Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Three and a half stars and half a great season, 3 Feb 2008
The otherwise very sympathetic Mike Scully, who ran "The Simpsons" for something like four seasons, has been criticized for turning the show into "a cartoon". And rightly so, apparently.
I have all the first nine seasons of "The Simpsons", and yes, it is some of the greatest, cleverest, pointiest American television ever produced. And the first ten episodes of season ten are really funny as well, although it becomes clear that from around episode five, the characters no longer have the same depth to them; they become more cliched and, yes, cartoonish. Perhaps that's when the holdover episodes ran out or something.
I'm looking at the list of season ten episodes right now, and episode ten of season ten is the last really funny, really clever episode of the season. Sorry guys, but it is. You can't honestly tell me that you think 'Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers"' and "Mom and Pop Art" is up there with "Krusty Gets Kancelled" or "Bart of Darkness".
Halfway through season ten is where the Simpsons stopped being something truly special. Surprisingly few really clever and funny episodes can still be found scattered throughout the following seasons, but season nine was the last great Simpsons season, and season ten is the last DVD set I'm going to buy. It's half a great season, and it's worth getting, but season ten is also where "The Simpsons" lost it.
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60 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Three stars for DVD quality, 4 Aug 2007
Season 10 of The Simpsons continues the decline in the show's quality that started with season 9, and which continued for several seasons to come. Part of this was to do with the writing, which was no longer as consistently funny as it had been. Another reason is that, after 200 episodes, there are few storylines left that hadn't been done before. Therefore, this season includes stories in which Marge is disappointed in Bart and Homer; Homer behaves selfishly; Lisa's intelligence is questioned; Homer gets a string of inapproporiate jobs; Bart misbehaves; and the family cause chaos on a foreign holiday. Been there, watched that. Admittedly, there are few (if any) shows that last for ten years and don't repeat popular storylines, but most of the 'repeat' offenders (Cheers, Friends etc) bowed out before they became stale.
There is also a palpable move in focus towards the supporting characters, and we see spotlight episodes for characters including Apu, Mr. Burns, Chief Wiggum and Ned Flanders. For the most part, these episodes are so-so, but they tend to rely on characters behaving 'out of character'. This means that we get a drunken Ned Flanders marrying a cocktail waitress in 'Viva Ned Flanders', and Mr. Burns trying to be loved in 'Monty Can't Buy Me Love' (surely an episode title conceived before the story was itself). Another mainstay of The Simpsons, guest stars, is over-used this season. In one episode, 'When You Dish Upon A Star', the stars of the episode are Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger and Ron Howard, and the Simpson family seem like hurried additions to the plot. Episodes featuring guest stars work when the 'star' has a supporting role, or cameo, not when they dominate the entire story!
Sadly, there is not one truly outstanding episode in this season of The Simpsons, and the only reason I've given this DVD set 3 stars is because of the quality of the DVD contents. There are the usual entertaining commentaries, deleted scenes and behind the scenes featurettes, as well as adverts featuring the characters, and a look at The Simpsons Movie DVD (although this feature is 'a rather shameless promotion'!) We also see the last appearance of the late, great Phil Hartman, voicing Troy McClure in 'Bart the Mother'. This is not enough, however, to convince me to buy this DVD, and I would advise you to pick up some of the earlier seasons on DVD, if you don't already own them.
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46 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This could be the last truly good season the Simpsons ever did., 10 Aug 2007
The classic years are over folks. But don't let that put you off buying this fab boxset, yet!
This is still when the Simpsons were a great T.V. show with consistently good episodes and the characters still had, well their character. Homer isn't the total selfish jerk of later seasons, Lisa is still considerate and not a selfish political motivated mini-horror and Bart still has his genius wit.
This season is a slight change from the previous seasons. The stories become a bit more zany, well quite a bit more zany and thus the founations for the massive drop in quality later on are placed. However, here the writing is still brilliant for much of the season. You can clearly tell it's not as perfect throughout as the previous 7 or 8 seasons but it's a massive step up from the seasons that come later and still retains the brilliant satire and quick wit that made the series one of the best ever.
A worthwhile purchase because it's still a mostly good season of a great comedy series. Sometime after this the quality of comedy and the quality of characterization gets into freefall. I'll consider the next couple of series to see where it all went wrong, but this might be the last Simpsons boxset I buy and it's still a very good purchase.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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3.0 out of 5 stars
"doh"
i have not seen the simpsoons series 1,2,3,5,6,7,9 or 8 but this definately the best simpsoons series i have seen apart from 1,2,3,5,6,7,8 or 9.
Martin
Published on 15 Aug 2007 by FROG!
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