All of what you say is true of brand new shows as well, with even more room to experiment. I wish the Simpsons would just die and let new shows and new ideas take its place.
Honestly, what you’ve described sounds like a the Simpsons is an old, rich guy who pays young writers and artists to entertain him. Yes, he employs these people. No, I don’t think it’s anywhere even close to a good use of these economic resources. It’s for the same reason Hollywood makes so many comic book movies instead of dramas.
You nailed it. Individual episodes are good bad and meh. I have a feeling if I was younger and exposed to the Simpsons now, I would’ve liked it just as much as I used to.
The constant shitting on the Simpsons needs to stop. It obviously gets good enough rating to keep on the air well over 30 years, so give it a rest.
There are plenty of bad shows on TV, the fact that its being made says nothing about its quality.
Yet next to zero continued 35 years
Lol, what? If you look at a list of scripted TV shows that have ran for 35+ years it’s going to be dominated by shitty soap operas. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I don’t count trash TV that changes often, sometimes even a different cast within the same couple of years.
Typical "technically something else is true " kind of stupid response that makes no difference to me.
Well yes, bad soap operas… And Doctor Who.
Those shitty soap operas generally get views, and it also goes to show that a cartoon is even more rare. The Simpsons is alright, and people clearly do watch it if its still running. Hell, most good shows only get 3 to 5 seasons now if they’re lucky!
Dude, that’s over 700 episodes, most of which suck ass. Why would you do that to yourself?
I distributed the watch over a long period of time—I only ever watched episodes while on a lunch break at work. It was an effective way of unplugging and just watching something “familiar”. I would typically bang out (up to) 2-episodes/day, 5-days a week over the course of about 2-years.
I just checked, and I have not watched the most recent episode, but I’m sure I will while on lunch sometime next week.
I would argue that majority are not as bad as you imply, though some are a tough watch—like the pointless travel shows, I recall Denmark and Canada as being a difficult watch.
How do you know they suck ass if you haven’t watched them?
Legitimately, what is it about the Internet and this show specifically where people feel compelled to sound off on something they are not actually watching, and haven’t watched in years?
Based on the graphic, people watching them think they’re ass as well tho…
Kinda the whole point of the post.
The graphic shows a stellar first 9 seasons, a medium next 15 seasons, and a terrible last 8 seasons… so the majority of them are medium with equal about good and bad episodes.
The graphic in the post does cut off 4 seasons before the current one and also before where the top level comment mentioned writing got significantly better again.
Honestly, the scores aren’t really terrible for the most part. The colors of the graphic are certainly painting it worse than it is. Dark orange is still up to a 6.7 rating, which isn’t bad, and that’s close to the average for the majority of the “bad” season. What hurts them the most is that the first 10 season were so good, the delta between them and after was large.
Honestly, less than 7 on IMDB is bad.
Most average things fall between 7-8, 8+ is really good, 6 and lower is bad. So the colours actually do lineup with the score imo.
5 absolutely doesn’t mean average on IMDB. If something gets a 5 then it’s absolute dogshit.
Are you aware of the concept of subjectivity?
Well then let’s throw this entire post out of the window and not talk about it at all, if we’re taking the EvErYtHiNgS SuBjEcTiVe approach
Not necessarily, context is pretty key on IMDb. There are plenty of shows and movies that get review bombed, especially if they’re tackling a controversial subject. And nowadays, if anything has even the slightest hint of either being “woke” or alrernatively making fun of “woke” subjects, either side will come in and drop a ton of 1’s, dropping the rating significantly. This happens with videogames all the time, too. The most famous example being Last of Us 2, where the game itself was really quite good (e.g. gameplay, design, pacing, etc), but because it included a trans character and a certain event at the beginning with a key character, the internet went rabid and bombed the shit out of the game at launch.
Imdb ratings mostly range between 5-10, and 6-8 range usually has the most difference within it. Even with ‘controversial’ items that seems true. Not to mention Simpsons isn’t that controversial of a thing
Oh, I’ve checked in with new episodes occasionally over the years, and they were awful. Legitimately, I’m sounding off on this show because in many ways it defined my childhood. What is it with the internet that people feel compelled to sound off on someone sounding off?!
The bigger issue is that 35 seasons of the Simpsons is over 380 hours of continuous television
Eh, I enjoy it. I’ve never stopped watching it. Even if I don’t particularly like an episode I’m always glad I seen it.
I’ve been looking forward to that shit my whole life. It’s gonna hurt when they do cancel it.
The literal worst episode of Simpsons is still pretty good honestly. It’s not as good as the best episodes of Simpsons, but it’s still better than most TV shows.
What’s the worst episode? I think the lady gaga one used to have the lowest review score but I’m wondering if a more recent episode has taken the crown
Actually good point, I was thinking the lady gaga episode, but I don’t know if at this point that is still the lowest rated. But really, even not going by ratings and just going each persons personal opinion, the worst episode they can think of, or even while they are watching it, thinking, " this isn’t a great episode". It’s still better than most other stuff on tv, just not a good episode of simpsons.
Kind of like saturday night live, even the bad episodes and seasons are still a pretty good show. And easy to appreciate the effort involved.
I caught some clips of a recent season and the VAs just sound so old and tired. Regardless of the current writing, just let the show end. Have the writers write for something else.
Right?! Lisa sounded like a straight up old lady. And I’m still pissed about apu.
The show’s been running for 35 years. Lisa’s voice actor is 59 now. She is an old lady.
Marge and Mr. Burns are by far the worst. Burns does t even sound like the same voice actor now
Well, Marge’s voice actor is 73 now.
Yea, not a problem either, she tries, but she sounds her age too. Burns though, I saw a recent episode and had to look up if they changed the VA because it’s so different.
I have to agree, the recent seasons feel like they have a cohesive story and often even pull away from the 3 piece storyy telling they were doing between seasons 20-30.
I wonder if there was a new writer brought on from s32 onward who’s responsible for the uptick.
