[5.7/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] I don’t mind The Simpsons lampshading its floating timeline. It’s not the most clever thing in the world, but there’s at least something mildly amusing about the show using the Oscars/sports/public embarrassment to suggest the cyclical or static nature of things despite time marching on.
But what I have more of a problem is the show lampshading its own laziness. There’s a joke in the same scene about how every Homer story involves screwing up and then earning redemption. At a high enough level of generality, any show can be accused of being formulaic, and lord knows The Simpsons has found plenty of interesting places to take Homer over the years. There’s something particularly frustrating, though, about the show making this joke in an episode where it falls back on some of its most tired and played out tropes.
That’s right! We’re doing Homer and Marge relationship drama again! Only this time, it’s a flashback, so rather than there being a 99% chance nothing comes of it and we’re quickly back to the status quo, there’s a 100% chance! Falling back on the formula of “Homer fails to live up to the most minor standards of spousehood/fatherhood, Marge gets fed up and kicks him out, and then Homer does something nice/decent and she takes him back” is so lazy, especially for a milestone episode. Hell, it’s not even the first time they’ve done this type of story in an Xmas setting where the instigator of it all was Homer’s drinking!
Suffice it to say, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. There’s a handful of jokes that lightly graze the funny bone, but for the most part it’s a very mild, middling half hour of T.V. whose best quality is its ability to gesture toward better episodes.
I guess it’s an affirmation that Homer understands that Ned is a decent guy, and him delivering Todd and comforting Maude in a pinch, to where the kid gets Homer’s middle name, is decent enough. But it also feels weird that his big grand gesture is pretending to be Ned for Maude, with Marge just happening to be at Ned’s to overhear it...which has nothing to do with Homer’s drinking problem. It’s all just tacked on schmaltz.
They also make a big deal out of Homer in the “secret room” above the garage, but they don’t really do anything with it, either dramatically or comically. I guess HOmer overhears Marge’s condition for his return, but it’s not like it really spurs him to take action. The whole Maude thing basically happens by accident.
Otherwise, this one’s just a big meh. I did like Bart and Lisa being friends when they were little, and there’s a few on-the-nose but chuckle-worthy gags about them missing Homer. But it’s too little too late.
On the whole, this is pretty thin gruel for the show’s 700th episode. Round numbers like that are arbitrary, but you can see the show trying to mark the occasion by invoking the Xmas season (just like in the show’s first episode) and trying to get at something essential about Homer and his relationship with Marge. But the execution is tired and out-of-whack, serving only to reheat the series’s leftovers which are now riddled with thirty-two seasons’ worth of freezer burn.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-03-26T23:19:27Z
[5.7/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] I don’t mind The Simpsons lampshading its floating timeline. It’s not the most clever thing in the world, but there’s at least something mildly amusing about the show using the Oscars/sports/public embarrassment to suggest the cyclical or static nature of things despite time marching on.
But what I have more of a problem is the show lampshading its own laziness. There’s a joke in the same scene about how every Homer story involves screwing up and then earning redemption. At a high enough level of generality, any show can be accused of being formulaic, and lord knows The Simpsons has found plenty of interesting places to take Homer over the years. There’s something particularly frustrating, though, about the show making this joke in an episode where it falls back on some of its most tired and played out tropes.
That’s right! We’re doing Homer and Marge relationship drama again! Only this time, it’s a flashback, so rather than there being a 99% chance nothing comes of it and we’re quickly back to the status quo, there’s a 100% chance! Falling back on the formula of “Homer fails to live up to the most minor standards of spousehood/fatherhood, Marge gets fed up and kicks him out, and then Homer does something nice/decent and she takes him back” is so lazy, especially for a milestone episode. Hell, it’s not even the first time they’ve done this type of story in an Xmas setting where the instigator of it all was Homer’s drinking!
Suffice it to say, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. There’s a handful of jokes that lightly graze the funny bone, but for the most part it’s a very mild, middling half hour of T.V. whose best quality is its ability to gesture toward better episodes.
I guess it’s an affirmation that Homer understands that Ned is a decent guy, and him delivering Todd and comforting Maude in a pinch, to where the kid gets Homer’s middle name, is decent enough. But it also feels weird that his big grand gesture is pretending to be Ned for Maude, with Marge just happening to be at Ned’s to overhear it...which has nothing to do with Homer’s drinking problem. It’s all just tacked on schmaltz.
They also make a big deal out of Homer in the “secret room” above the garage, but they don’t really do anything with it, either dramatically or comically. I guess HOmer overhears Marge’s condition for his return, but it’s not like it really spurs him to take action. The whole Maude thing basically happens by accident.
Otherwise, this one’s just a big meh. I did like Bart and Lisa being friends when they were little, and there’s a few on-the-nose but chuckle-worthy gags about them missing Homer. But it’s too little too late.
On the whole, this is pretty thin gruel for the show’s 700th episode. Round numbers like that are arbitrary, but you can see the show trying to mark the occasion by invoking the Xmas season (just like in the show’s first episode) and trying to get at something essential about Homer and his relationship with Marge. But the execution is tired and out-of-whack, serving only to reheat the series’s leftovers which are now riddled with thirty-two seasons’ worth of freezer burn.