Let me first start out by saying I realize this article is not directly related to Sabrina. However, I didn’t have a place to publish this article, and since Sabrina’s aunt voices Bart Simpson, I figured I could stretch it a bit and make it relevant here.
The common refrain I hear about The Simpsons is “it’s not as good as it used to be!” As a huge fan whose watched every episode of the franchise, I’ve been resistant to this line of thinking for a long time. There are certainly elements I don’t like as much as I used to, and I’ll admit episodes the past few seasons have been hit or miss for me. Last season had one of my favorite episodes of all time, “You Won’t Believe What This Episode Is About – Act Three Will Shock You!”, which is a brilliant social commentary on cancel culture. It also had one of my least favorite episodes of all time, “Portrait of a Lackey on Fire,” which is a horrible parody of gay culture that draws upon the most generic of stereotypes of the LGBTQ+ community. The franchise has undoubtably changed in its 34 years on the air, but saying that a franchise has departed from the glory that it once had feels like a big statement that should not be tossed around lightly.
When watching the thirty-fourth season premiere, “Habeas Tortoise,” it clicked for me why recent episodes have been hit or miss. I also finally hit that point of “it’s not as good as it used to be” that people have been saying for decades now. I was always cautious about coming to such a bold realization, because it never felt like anybody who said that had much reasoning for it beyond vague comments such as “the plots aren’t good” or “they’ve run out of ideas.” That’s when I realized I’ve been thinking about this from an angle of “is the plot good?”, when that isn’t the problem. Let me guide you through my thought process here by recapping the basic premise of the episode.
The plot of the episode begins with Homer being laughed at during a town hall meeting due to making a foolish remark. This causes Homer to become extremely self-conscious because he believes everyone considers him to be dumb. His family tries to distract him by taking him to the zoo. While they try to distract him, it seems Homer is written even dumber than normal. He makes comments such as “Social media…is that site still active?” then mentions being on TikTok in another scene.
When at the zoo, Homer does not see the tortoise in their habitat and believes they’ve been stolen, despite that the zookeeper insists that the tortoise is fine. He posts online about his conspiracy theory and some Springfield residents (including Gil, Ms. Hoover, Sideshow Mel, Dredrick Tatum, Superintendent Chalmers and Comic Book Guy) agree with him that the zoo is covering up that someone stole the tortoise. When all of the online commenters come to The Simpsons’ house, Homer exclaims “you all look so much like your avatars!” This is odd, since Homer has met all of these characters many times before.
The episode then divulges into Gil, Ms. Hoover, Mel, Dredrick, Chalmers and Comic Book Guy coming up with conspiracy theories. Some weird comments are made where one of them says they are a flat Earther, and Homer makes an anti-Science comment. This scene is when it hit me: the writers are putting little to no focus on the consistent characterization of these characters. I’ve often said to friends who like the show that I hate how the show has sometimes thrown continuity out the window for the sake of a joke in recent seasons. Through this scene and episode, I realized that the show is not only disregarding continuity for jokes; they are disregarding continuity for the sake of story ideas. None of these characters are alt right conspiracy theorists, flat Earthers, or anti-science. The writers just had it in their mind that they wanted to make an episode that joked about online conspiracy theorist groups, and completely ignored the characterization of these characters so they would fit with the plot.
I quickly realized my issue with the show went beyond just not liking what they did with this episode. All of my issues that I outlined with this episode - Homer being written overly dumb, saying “you all look so much like your avatars!” and the weird comments from various characters akin to what a conspiracy theorist would say – can be attributed to the writers trying so hard to make the dialogue align with the plot that they didn’t pay any mind to if the way these characters were behaving were true to their character. In general, the writing format of these past several seasons seems to have become “what wacky situation can we put these characters in next?!?” rather than on putting the characters in situations that show their development or accentuate certain aspects of their personality.
In fact, I would go as far as to argue the characterization of these characters has been boiled down to the most basic two-dimensional prototype imaginable. It’s become a dichotomy of either shaping the characters to fit the plot, or letting the characters run on autopilot with only the most simplistic personality attributes possible. We saw this in “Habeas Tortoise” with Homer being dumb, and it’s recurringly shown in previous episodes as well, where Marge tries to be the “cool mom” that follows along with whatever year-old stereotype that the soccer moms are just catching up to now. This expands beyond just the Simpson family. In this episode, none of the six characters in Homer’s group fit the conspiracy theorist prototype. Any random Springfield citizen could have been substituted out, and the end result of the story still would have been the same, because none of their characters specifically contributed anything to the plot that another character couldn’t have. This is most evident by the random wedding between Gil and Ms. Hoover which happens for literally no reason at all.
All of this realized, it made me understand why these episodes have been so hit-or-miss for me. With the writers prioritizing plot over characters, sometimes the plots do work with the characters, and sometimes they don’t. “Act Three Will Shock You” worked so well not just because it was an excellent social commentary, but the plot of having a bumbling person screw up and get cancelled worked perfectly with Homer’s character. “Habeas Tortoise” was an example of a good story idea, but it just didn’t fit any of the characters.
What I miss so much about the classic episodes of the series is the family interactions. I’m reminded of episodes like season 3’s “Saturdays of Thunder,” which is a sweet episode of Homer and Bart bonding over building a soapbox derby car together; and season 7’s “Marge Be Not Proud,” involving Bart’s pain about having his family disappointed with him after he makes the mistake of shoplifting a video game. It feels like we rarely, if ever, see full episodes like this anymore. I really miss the simple plots where it was just family dynamics and occasional bringing in plots related to other characters. Now, while I like some of the social commentaries, the constant parodies of pop culture and satires of hot button issues grows a bit tiresome, because it’s become more about writing the episodes around the plot than actually making sure the characters are behaving like themselves.
As a fanfiction writer, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that it’s okay to have a general idea the big plot points in your head, but it’s also important not to become so fixated on a roadmap that you pigeonhole the characters into behaving in a way that’s unlike them just for the sake of advancing the plot quicker. Clearly, the writers of The Simpsons could take a hint from this.
I’m still not of the mind that the show has irredeemably lost its appeal, but it does feel like the show is going through a bit of an identity crisis. The franchise has increasingly relied on parodies and social commentaries to remain relevant, but fails to consistently create plots that flesh out the characters beyond vacant vessels of plot advancement.
Despite this realization, I’ll probably keep watching The Simpsons for the foreseeable future. I remain loyal to this franchise even if it’s hit a bit of a rough patch, and to me, it’s worth cutting through a little bit of crap to find some hidden gems. I truly hope that the show’s writers can see what has been lost in this past decade or so of the desperate attempt to cling onto cultural relevance through parody and satire, and move back towards creating strong, well-written characters that have consistent personalities. I have faith that the show can do this, but it will also require the writers to have faith that these characters are strong enough and lovable enough to carry the show without overreliance on parodies and hot-button issues.
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