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The Simpsons Season 11 Review

The eleventh season of The Simpsons continues the downward slope for the show. It has its standouts, but more weak than great episodes are present here.

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“Stupid sexy Flanders“

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Beyond Blunderdome is another weak celebrity guest show. Yes, Mel Gibson is very well portrayed, but the storyline is uninspired and dull. Brother’s Little Helper has a pretty good premise and I found the first half excellent and quite interesting, but the second half stumbled quite a bit unfortunately. Guess Who’s Coming to Criticize Dinner has a couple of funny moments, but it’s otherwise another one of Homer’s cliched escapades.

Treehouse of Horror X is pretty good in its second and third segment, but my favorite has to be the first one with dead Ned Flanders. I’ve always really enjoyed his character, and seeing him in a horror episode was a delight. E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) is an odd episode that is too silly to be taken seriously, and it’s also not that funny.

Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder is another Homer-centric episode that is silly and it doesn’t really work. Eight Misbehavin’ is a fantastic Apu-centric episode where he gets eight kids all at once and is, needless to say, not happy about it. It’s one very poignant and realistic episode that portrays just how difficult it is to have children.

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Take My Wife, Sleaze is a very silly, annoying biker storyline while Grift of the Magi definitely ended on a wrong foot, but at least the first half is very strong and involving. But a lot of these episodes unfortunately lose their steam toward the finish line. Little Big Mom is a phenomenal episode that deals with Lisa taking Marge’s job of taking care of the rest of the family, leading to hilarious results. I found the mountain setting beautifully utilized with that Ned Flanders scene being laugh-out-loud funny and oh so memorable.

Faith Off is another sports episode that did not appeal to me at all. The Mansion Family is a fine, but weaker than average Mr. Burns installment. Saddlesore Galactica is utterly forgettable whereas Alone Again, Natura-Diddily is a very problematic, controversial episode that kills off Maude maybe too briskly, but it does lead to an interesting, deep Flanders episode and it changed the status quo positively so in my opinion.

Missionary: Impossible is a very uninspired storyline, but I really liked Pygmoelian as this very well crafted Moe storyline where he gets the surgery to look prettier. The ending is silly, but everything that came before it is rich, emotional and character-driven. And I absolutely loved Bart to the Future. I find this another future-related classic with Bart being quite amusing and Lisa being the president opened a lot of great scenarios and storytelling possibilities that they explored really well. It’s an engaging, imaginative and funny episode.

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Days of Wine and D’oh’ses is another episode that changed the status quo by making Barney sober, but it worked as it’s another strong character-driven episode that is emotionally rich. It’s the best Barney episode undoubtedly. Kill the Alligator and Run started off with a lot of promise, but it ended poorly. Last Tap Dance in Springfield is okay, but hardly great. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge is as unnecessary as any Otto episode is, but Behind the Laughter is a pretty clever, though uneven episode that is intriguingly conceptualized and quite different.

Overall, I loved some episodes in this eleventh season. The character-driven stories are the best ones here, while Homer’s storylines are usually the weakest. The show continues to make poor use of its most important character and that is what led to its downfall among other things.

Worst Episodes: Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder, Faith off and Missionary: Impossible.

Best Episodes: Eight Misbehavin’, Pygmoelian, Bart to the Future and Days of Wine and D’oh’ses.