[3.6/10 on a Selman Era Simpsons scale] This was pretty miserable. “Frinkenstein’s Monster” starts with a pretty good throughline. Homer started out as an ambitious young go-getter (even if that framing contradicts some of the show’s foundational episodes, but whatever), and now finds himself disheartened at how much he’s backslid and failed to achieve his dreams as he reaches middle age. There’s something there, and if the show explored it with conviction and good humor, you could do great things with that concept. (See: the episode centered on Marge’s anxieties about her kids growing up from earlier this season.)
Instead, we get a wacky, over-the-top story about Professor Frink playing a nuclear science Cyrano de Bergerac for Homer at a Finnish power plant while a passed over application for his new job plots to undermine him with Machiavellian glee.
I don’t know where to start. The parroting Frink shtick is so exaggerated that it doesn’t pass the barest of plausibility tests. I don’t ask for much from The Simpsons in terms of verisimilitude. The show has pushed the boundaries of reality since almost the beginning. But the idea that people at the Shelbyville plant would buy Homer’s routine for more than five minutes strains credulity. Frink wanting a human connection is a solid enough idea, but as with Homer’s aspirations and regrets, the character story starts with a solid launch point and then goes completely off the rails.
Homer’s stalker and antagonist, Dr. Spivak is played well enough by Amanda Seyfried, but is another over-exaggerated character who lacks any humanity and feels conveniently jammed into the story. And the head of the Shelbyville plant is a bland moron who has no personality and comes off like a dope. Worst of all, the episode barely has an ending, with Homer admitting his fraud once cornered by Dr. Spivak, but without any team for any real fallout or consequences for his revelation, just a zany “Oops I fell off a cliff” situation where he’s...fine apparently?
As I often ay, some of this might be forgivable if anything , anything in this episode were funny. There’s a running gag involving a talking budgerigar that is just abysmal. There’s some mild cleverness to Smithers having a form for Homer quitting the plant after so many occasions, but it mostly comes off like a lazy meta gag. What the hell is Lisa’s 1970s singer-songwriter-esque lament? It’s mildly cute at first, but it goes on so long and serves practically no purpose in the episode other than to kill time. And the bit about Emmys being easy to win is tepid at best. Why are the jokes almost uniformly terrible in this one? I don’t understand it.
Overall, this is a terrible way to return from the mid-season break, with an unfunny, practically nonsensical episode that doesn’t come close to making good on the potential of its premise.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-02-22T06:44:36Z
[3.6/10 on a Selman Era Simpsons scale] This was pretty miserable. “Frinkenstein’s Monster” starts with a pretty good throughline. Homer started out as an ambitious young go-getter (even if that framing contradicts some of the show’s foundational episodes, but whatever), and now finds himself disheartened at how much he’s backslid and failed to achieve his dreams as he reaches middle age. There’s something there, and if the show explored it with conviction and good humor, you could do great things with that concept. (See: the episode centered on Marge’s anxieties about her kids growing up from earlier this season.)
Instead, we get a wacky, over-the-top story about Professor Frink playing a nuclear science Cyrano de Bergerac for Homer at a Finnish power plant while a passed over application for his new job plots to undermine him with Machiavellian glee.
I don’t know where to start. The parroting Frink shtick is so exaggerated that it doesn’t pass the barest of plausibility tests. I don’t ask for much from The Simpsons in terms of verisimilitude. The show has pushed the boundaries of reality since almost the beginning. But the idea that people at the Shelbyville plant would buy Homer’s routine for more than five minutes strains credulity. Frink wanting a human connection is a solid enough idea, but as with Homer’s aspirations and regrets, the character story starts with a solid launch point and then goes completely off the rails.
Homer’s stalker and antagonist, Dr. Spivak is played well enough by Amanda Seyfried, but is another over-exaggerated character who lacks any humanity and feels conveniently jammed into the story. And the head of the Shelbyville plant is a bland moron who has no personality and comes off like a dope. Worst of all, the episode barely has an ending, with Homer admitting his fraud once cornered by Dr. Spivak, but without any team for any real fallout or consequences for his revelation, just a zany “Oops I fell off a cliff” situation where he’s...fine apparently?
As I often ay, some of this might be forgivable if anything , anything in this episode were funny. There’s a running gag involving a talking budgerigar that is just abysmal. There’s some mild cleverness to Smithers having a form for Homer quitting the plant after so many occasions, but it mostly comes off like a lazy meta gag. What the hell is Lisa’s 1970s singer-songwriter-esque lament? It’s mildly cute at first, but it goes on so long and serves practically no purpose in the episode other than to kill time. And the bit about Emmys being easy to win is tepid at best. Why are the jokes almost uniformly terrible in this one? I don’t understand it.
Overall, this is a terrible way to return from the mid-season break, with an unfunny, practically nonsensical episode that doesn’t come close to making good on the potential of its premise.