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All About...
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Simpsons [A Tale Of Two Springfields] |
| Review |
| It's not the worst Simpsons, but it's far from the best |
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| We'll take Homer to block |
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The season premiere of The Simpsons' 12th season seems to be a good indication of what viewers can expect from the better episodes this fall. Funny but not particularly clever, quirky but not truly original, A Tale of Two Springfields relies more on gross-out imagery and playing into the show's longstanding traditions than doing anything that's going to revive the series.
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When half of Springfield is shoehorned into a new area code, Homer leads a rebellion and starts his own town. Dubbed New Springfield, Homer's town is quite a bit like the newly renamed Olde Springfield. The only things missing are sewage, schools and hospitals. Olde Springfield, which just happens to be where all of the rich townsfolk live, has, in contrast, the best of all amenities. This basic premise breaks down quickly, however, as obviously lower-class characters like Apu and Jimbo are placed on the Olde Springfield side of town for no other reason than to allow the writers to create conflict with the Simpson family without straining themselves too hard.
Homer's desperate scheme to attract people to his deathtrap of a town involves stealing a major concert, and this brings in yet another useless cameo, this time by nine-billion-year-old rockers The Who. Although each moment The Who is onscreen is pure pain, those moments are thankfully few. Whatever happened to the good old days of insane asylum patients pretending to be Michael Jackson?
In the end, the most memorable moment in A Tale of Two Springfields is when Homer is eviscerated by badgers, and while that sort of shock value carried South Park for a long time, perhaps it's not what The Simpsons should be about.
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Daniel Erickson
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| "Each moment The Who is onscreen is pure pain." |
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