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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2520 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 17, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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while more generous estimates (I'm in this camp) put it around season ten

Quite generous. Season 8 at the latest in my mind (Season 9 is when Scully took over), and even half of season 8 is weak. Even being generous, anything past season 9 (the last one to have Hartman) would be a tough tough sell for me. I'm old enough to have watched all those seasons as they were released, though, which might make a difference.

The sharpest discontinuous decline in show quality in my mind was obviously between seasons 8 and 9; the internet seems to agree. IMDB ratings also seem to agree that "The Principal and the Pauper" (season 9 episode 2) was the most blatant turning point: second-worst-rated episode up to that point, and the only thing that beat it was a clip show. On the other hand, it's still higher rated than the average of basically every season from 17 to 37, so there's something to be said for the power of dull continuous decline too.

If we were to say that the Simpsons was all good in seasons 1-8 except for a few clip shows, then in average ratings it doesn't decline past "mostly good" (where the average episode is at least as good as all those early episodes) until around season 12; if we set our sights higher (yeah, some of those season 1 episodes were meh) then season 10 was the dividing line, and the last good individual episode was probably 2024.

Now I'm curious; I'm going to watch that one.

... wait, it opens by claiming to be the Simpsons Series Finale? Are those ratings just people's way of saying to let the show finally die with dignity?

Yeah, off the top of my head I couldn't remember which episodes were from which season. There are a few episodes from season 10 I remember enjoying as a teenager ("The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace", "Mayored to the Mob", "Viva Ned Flanders", "Screaming Yellow Honkers", "Maximum Homerdrive"), but I don't think I've watched any of them since, and suspect I wouldn't find them quite as amusing if I watched them again now. It looks like the most recent season containing an episode I watched as an adult and enjoyed was season 8, featuring "You Only Move Twice", "A Milhouse Divided" and "The Springfield Files" among others.

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