19x05 Treehouse of Horror XVIII

[5.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] It’s not a good sign when your best segment is probably the little two-minute intro. Watching Marge turn her various kitchen appliances against the animated logos/ads for other Fox shows was an amusing bit, and Homer busting out an “Mmm...Developed By” was a good silly chuckle. Sure, it’s not much, but it’s quick, punchy, and appropriately cartoonishly gory, which is more than you can say for the main segments.

The best full segment here was the first one, a parody of E.T.. It’s pretty thin as a take-off on the Spielberg classic, but I actually like it for that. While there’s a few subversions like Bart throwing a baseball hard at his alien pal, or the two blasting their way past the cops rather than flying over them, mostly it’s a standalone tale. I like how oblivious Lisa and Bart are to the fact that Kodos is bracing for war, and turning the whole thing into an alien invasion is a fun subversion. That said, Homer is the worst here, an idiot who doesn’t realize an eight-foot tall squid-monster isn’t his wife and says dumb sexist crap.

The middle segment, a parody of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is the worst one. It’s not even a quasi-Halloween flick, which makes it a weird choice for a spoof. The gags are all weak, and while it’s fine enough to poke fun at the amount of homeward destruction from the action film, there’s not enough of a core there to support even a seven-minute vignette like this. Tepid all the way through.

The “Heck House” closer is somewhere in the middle in terms of quality. It’s a fun premise -- the kids getting into tricking rather than treating, only to reform and change their ways when exposed to a Hell House that’s more hellacious than usual. But it comes off as more a series of disconnected riffs and random gags rather than anything cohesive. Plus, most of the jokes and scenarios aren’t terribly clever, with Bart’s line about the Lord’s Prayer being the only bit of cutting satire.

Overall, this is a lesser light in the “Treehouse of Horror” canon, suitably only if you have real affection for E.T., Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or Hell Houses for some reason.