Monday, January 31, 2011

Season 22 Midseason Report Card

Well I could take a break this week, what with there not being another episode til February 13, but because we're at episode 12, I figured now would be just as good as any to make a report card as sort of a preview of what's to come at season's end. Let's see, there will be a bottom 5 episodes list, top 5 episodes list, montage count, celebrity count, special moments, and finally a preview of February's theme.

Bottom 5:
Now this is a tough one considering what we have to choose from, I thought about it long and hard and decided that these five (In order from bad to worst) deserve it:
5. Donnie Fatso
  • It's one thing to kill off a character; it's another thing to kill off a character just to bring them back and act like nothing happened. There is not a bigger insult to the intelligence of the audience than "Don't be concerned about that dead man, he'll be back". When Disney thinks higher of children's intelligence than a TV show, you should really just quit now.
4. Flaming Moe
  • This show has had success in the past concerning episodes with gay humor. The PAST being the key word. This episode contains horrible, unfunny, gay non-stereotypes that are somehow worse than bad stereotypes while at the same time offering nothing funny at all. Combined with the crappy B plot, this episode is extremely forgettable and just a pain to watch.
3. Homer the Father
  • Let's see, no coherence plus ludicrous plot elements plus not funny equals... well the past few seasons. But this one really takes the cake when it comes to incoherence. While there were times that made me chuckle, the episode had no idea what the plot wanted to be and the padding, don't even get me started. This episode felt long already, but it was just clear that the writers had no idea how to transition, fill out the episode or even end it properly.
2. Elementary School Musical
  • This was originally going to be #1, but you'll see why it's not in just a minute. This episode pissed me off so much, from the beginning you could tell the writers didn't give a damn and by episode's end, I wanted slow painful torture to the jackass who thought a musical episode was a good idea. One of the worst thing had to be all the build up for the cast of Glee and they only appear ONCE! I kid you not, outside of maybe one or two lines they were in that bat shit annoying musical number and then disappeared. I'm not saying I was looking forward to the cameo, but don't build something up if you can't deliver, that's all I'm saying.
1. Mother's I'd Like to Forget
  • Props to whoever saw this coming, I hated this episode, this was probably one of the most painful episodes I've reviewed in a few years. The plot makes no sense, the characters make no sense, the secondary characters had no personality or anything that would make us care about them, the jokes are nonexistent, the writing sucks, it has more padding than my pillow, and, worst of all, IT'S FUCKING STUPID!! I mean it wasn't enough that this episode pissed me off, but they had to top themselves by adding that stupid, ridiculous, pointless, asinine lesbian make-out scene at the end. This episode makes my blood boil and I'd prefer not to hear anyone defend this one.

Top 5:
Yeah this list isn't going to be as popular. This is like picking prettiest dog at an ugly dog show, you're not going to like the results, but you have to pick one. I probably should have renamed it "Outside the bottom 7" because really this season has little to no redeeming value, but in the spirit of fairness, I did find some that didn't totally piss me off, mostly on the merit that they're just "Post-season 10" bad and not "God-awful". Let's begin
1. Loan-A-Lisa
  • You know, I think I could have liked (tolerated) this episode if it weren't for the stupid subplot. Yeah the main plot has holes in it and at times drags, but overall, the main plot doesn't suck. I mean it is original (mostly) and there is some good in watching Lisa enjoy Nelson's success. But yet again, poor writing prevented this idea from reaching full potential and we're left with this.
2. MoneyBART
  • I'm just going to say that this one really didn't get under my skin that much. It's not something I'd recommend but honestly it seems more original than most of the episodes today and there are some positives. I did somewhat like the Bart-Lisa thing, but I only liked it because I loved Lisa on Ice and for me a poor man's Lisa on Ice is still better than a rich man's Mother's I'd Like to Forget. But like I said, it's still not something I'd recommend. 
3. .........
4. Watching paint dry for 30 minutes
5. Driving 30 minutes to Best Buy to go buy Season 4 on DVD

After looking back, I have counted 22 montages in the first 12 episodes (And that includes no montages in the first 2 episodes.) Yeah for those of you convinced that the writing is still good, just consider that last season's montage count was 19, and that was for a season of 23 episodes. I mean 3 more montages for 11 less episodes? And considering 2 don't have any montages, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?! To be fair though there might be a couple that I counted that you wouldn't count, but still, that reduces it down to about 15-19 which is still an awful ratio for Episodes:Montages.

Now, onto the celebrities, this show has always been known as a goal for celebrities... in the 90's. Now a days, celebrity cameos are about as common as a loaf of bread, nothing special and usually they get screwed in terms of involvement of the story. Now with this, I'm just going to list off the celebrities and at the end, take a percentage of those who voiced "Themselves"

  1. Elementary School Musical: Jermaine Clement, Bret McKenzie, Ira Glass, Stephen Hawking, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Amber Riley
  2. Loan-A-Lisa: Mark Zuckerberg, Muhammad Yunas, Chris Hansen
  3. MoneyBART: Mike Scioscia, Bill James
  4. Treehouse of Horror XXI: Hugh Laurie, Daniel Radcliffe
  5. Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life: None
  6. The Fool Monty: None
  7. How Munched is That Birdie in the Window?: Danica Patrick, Rachel Weisz
  8. The Fight Before Christmas: Katy Perry, Martha Stewart
  9. Donnie Fatso: Joe Montegna, Jon Hamm
  10. Mom's I'd Like to Forget: None
  11. Flaming Moe: Alyson Hannigan, Kristen Wiig, Scott Thompson
  12. Homer the Father: James Lipton, David Mamet
Of all the cameos listed 14 voice themselves and 14 either have less than 5 lines or appear in just one scene. So considering there has been 25 celebrity voices in the 12 episodes and we get these numbers, I think it's safe to say that doing a celebrity cameo on the show doesn't carry much weight anymore.

Now when I say 'Special moments" I mean high/lowlights as in "Moments where the show seems to be taking a turn for the better" or "END THIS FUCKING SHOW ALREADY!!" Now there might be somethings I miss here, don't be afraid to mention anything you think I may have missed in the comment section. I'll try to be chronological with this list, so let's begin (P.S. because I'm going to list quite a few, I'll just list the moment and you decide whether it's a highlight or lowlight)
  • Krusty "winning" the Noble Peace Prize
  • Cast of Glee breaks out in song
  • Lisa helping Nelson with his bike business
  • Homer getting caught by Chris Hansen
  • Bart and Lisa bond over the sport of baseball
  • The writers sexual innuendos in the Treehouse of Horror
  • Maggie turning into Alex DeLarge 
  • The Twilight parody
  • Marge and Lisa try to act more childish in Lisa Simpson, This isn't Your Life
  • Mr. Burns tries to put a glass dome over the city of Springfield
  • Bart cares more about a bird than his own dog
  • Katy Perry guest stars on a live-action puppet segment
  • Katy Perry is the subject of an oral sex joke
  • Fat Tony dies
  • Fat Tony is replaced by his identical cousin Fit Tony
  • Marge's friends make out when she leaves
  • Moe kisses Smithers
  • Homer blows up a nuclear power plant in China
Yeah I'll admit there are a couple of good jokes overall (a couple being the key words), but I realized that the list was dragging on so I apologize to those who were expecting specific lines/jokes to be mentioned.

Okay with all that out of the way, time to give a final verdict, final grade and a sneak peak at next month

Final Verdict: This season is so far terrible, all but two episodes are awful while the other two are just "Post-season 10" bad. They aren't really that bad, they're just 'meh'. If the staff was trying to establish this show as "A show not for kids (7-13) and only for "mature" audiences" well congratulations, kids would find this stupid and be horrified by this crap, only problem is that the 'mature' audience is too smart for this BS (Oh and by the way to all those people who think this show is not for kids and only for adults. The normal rating is PG, with even the Christmas episode having a PG rating and I have seen recent episodes with a G rating, so blow it out your ass). In short, this is very forgettable, very stupid season and nobody will be talking about this season as one they enjoyed when the show finally does end.

Final Grade: 2.7/10 Just crap, can't wait for the second half

Okay, in terms of February, let's just say that I might not get in trouble for these episodes, but the staff certainly did when these episodes aired. Looking forward to seeing you all for next month's posts.

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