Poll: On The Simpsons

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

Lately I've taken up the incredible task of watching the entire Simpsons series. And for what? Because I stopped watching the simpsons series completely. Currently I'm on the seventh season and I have a single goal, a grand goal: To find out where the series went wrong. Fortunately, my journey has gone without an incident too horrifying, but I fear that in time my luck will run out.

So fellow escapists, I'm asking you to give me the strength to go on for when I reach the darkest depths of a once glorious series. I'm personally betting that the series gets worse around the 15th season, how about you?

 

[everythingbeeps]

Considering that I stopped watching around the fourth or fifth season, I'm probably not the best one to ask.

 

[Richardplex]

...I honestly have no idea when one season ends and another begins. I'd say what ever series when celebrity guest star episodes outnumbered the normal ones.

 

[lostzombies.com]

They stopped making good simpsons pretty much when they killed off Maude Flanders, about 9 or 10 years ago. I used to love it and it genuinely made me laugh out loud, the past decade has been utter shit.

 

[the rye]

I think it started going down hill when they started recycling old plots and when they bog it down with 'learning a lesson', i find Simpsons to be too down to earth and drudged in dull life lessons.

Adventure time and invader zim will always be the best cartoons ever.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

I'm a massive fan of the Simpsons, but I realise that it's not as good as it used to be. I think the stories began to slip around the 15th season, but every series had its highs and lows. There are some pretty good episodes in otherwise poor seasons (like the memory loss one with the butterflies)

Ultimately I think it doesn't matter too much. Perhaps the series should end, but there'll always be some classics.

 

[Mojo el Furio]

They stopped making good simpsons pretty much when they killed off Maude Flanders, about 9 or 10 years ago. I used to love it and it genuinely made me laugh out loud, the past decade has been utter shit.

You know what that is a pretty valid opinion there. I will say though that even though the series has gone way down hill, almost every episode has at least one moment in it that makes you laugh out loud, especially on the second viewing.

 

[Daffy F]

I think their humour style has changed, and I think that's because they're having a hard time coming up with genuine, meaningful and funny stories like they used to. I have heard people say that the golden age of the simpsons is seasons 5-8. Because I watch them on television, I can't verify that, but I have seen pretty much all the episodes up until the movie (we only just got the first season following the movie on channel 4, and that's where I watch it).

 

[Scarim Coral]

Err which seasons it was on during 2005? To me that was the year it had started to get bad.

 

[OniaPL]

While I still enjoy watching the Simpsons, it feels like nothing the series does at this point can surprise me anymore. I still get small chuckles out of the wacky adventures of the family, but it follows the same formula more than ever nowadays. Bart plays pranks, Lisa is a smartass, Homer says wacky things sometimes spiced up with a hint of truth and Marge is the busybody who reminds you of that aunt or mother you had who had to keep everything in order.

And as someone else pointed out, the humor style has changed a lot during the past years. The jokes feel a lot cheaper than they used to, and the writers seem to make sure that nobody misses any of them. Shortly put: The series has lost its edge. While it still rolls down the hill and makes you smile, it has long since lost the uniqueness that made me laugh.

The main problem with the Simpsons is that it has simply ran too long.

 

[Sean951]

There were a couple bad seasons in the middle, but then it got good again.

 

[Aidinthel]

I don't know that it ever went bad, but I'd say it certainly isn't as good as it used to be. I stopped watching a few years back.

 

[Colour Scientist]

I actually have no idea. I've never watched episodes consecutively, just when they come on t.v., so I never know what season they're from.

The only way I can gauge their date is by the difference in the look of it.

I never really noticed a huge difference, the older seasons had their duds too.

 

[ubersyanyde]

I've personally never seen why people have disliked the recent series so much. It's much better than South Park and Family Guy (which I'm assuming are its main competition) but not quite as good as Futurama.

If anything I think the show has been going uphill and will continue to do so.

 

[electric_warrior]

At around about season 10 things went dramatically downhill, although the movie was still quite good.

 

[Batou667]

I think we can all agree that The Simpsons has jumped the shark. When this happened, I don't know.

Possibly around the time that instead of guest voices (remember that awesome Michael Jackson cameo episode?) they switched to guest appearances (Stephen Hawkins, Jane Goodall, etc).

 

[Wintermoot]

I like the series it doesn't try to jam a message down my throat like the latest Futurama episodes.

 

[Okuu_Fusion]

I believe its in between season 8 and 9 when things started going down hill...

Or, once Phil Hartman was gone, The Simpsons were not the same...

 

[Frybird]

I say somewhere during/after season 10.

Season 10 had still good episodes, but it started to have really, REALLY weak ones that i found to be pretty rare before that (season 1 and 2 not included).

And then there was Season 11, wich was just god awful, with featured the "The Writers just don't care anymore" Saddlesore Galactica, the first mayor bad "retcon" in Form of the second "Simpsons in the Future" Episode (even though that wasn't nearly as bad as the later retcon with Marge and Homer suddenly being 20-somethings in the 90ies).
(And i totally agree how actual guest apperances started to be a sign of declining quality. They made sense for a while, but then they mostly started to become one-note apperances with characters saying something like "Woah, Name McFamousGuy, the famous What-the-person-does" beforehand...even the movie was plagued by it)

Although i think that no season was as bad as 11 and 12, The Simpsons never really recovered to me. And although i hear the series starts to improve recently (And i've seen "The Book Job", the first episode in a long time that i hadn't real complaints about and just enjoyed...i even enjoyed how they wrote the obligatory guest apperance of Neil Gaiman into it), i still think the Simpsons would be better off canceled.

Since they couldn't get the series to end after the movie, they should just do some kind of "All Star Season" and pretty much go and beg people like David X. Cohen, Josh Weinstein, Conan O' Brien and Brad Bird to do thier own send-offs (Not necessarily big or groundbreaking or gimmicky) to the show that, even though it ran for far to long, still counts as one of the best TV Shows of all time.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

It died at the time when they started introducing guest appearences in every. fucking. episode. (which I think is before the movie)
After the movie, it just became a zombified cow