Season Five - Episodes 18-22

Episode 18: Burns' Heir
There's plenty of hilarity in this one, but the plot doesn't carry through the episode - it slows down a bit towards the end. I think Bart was slightly out-of-character as well. Still, it's a fun outing with an interesting premise. Especially the Moleman bit was laugh-inducing. Homer eating flowers was also.. interesting. No emotional impact really, but at least Burns got to taste his own medicine in the end so it was satisfactory ending. Though I don't really get how Burns can cancel the contract afterwards, I mean it didn't have anything on that demanded Bart to live with him, not to mention as his son? It's just good enough to make it to 5/10 rating.

Episode 19: Sweet Seymour Skinner's Badass Song
This is the 100th episode that aired, and we got a decent episode for the milestone. After a bunch of average episodes it feels even better. It has plenty of good jokes and a good plot. Bart as a Skinner's friend is surprising, but it feels acceptable. The best moment of the episode probably were Apu's ramble about Jurassic Park. Well made bit. There was something else I meant to mention, but whatever, it's a fun episode, 6/10.

Episode 20: The Boy Who Knew Too Much
Another pretty good outing. There was plenty of good jokes, solid albeit a little basic plot, but still with a surprise in the end. I was satisfied, but once again it lacks something extra to be really a great episode. The highlight of the episode was when Skinner was chasing Bart and just walked into the water - that got me laughing. Well, actually I laughed twice (and I rarely laugh, mostly just smile) - the second time was when Homer said that "I know you can read my thoughts" and the we were treated to meows. That was so random shit that I couldn't help but to laugh. Kind of hard to rate this one, but I'll go with 7/10. One of the better episodes of the season.

Episode 21: Lady Bouvier's Lover
This was a lot better episode than I remembered it. But I have to admit I really don't care too much about Grampa-episodes, and when you're not caring about the characters that lessens the impact episode can have. It's still full of laughs and plotline is decent, even if the characters chosen for it fail to excite. The most memorable part of it for me was Homer's imagination about what his kids would look like. They look great! But yeah, good jokes, proper characterization and a solid plot mean this is a top episode, 7/10.

Episode 22: Secrets of a Successful Marriage
I really only have one gripe with this episode - Homer is very annoying. At first his stupidity is fun and well used in jokes, but it goes on too long and he is way too stupid. Rest of them are well characterized, Homer is just too much of a buffoon. That said, it was done in the name of the story and overall things worked well. It's funny and it was still at the time these marriage -episodes weren't redundant (partly since they were better). Despite Homer it's a good episode, 7/10.

So that's the end of Season Five. It was a weird season - It didn't have any episodes that I rated 8, even if it had a few episodes that are considered classics. It was more of a wacky season with not much very serious plots, which are important to have great episodes, even for a comedy show. It averaged 5,73 by being consistent, meaning it was worse than last two, but better than second season, meaning it could well be deemed part of the classic era. Still, has the Simpsons peaked already? Well, next season has some real classics and the only real contender for Lisa's Substitute in the battle of the best episode - Lisa's Wedding. Also there's Maggie Makes Three which might be the best flashback episode - at any case they come back to the more serious tone next season, which should make for better episodes and be a real contender for Season Three.

Seasonal rankings:
Season Three 6.21
Season Four 6.18
Season Five 5.73
Season Two 5.55
Season One 4.69