This is always a bittersweet subject for me. The Simpsons can account for ten of the finest seasons of television ever produced. It also has more than ten of mediocrity or worse. What was once my favorite show has fallen completely off my viewing schedule. Well, almost completely. The other day I caught an episode I hadn't seen and somehow, it wasn't that bad. Did I miss something? Is it good again? This preview for the upcoming season suggests... maybe.
As previously reported, there's an endless list of guest stars that will be appearing on this season and the first episode wastes no time in crossing one off right away. Homer gets himself in a bit of trouble and needs some very special help. Lucky for him, Kiefer 'Jack Bauer' Sutherland is the guest star for the premiere episode of the unprecedented twenty third season of the animated series and he might just get the intellectually stunted patriarch out of the sticky and back to his family.
In my opinion, this is essentially what went wrong with the show and why I stopped watching. Since you need an endless amount of material to keep a series running for twenty three years, they have to resort to outlandish plots and endless cameos to stay interesting. The best episodes, like the newer one I discussed earlier, definitely all have some absurd elements but they're still firmly grounded in a fairly real world of Springfield, USA and its colorful cast of characters. I'd like to see more of that. I miss them.
The Simpsons returns Sunday, September 25th at 8 p.m. on Fox.
