7.1/10 on a ????? Simpsons scale. Season 9 is such a weird period for the show. It's not quite the classic years, and it's not quite the doldrums that would follow. There's enough of the momentum (and presumably the members of the writers' room) from the show's glory days to keep things going, but you can begin to see the spirit of the Scully era start to seep in.
And "The Trouble With Trillions" is a great example of that. It's a pretty funny episode (Burns's abortive attempts to subdue Homer, the lines "that was more of a burgundy" and "Can you pay me under table, I kind of have a tax problem," and Ned's usual squareness coming through in doing his taxes on Jan. 1 were all amusing). There's an interesting if kind of odd theme to the episode about government oppression vs. individualism run wild (with Homer, as usual, caught in the middle and swayed by whoever's gotten to him last). And the escalation in the storytelling works for a while.
But then, for some reason, we end up in Cuba and meet Fidel Castro and the whole adventure is wiped away in a handful of lines at the end of the episode. That, in and of itself, is not so crazy. The show's had Our Favorite Family end up in Australia for dubious reasons; it tied an entire episode around Homer feuding with George H.W. Bush, and Marge has offered the meta-commentary of "It's an ending; that's enough."
But there's a tone to it in the Scully years, something which departs from the shows best years where even when there were some pretty out there flights of fancy, the show always felt at least semi-grounded in reality. When Homer, Burns, and Smithers whisk away to Cuba and magically reset all their problems, it just feels like the writers not taking the world of the show seriously, treating the characters and their situations as mere structures to hang the jokes on, not to use for smart character-based humor of situational comedy. It's a hard thing to put your finger on, but it's a noticeable difference, and you can see the cracks in the foundation start to show here.
Still, it's a fun episode despite those flaws. The New Years opening is a blast (and one of the few New Years themed bits on the show.) The whole tax parody is chuckle-worthy if a little beyond the show's usual reach. And while the setup is a headscratcher, Homer's interactions with Burns and Smithers are consistently funny. The signs of decline were there, but the show was still putting out entertaining, if less substantial, television, and "The Trouble With Trillions" is an unfortunately great example of how much good was still in The Simpsons as it rounded out its ninth season on the air, but how quickly its best qualities were beginning to fade.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-01-03T06:08:39Z
7.1/10 on a ????? Simpsons scale. Season 9 is such a weird period for the show. It's not quite the classic years, and it's not quite the doldrums that would follow. There's enough of the momentum (and presumably the members of the writers' room) from the show's glory days to keep things going, but you can begin to see the spirit of the Scully era start to seep in.
And "The Trouble With Trillions" is a great example of that. It's a pretty funny episode (Burns's abortive attempts to subdue Homer, the lines "that was more of a burgundy" and "Can you pay me under table, I kind of have a tax problem," and Ned's usual squareness coming through in doing his taxes on Jan. 1 were all amusing). There's an interesting if kind of odd theme to the episode about government oppression vs. individualism run wild (with Homer, as usual, caught in the middle and swayed by whoever's gotten to him last). And the escalation in the storytelling works for a while.
But then, for some reason, we end up in Cuba and meet Fidel Castro and the whole adventure is wiped away in a handful of lines at the end of the episode. That, in and of itself, is not so crazy. The show's had Our Favorite Family end up in Australia for dubious reasons; it tied an entire episode around Homer feuding with George H.W. Bush, and Marge has offered the meta-commentary of "It's an ending; that's enough."
But there's a tone to it in the Scully years, something which departs from the shows best years where even when there were some pretty out there flights of fancy, the show always felt at least semi-grounded in reality. When Homer, Burns, and Smithers whisk away to Cuba and magically reset all their problems, it just feels like the writers not taking the world of the show seriously, treating the characters and their situations as mere structures to hang the jokes on, not to use for smart character-based humor of situational comedy. It's a hard thing to put your finger on, but it's a noticeable difference, and you can see the cracks in the foundation start to show here.
Still, it's a fun episode despite those flaws. The New Years opening is a blast (and one of the few New Years themed bits on the show.) The whole tax parody is chuckle-worthy if a little beyond the show's usual reach. And while the setup is a headscratcher, Homer's interactions with Burns and Smithers are consistently funny. The signs of decline were there, but the show was still putting out entertaining, if less substantial, television, and "The Trouble With Trillions" is an unfortunately great example of how much good was still in The Simpsons as it rounded out its ninth season on the air, but how quickly its best qualities were beginning to fade.