The Simpsons 20th season hardly worthy of an anniversary celebration
By Phillip Sayblack
Friday, January 15, 2010
Twenty Years. That is a long time for any sitcom to be on television. But somehow, Matt Groening and company have survived contract talks, and other obstacles, keeping The Simpsons new and fresh for twenty-one seasons now. And in celebration of its surpassing twenty seasons, 20th Century Fox has released The Simpsons complete twentieth season roughly eight years ahead of when it would normally have been released. It seems 20th Century Fox tends to put out one season of this hit sitcom per year. And while 20th Century Fox may be celebrating a milestone for this show, its twentieth season is anything but worthy of celebration. Much like most of the show’s seasons after Season Eight, this one has perhaps only a small handful of episodes that truly stood out. Among them were the likes of “Take my Life Please”, “How The Test Was Won”, “Eeny, Teeny, Maya Moe”, and “Coming to Homerica”. The remainder of Season Twenty’s episodes feel more like filler than anything else. Even this season’s Treehouse of Horror was lackluster at best. The only portion of this year’s TOH that as worthy of praise was the Charlie Brown spoof, “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Millhouse”. The writers even go so far in this as to make fun of the sound of the adults talking in the Peanuts specials.
Another negative aspect of this box set lies in its very packaging. While 20th Century Fox is finally on the right track with its packaging of the Simpsons box sets, it’s still a problem. The problem with the packaging is just how tightly the discs are put into the set. The discs are so tightly packed that one can’t help but worry about damaging them with scratching and general surface marring when removing and inserting the discs. This is something that 20th Century Fox has been doing for a few seasons at least. Perhaps Fox should take a cue from HBO in how they boxed all five seasons of the classic hit sitcom ‘Get Smart’. Its packaging both saves space on DVD racks, as well as protects the DVD’s themselves. The Simpsons box sets only do the prior.
The only real positive to this box set is the “Where’s Waldo”-esque collage of Simpsons characters. When removing the box itself from its outer covering, fans can open the box wide and look at the vast array of characters created by Groening and his staff over the show’s incredibly long run. The collage of characters even includes the original Simpsons family, and characters from every season up to today. Something as simple as the packaging collage can lead to even bigger discussions on the creativity of the show’s writers, among other things. But sadly, that, again, is about the only true positive to Season twenty of The Simpsons. Now twenty-one seasons in, one can only wonder just how much longer the show can go on. At this point, only time will tell. But what time has already told is that Season twenty of The Simpsons is one that fans can leave on store shelves and watch online at least until it comes down in price if they plan on buying it.
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