Season Fifteen - Episodes 13-22

Episode 13: Smart and Smarter
Another episode I just saw recently on tv. It's a pretty good episode and shows again a bit of spiteful side of Lisa, which is hard to characterize so that it doesn't feel wrong. This episode manages to do it fairly well. There's some good scenes, my favorite in the episode was the atmospheric night scene from the museum. Lisa looking for her identity was interesting enough and especially her as a goth. Wow. Makes you kind of hope they would've gone longer with it, but then again it might've annoyed people more, including it might've started to bother me. But again it's hard for me to really rate this any other score than 6/10. It's not quite great, but it also doesn't have enough flaws to drop under that.

Episode 14: The Ziff Who Came to Dinner
Pretty solid episode. Lots of funny stuff and an interesting premise. Artie Ziff is one of those side characters that never got as much screentime as they've maybe deserved. Still this one has some minor flaws. The main conflict, or what I consider it, is presented pretty damn late in the episode. Also another late element is Selma & Artie coupling. Overall it's still very good episode, but it doesn't really manage to break from that damn 6/10 pattern.

Episode 15: Co-Dependent's Day
This wasn't that bad either, in fact my initial thoughts are to give this 6/10! I mean c'mon, can't I put any difference on these episodes? Cosmic Wars plot had some funny jokes in it, but it's pretty much resolved without anything special happening and before halfway of the episode. Marge and Homer boozing is fun stuff as well. The main conflict happens very late in the episode but on the other hand I'm kind of glad that they didn't drag that on any longer as we've seen Marge angry at Homer more than enough. There was some time wasting as well with Homer delaying on the phone forever... I guess that's enough of a flaw to drop it to 5/10. This season is very consistent if nothing else, or something has broken my brain and I'm now unable to draw any distinctions between the episodes.

Episode 16: The Wandering Juvie
I've seen like everyone of these during the past few weeks. This was another solid episode. Yeah you guessed the rating already. But what can I do? There's solid writing, every episode has it's share of laughs, characterizations are good for the most part. This one had two good quest spots to add to that. I especially loved the ending. Homer getting a job as a guard was a waste of time, though. Still this is another one of those 6/10 episodes. Not quite good enough to be considered a classic, but still above-average and solid near-flawless stuff.

Episode 17: My Big Fat Geek Wedding
I'm sorry. Skinner as Catwoman.. That's just too much. It's a fun episode with lots of character-driven stuff. I think this actually manages to be so good that I could call it great and rate it a little higher than the episodes that preceded it. Some people have poked the plot hole that is the fact that now all the sudden Edna doesn't want to marry at all despite their relationship having been "under construction" for so long. But I think it's in-character and works for me. Most of this episode works for me. However the episode didn't really need to have Marge and Homer fighting as well. It felt really tacked on and had to be rushed to have any kind of conclusion. I'll still give it 7/10, just not to give every episode the same rating - at least this has a major event for the series.

Episode 18: Catch 'Em If You Can
To be honest they just haven't been able to fail recently or I've softened up. One of the best Simpsons on holiday plots if you can call it that, because they certainly didn't play the usual formula straight and good for them. This episode is interesting from start to finish and filled with pretty good jokes. It's also very memorable because of the surreal Catch Me If You Can parody in the middle. Grampa's gay subplot wasn't that needed, but it provided us with that Miami Vice -parody, so it's okay. Let's give this another 7/10 even though it's really close. Man I must really be softening up. Only flaw: Where the hell is Maggie?

Episode 19: Simple Simpson
Another great episode, they really are on a great run. Good premise, there's bunch of great parodies in the first act like the country song and Promiscuos Idiots Island, and plot is interesting enough. The way Homer got caught by Burns kind of frustrates me but other than that there isn't much of flaws. Dalai Lama flying was a bit silly too. Great episode, good enough to get 7/10.

Episode 20: The Way We Weren't
This is something that can be considered a late classic. It not only tells us story about Homer & Marge's first kiss, it also tells about Milhouse's (though only according to Milhouse, everyone who has actually watched the series remembers his girlfriend - but we'll allow this for the sake of the joke)! Sometimes genious and madness certainly intertwine... Not only there is hilarious stuff like aforementioned Milhouse's kiss, there's same feel here as classic era episodes created by similar pacing and story structure. Characterizations are ok and characters are well used. However I didn't care for the ending too much. I love certain level of sappiness and that was sappy, but for some reason it didn't work for me. Perhaps it was the cliché feel of it or the fact that I didn't feel that the conflict wasn't that strong to begin with. Still, that's only a minor hitch and episode is well worthy of 8/10.

Episode 21: Bart-Mangled Banner
This episode is loathed by many and deservedly so, it has very non-sensical plot which spuns way way out of control. That said it has some fun jokes like people's expressions after Marge's rant and I kinda liked Homer talking to himself in the bar. There was really no sense on what was going on overall and the ending was especially stupid. I guess I'm going with crowd and rating this towards the bottom of the barrel. 1/10.

Episode 22: Fraudcast News
Solid finale for the fifteenth season. Lisa is on good form, pretty well characterized as is Homer, especially his speech about how he wants to be like Lisa when he grows up... Except a dude. It had good jokes and some excellent satire and it conveyed a good message without being biased. Solid stuff, deserving of 7/10 ending an excellent season.

So overall it was supersolid season, very consistent, only couple of worse episodes and they managed to improve their great episode ratio as well - It was 9 excellent episodes in 22. Season Fifteen averaged whopping 5,82 which makes it huge, huge improvement over the last season and lifts it among the top seasons of classic era. Great stuff this late on the series and next season has it's share of excellent episodes.

Averages:
Season Three 6.21
Season Four 6.18
Season Six 6.12
Season Seven 5.88
Season Fifteen 5.82
Season Five 5.73
Season Two 5.59
Season Eight 5.40
Season Thirteen 5.36
Season Nine 4.88
Season One 4.69
Season Fourteen 4.55
Season Twelve 4.29
Season Eleven 4.14
Season Ten 4.00

Great episodes:
Season Seven 13 (52 %)
Season Six 12 (48 %)
Season Three 11 (46 %)
Season Four 10 (45 %)
Season Fifteen 9 (41 %)
Season Eight 9 (36 %)
Season Five 8 (36 %)
Season Two 7 (32 %)
Season Thirteen 6 (27 %)
Season Nine 6 (24 %)
Season One 3 (23 %)
Season Twelve 2 (10 %)
Season Fourteen 2 (9 %)
Season Eleven 2 (9 %)
Season Ten 1 (4 %)

Only 11 games today, unfortunately I have no time for more, which means that next week will be intense.