He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life (original) (raw)

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When a show runs for almost twenty years and the characters don't age, it's obviously going to cause some problems when delving into their pasts. Still, I think The Simpsons has usually done a decent job at keeping Homer and Marge's history consistent. The most recent episode, however, is so much of a retcon that I think it must have been done as a spoof on the whole thing, and a "screw you" to anyone who cares about continuity (see also: "The Principal and the Pauper" and "Viva Ned Flanders"). Even disregarding the time period and the sudden revelation that Marge has a college degree (seems like that would have at least come up when Lisa was helping her write a résumé in "Marge Gets a Job"), earlier episodes made pretty clear that Homer and Marge didn't have their own apartment until after Bart was born. And Homer, who thinks rock achieved perfection in 1978, was a grunge musician? Nope, I'm not buying it. The continuity issues made it difficult for me to really consider the episode on its own merits, but I don't think I would have liked it all that much anyway. The Back to the Future parody would have been funnier if they hadn't done pretty much exactly the same joke in Family Guy's last season finalé. In fairness to the Simpsons writers, the time it takes for an episode to be made might well mean that the FG episode hadn't aired when they wrote the joke, but I still think FG did it better. And while it's cool that Weird Al showed up again, the joke about an Al parody being a sign of success has also been done before. Actually, it reminded me a lot of the Mr. Show sketch with Daffy Mal Yinkleyankle.

There was a new American Dad as well, but I don't have that much to say about it. It wasn't bad, and Stan's creepy relationship with his mother fits his character pretty well. I actually kind of saw the twist ending coming, although I wasn't totally sure I had it right. I wonder why there were so many AD episodes in reserve, and so few FG ones.

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