Watching television is supposed to be an escape from reality. You wouldn’t know it these days, what with all the cheap, half-baked, glorified game shows and insane celebrity docudramas that have left a once proud television nation’s streets cluttered with trash. Leave it to “The Simpsons” to remind us that life ‒ and television ‒ isn’t all bad, unless your name happens to be Milhouse.
With nearly two decades of precious, timeless ‒ and sometimes tasteless ‒ episodes in circulation, “The Simpsons” has to be doing at least a few things right. The nineteenth season picks right up where the previous eighteen left off, following the timeless adventures of Homer J. Simpson (the J. stands for Jay), his family, and the quirky goings-on of the residents of Springfield, U.S.A.
There aren’t any after-school special dramas or hard-hitting life lessons in the world that “The Simpsons” occupies. Everyone behaves in character, no matter how off that character might be. Signature catch phrases like Homer’s abrupt “D’oh,” Mr. Burns’ drawn out “Excellent,” and Marge’s disapproving “Mmmm” give the brain what it wants, candy and more candy.
There is no problem that can’t be solved with an amusing outcome in less than half an hour. While the show sometimes builds on the previous experiences of its characters, we are always reminded that they are in animation limbo. Nobody gets older, no matter how many Christmas episodes they do.
Perhaps this timeless quality is what so many viewers enjoy. So many things are uncertain in life, but when that theme song begins and the show jumps to life, it’s nice to take some time from the real world and trade it for something simple, entertaining, and worthy of being in cartoon form.
The time is coming when “The Simpsons” will end its historic run on broadcast television, possibly after its next season, for an even twenty years on the air. Fortunately, there is no end in sight for the show in reruns and on DVD.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I'll go along with most of this column on the Simpsons, particularly the descriptive phrasing about the show.
However, starting the column with this premise:
"Watching television is supposed to be an escape from reality."
is a problem.
Why? Glad you asked.
It sets up that the writer believes that is all television is supposed to be an escape from reality and hardly leads you a review of The Simpsons - a program which the writer heartily endorses.
Lots of good description past that, with various clips and shots at the program.
This sentence was particularly good.
"There is no problem that can’t be solved with an amusing outcome in less than half an hour."
Overall, the writer could have gone into more detail about a particular episode, one that was shown in the past week (the assignment period) to make points.
This column comes off a tad too generic and not as timely as reviewing an episode would have been.
Post a Comment