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"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

Yeah, Lisa was really shrill in that episode. I mean, saying she feels sorry for her own mother because they share different beliefs? Harsh! On the other hand, maybe she just got so fed up with everyone in town jumping on the "It's an angel!" bandwagon without even thinking to look at scientific research that she snapped because nobody listened to her. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.

I also didn't feel that the episode chose a specific side in the debate of science vs. religion. It's not like the writer went, "See? Science wins!", because at the end Marge acknowledges that Lisa was squeezing her hand pretty hard when the angel started to talk. Thus, even Lisa, who was stubbornly convinced she was acting the most logically, had to admit she still had a shred of religion in her. In the other direction, the religious people of the community who were convinced the angel was holy got fooled when it was just a publicity stunt. True, the crowd didn't really learn anything because they were too excited with the new mall to care about being outraged, but even THAT had a point: Mob mentality can potentially cause fanatical beliefs/actions which one wouldn't normally have alone, and can quickly vanish on a whim, especially when something else diverts their attention. "Oh yeah we're outraged, very.... very much so, but look at all these stores! A POTTERY BARN!"

Re: Homer's characterization. I didn't really have a problem with it for most of season 9, but there were a few instances where he was a bit more over-the-top than previous seasons. One being "Trash of the Titans" (admittedly a funny episode), where Homer basically acts like a jerk to Patterson to get elected and screws the entire town over with his stupid decisions. And the other being "The Joy of Sect"'s first act- "Outta my way, jerkass!", nuff said.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

That didn't stop Lisa from bringing it back six years later in "I-Do'h-Bot".

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

People wouldn't have started to dislike it if they didn't really and truly find something wrong with it. And I'm honestly not trying to be overcritical, and I don't dislike the season as much as other fans, and I was actually expecting it to be excellent. But I was honestly unimpressed, and I really do think this is the start of the decline; not because I want to think it. I actually kept trying to convince myself while watching it that it was an excellent season, but for me to do that would be deceiving myself. I don't dislike this season because everyone else does, but because I really do think it is mediocre, for all of the reasons already mentioned and more.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

I'm not going to read all of this and I'm just going to say that I did read J.B.'s first post and I agreed with everything in it.

People are overly critical is the only reason I can find. It's like they want to find something to dislike about this season.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

I can easily put him at fault for his kicking aside the camera woman in 'Trash of the Titans', probably Homer's most blatant case of being a jerk in all of season nine. Let's look at the scene for a moment. There is not a single motivation for Homer except for him to selfishly dominate a rock concert to campaign for himself. Now I'd also like to compare my views of 'Homer's Enemy' with 'Bart Star', as they both have Homer trying be well-meaning, but ends up being inconsiderate. In 'Bart Star', it seems more that Homer is being inconsiderate as a way to act out his well-meaning ideas. He cuts several players and demeans them out of his favoritism to achieve what he thinks is right, while never being able to understand what Bart really wants. He's clearly meaning to be inconsiderate to the other players in order to show his 'love' to Bart. In 'Homer's Enemy', he tries to be considerate to Frank Grimes first and foremost, but his attempts at being considerate are perceived by Frank Grimes as inconsideration. In 'The Trash of the Titans', Homer isn't trying to be well-meaning. Rather, he's trying to gain high status as a garbageman. As a result, he acts like a jerk to Ray Patterson for really no reason other than the fact that Marge wrote a letter of apology. There was not reason for him to strangle the parrot or to suddenly start insulting Ray; he was just being a jerk, plain and simple, the likes of which we had never started to see before in the series. I still think that my 'Realty Bites' point still stands as well, where I really and truly cannot find the well-meaning Homer of old.

I'll go on a bit more about 'Lisa the Skeptic', with the scene between her and Marge. First of all, let's study her in earlier seasons. She has always been portrayed as tolerant to other cultures and religions, and she herself is a church-goer, but early on in the episode, before she had excessive reason to get over-worked, she tells Marge that she feels sorry for her, in the most insulting way possible, because she believes in angels. It doesn't even have anything to do with the fact the angel skeleton itself. Marge just said that she believes in angels, just like millions of people, and Lisa said in the most inconsiderate way possible, that she felt sorry for her. Again, the episode was trying to satirize the battle between science and religion. 'Homer the Heretic' was an example of deep commentary on religion that offered many viewpoints, but never really chose sides. Here, the writers merely put easily thought out opinions on the problems of religion into Lisa's mouth. I'll make another comparison. 'Lisa the Iconoclast' showed Lisa in a similar situation, faced with the stupidity of the town as she tries to prove her point. Here, she behaves like an eight year old girl, and only once does she really go over the top. She is sensitive to the hurtful beliefs of others, and it's hard for her to continue doing what's right under adversity, but she does so as best she can. She is portrayed as nice and caring. In 'Lisa the Skeptic', it is a highly similar scenario, but instead, Lisa is rude and blatantly disrespectful, not just to the fools believing in the angel skeleton, but to religious beliefs in general. She rarely has the sweetness of an eight year old girl, and is instead incredibly mean to everyone. In 'Bart Carny', even if carnivals are often disgusting doesn't make disgusting jokes any more funny. Even if the jokes fit the setting, they still attempted to derive humor from tastelessness, accurate given the situation or not. 'Das Bus' really didn't parody Lord of the Flies, despite the well done ending. It merely paid a few homages to the key parts of the book, such as the conch and the glasses, while drawing a few similarities between characters. However, it doesn't fully parody the book. Most of the episode is spent showing the children in a dire situation, mostly complaining, only to result in a last-minute Milhouse trial. It hardly follows the themes of Lord of the Flies, and only tried to near the end. My main problem with 'The Trouble With Trillions' is that the writers just wrote themselves into a corner. The fact that the story wasn't able to end was a sign of bad writing. And even if the first and part of the second act were somewhat funny for me, I found the latter half and much of the first hurt by poorly characterized Burns, who is portrayed more a senile old man than an evil and malicious overlord. Homer spends his time being obnoxious, and there are really many tasteless jokes, that I could not laugh at. 'This Little Wiggy' was the start of weird Ralph. Even though after 'I Love Lisa', which portrayed him as merely insecure, he began being more of an unintelligent one-liner, this episode made Ralph really mentally bizarre, by showing that he undergoes delusions and fantasies, as opposed to being merely innocently stupid. I actually didn't feel for Ralph at that scene, because Ralph just didn't feel human to me. I didn't believe him as a character, because for the majority of the episode, he was shown to have too many qualities that transcended the Ralph I came to know over the years, that when Ralph suddenly start acting like his insecure self, I can't sympathize with him. I found that Kirk Van Houten's arm getting sliced off was the first of many cruel pain gags to come over the years. I'll cut this one a bit of slack, because it was, more than anything, a screw-the-audience gag, but I still think it was a step toward the excessive pain humor that would arise over the years. I still can't laugh at Marge saying 'I-C-U-P' because it is nothing other than that old childhood prank. It is a classic case of attempting to pass juvenile humor as intelligence, when essentially there is none. Unlike you, I don't find it funny just because of the fact that it is between two adults as opposed to children, because it is all the same childish crudeness, and just because it shows it in a different situation doesn't mean the joke is any different.

I really do appreciate the fact that you don't see the flaws that I do in these episodes, and many times do I wish I could be less of an anal viewer than someone who can simply enjoy this still-above-average comedy of this season. But the debater in me just feels like arguing. You're welcome to ignore this if you do want to avoid an argument.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

I don't want to get into a huge argument here, but I don't consider any of those Homer moments to be over-the-top. The reason is because I know the characterization of Homer that the writers were trying to achieve - impulsive, unfocused, and illogical, but motivated by what he thinks will make everything right. Of course, what he thinks will make everything right is more often than not totally wrong, but he lacks the proper skills to really comprehend that anyway, so you can hardly fault him for doing things that end up inconveniencing or even endangering other characters. It's like the conflict that presented itself in "Homer's Enemy"; you can either protest Homer's behavior and insist that he be more considerate, or you can just roll with the knowledge that he's a well-meaning guy who just makes mistakes.

As for the examples of poor writing you cited, I don't see them that way at all. Something like "Lisa the Skeptic" wouldn't play well in, say, Season 3, because it needs years of build-up on behalf of what we know about Lisa in order to work. By the time of Season 9, we all know what Lisa's beliefs are, and that those beliefs are constantly being challenged by the idiots of Springfield. The discovery of the angel skeleton sparks a debate that finally pushes Lisa too far, and she goes overboard in her efforts to make her side of the story heard. Even a character like Lisa can get carried away - that's what makes her human. The carnival jokes in "Bart Carny" might be seen as tasteless at first, but carnivals can be very gritty and disgusting places if you're an employee, so it only makes sense that, in order to convey what a crappy job it is for Bart and Homer, they get stuck with the most revolting tasks. "Das Bus" is a fitting parody of Lord of the Flies, as it instills the "Simpsons" sensibilities and characteristics into the story. If the kids in the original book had trouble surviving, clearly the kids of Springfield are going to be even worse at it. And Lord of the Flies itself had kind of a cop-out ending, so the ending narration of the episode completes the parody by making it an even bigger cop-out - actually having a real ending would subtract from the satire. "The Trouble With Trillions" didn't have a solid resolution, I'll grant you that, but not every episode requires one. It was a primarily gag-driven episode, and those gags were very brilliantly executed (I found myself consistently laughing aloud). "This Little Wiggy" is no more detrimental to Ralph's character than any other episode. Comparing it to "I Love Lisa", it's less emotion-driven, but that's to be expected, since "I Love Lisa" was an episode that dealt with Ralph's love life. Even so, there is emotion in the episode when Bart has to decide whether to side with Ralph or the bullies, and when he leans towards the latter, poor impressionable Ralph can do naught but whimper "I thought we were friends!" You feel for both Ralph and Bart at this point. Any gags in any episode that are crude in appearance have an underlying point to them. Marge's "cup" exchange in "Bart Star" comments on how even professional adults can be immature (how many times did your classmates prompt you to spell "Icup" on the playground? Well, some people never outgrow that sense of humor); the scene with Kirk VanHouten's arm in "Realty Bites" is explained in the commentary, as it started out with the piano wire just slicing his sandwich, but that was deemed too predictable, so they went the completely opposite route (and besides, it's done in classic cartoon fashion - there's no blood involved and we later see Kirk's arm in a sling, so it's not like the "gratuitous blood loss" gags of later seasons).

I used to have the same complaints you did, until I looked more deeply at the show. Now I realize that I was getting worked up over nothing.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

I'll try to explain best I can. In 'Bart Star', I actually found no evidence that Homer was heckling Flanders because he associated it with peewee football, and even if that was his motivation, it didn't make him more or less irritating. I rather saw that he was being a jerk to Flanders because he hates Flanders, without giving him the standard motivation of jealousy and overdoing it in the process. And when he 'loves' Bart, it doesn't feel like genuine love, but rather a narrow minded favoritism that is overdone and makes Homer unlikeable, as his inability to truly care for Bart really shows his exaggerated ignorance in its worst form. A fair point for 'The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons', but the whole 'doing what's best for Apu' still seemed like a forced reason for him to make an ass of himself. Yes, the point was that he cared for Apu, but his behavior, in my opinion, betrayed that for the sake of cheap jokes. In 'Realty Bites', Homer is really and truly a jerk. After he buys Snake's car, he begins acting incredibly loud and obnoxious and is willing to throw his wife out for the sake of a joyride. There were also significant problems in 'The Trouble With Trillions', what with Homer being as annoying as possible, giving into the government to decode information from his friends, turning his back on the operation by a poorly characterized Burns, getting joy out of placing one guard's hand on the rear of another (honestly, how tasteless can you get?) and then going off on a nonsensical trip to Cuba where he's exaggeratedly ignorant. In 'The Trash of the Titans', there was absolutely NO motivation for him to kick aside the camera woman, and his behavior toward Patterson was just dreadful. Say Homer had a reason, but it didn't change the fact that this was far more cruel and annoying than he had ever been in the first eight seasons, strangling a parrot and cutting the brake lines.

There is a lot of evidence that the show had become less intelligent, and I'll be willing to point out a few episodes. The most annoying for me is 'Lisa the Skeptic' which blatantly shows its unintelligence by showing the inability to even handedly and effectively satirize a controversial issue. Instead of being intelligent by providing interesting input on the matter, it took one of the show's most prevalent characters and reduced her to a preachy PC thug, whose easily written knocks at religious beliefs are supposed to pass as intelligent satire. 'Bart Carny' is a showcase for crudeness and distastefulness, from Bart shoveling horse droppings and Homer eating chickens to Homer and Bart mooning sharks and Homer insisting Marge use the bathroom outside. A true sign of the decline in the show's intelligence. 'Das Bus' tried to pass juvenile behavior as quality writing, while ineffectively 'parodying' Lord of the Flies. Homer's subplot, instead of being intelligent subtle and witty satire, merely proved to lead up to an easily written display of Bill Gate's buying out Homer's company. 'The Trouble With Trillions' suffered from being nonsensical and without resolution, while also resorting to poorly characterized Burns and an annoying Homer characterization. 'This Little Wiggy' took an innocent, insecure, and misunderstood child and turned him into the 'easier to write' brainless non-sequitor-spewing vacuous child with not even a glimmer of humanity. The season was filled with excessive crudeness, from Marge's 'cup' exchange from 'Bart Star' to everything in 'Bart Carny' to the mutilation of Kirk Van Houten in 'Realty Bites', and beyond. This is only my opinion, but the show certainly did take a more unintelligent route than its predecessors.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

I think it suggests that you have too much time on your hands.

That being said, I've now watched all the episodes with commentary, and I can reinforce my earlier statement that my opinion of Season 9 has substantially improved. I think the only reason I disliked it before was because I had read the newsgroups and was under the impression that I was supposed to hate it. The only bumps I can find in this season are the aforementioned gripes with "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" and "Bart Carny", and maybe the ending to "Trash of the Titans", and even that doesn't bother me very much (yes, it's a giant continuity error if you think about it, but it made me laugh).

Reviewing episodes like "King of the Hill" and "Lost Our Lisa", I see virtually no evidence of the "jerkass Homer" that people insist plagued the Mike Scully era. Quite the opposite, in fact - he may be impulsive and easily distracted, but he's still guided by a love for his family. All of Homer's supposed "jerkass" behavior actually springs from innocent motivations. In "Bart Star", Homer isn't rude and obnoxious just for the hell of it; on the contrary, he gets wrapped up in the concept of the peewee football league by heckling Flanders for no other reason than the fact that he simply associates heckling with sporting events. Then the only reason he proves to be such a bad coach is because he doesn't know how to properly balance good strategic thinking with the respect he has for Bart. In "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons", he crashes Apu's wedding in a Ganesh costume because it's what he thinks Apu wants, before Apu realizes that a life with Manjula won't be so bad after all. You can hardly chastise Homer's behavior in "The Joy of Sect", as he's been brainwashed by the Movementarians. And in "The Cartridge Family", he's just so smitten with the idea of posessing the power of a firearm that he can't bring himself to dispose of it - a prime example of the lack of self-control he's always displayed (he even faces his problem in the end and begs Marge to dispose of the gun for him, knowing that "[he'll] just lie to [her] again and again"). In fact, the Homer of Season 9 is pretty much always the same dimwitted-but-earnest Homer that we've seen for the previous eight years. I can't comprehend why people claimed he became more of a jerk during this period.

Not only that, but I've heard people complain that the writing just got poorer and less intelligent in Season 9. Why? This season has just as many examples of classic "Simpsons" humor as the first eight. Throughout episodes like "Treehouse of Horror VIII", "The Last Temptation of Krust", "Dumbbell Indemnity", "The Trouble With Trillions", and "Girly Edition", I found myself laughing just as hard as I always have - not at cheap shots, but at clever, fast-paced, smart dialogue that's just as satirical as ever, while still (for the most part) staying true to the characters who say it. Admittedly, some stuff falls flat because it doesn't work coming out of a certain character's mouth (for instance, Lisa's "Who needs college, mom? We're trillionaires! Let's buy dune buggies!" in "The Trouble With Trillions"), but it's small potatoes compared to the number of lines that do hit their mark.

Watching this DVD and experiencing these episodes all over again has been great for me. Much like Seasons 5 and 6, they've stood the test of time and managed to disprove the negative reviews they got the first time around. It's like a veil of criticism has been lifted off the season, and I now have 25 more good episodes of "The Simpsons" to enjoy.

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

I kinda like "Natural Born Kissers." Mainly because Homer and Marge were naked in that one. I had it running in slow-mo, while Homer and Marge escaped, and I hit pause on one frame, and it showed Marge's bare breasts! How weird is that?

"The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

Indeed. I can't stand to watch "Another Simpsons Clip Show" because of how straightforward it was in introducing the clips (all of which were really long), but "All Singing, All Dancing" had plenty of new material to make up for the fact that it was a clip show, including new catchy musical numbers a very funny first act.

"Did you get Emma? Did you? Did you? Huh huh huh?"
"Calm down honey, take it easy, take it easy hehe........ No."

Changing gears, this season had the second to last Treehouse of Horror special where all three acts were pretty good. "Fly vs. Fly" was gold. Great direction, a difficult situation to resolve, and one of the funniest THOH conclusions ever: "Something that should've been done a LONG time ago......... I'LL TEACH YOU TO MESS WITH MY MACHINE!!!"