Halfway To A Thousand

When The Cosby Show ended in the 90s, Bart and Homer Simpson were watching over at Fox.  Bart told his dad that if he ever had a show, he'd ride it into the ground.  He wasn't kidding.  The Simpsons just broadcast its 500th show in a medium where 100 is an achievement.

As a regular sitcom (and not just a cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show) the Simpsons have been airing in four different decades--just making it by starting in December 1989.  If you'd asked me in the mid to late 90s, I'd probably have said it's the greatest show ever, or at least in the top five.  But I have to admit while the show has never been bad, exactly, it has gotten tired (or maybe I've gotten tired of it).  Its reputation has been tarnished by sticking around for those last 350 episodes or so.

I can't blame them.  The show makes money.  But it's impossible to keep a sitcom fresh forever.  I'd say about seven years (as long as The Mary Tyler Moore Show lasted) is the limit.  All scripted shows go through phases, but after 100 episodes, we've pretty much seen what everyone can do and are starting to get into the decadent phase.

The 500th episode was better than usual for what we've seen lately. The story was fairly fresh, rather than just a seeming amalgam of old plots.  Or should I say they seemed to be stealing from other shows rather than self-plundering.  The Simpsons find out a secret meeting is being held when they're away because everyone hates them (Malcolm In The Middle) and they're being held accountable for all the awful things they do (the Seinfeld finale--though it works better in a cartoon where it's easier to be fantastic) and are thus forced to live off the grid (Weeds).  It wasn't until the end, when the town moved to take over the outland area (like another episode where the whole town moved because of too much garbage) that I felt it was pretty close to an old episode.

But the trouble is no matter what they do, almost every moment feels vaguely like we've seen it before.  Yes, the show has gone through changes.  They have literally hundreds of characters on their roster, a new title sequence, and four acts instead of three, but it's stil based on the Simpson family, and they can hardly do a joke that we haven't seen before in some way--just because they mention a Kindle this time, or whatever else is new, doesn't change the substance.  Also, with four acts, the story jumps around more.  I used to like how they'd take the first of three acts to finally get to the real plot, but now it's like having four mini-stories, so there's little cumulative impact.

They ended the show with a card stating:

Thanks for 500 Shows.

All we ask is that you go out and get some fresh air before logging on the internet and saying how much this sucked.

No need to be so defensive. I liked your 500th.  It didn't thrill me like the show did when it was new, but it was hardly the worst episode ever.