Colin graduated Yardale with an average of 4

[Tyrannus]

it really would have been more echonomical to just use Milhouse.

Even though Lisa and Milhouse had a short fling in Last of The Red Hot Mamas I still agree there. I would rather take a couple already used once than another Marty-Stu that serves no perpose other than to charm Lisa such as Thelonius (though he only had about minute of screentime so it's forgivable) Jesse and ...that cowboy kid from Dude, where's my ranch.

To be honest I don't really know why the writers are so insistent on giving Lisa as many one-dimentional "Perfect" boyfriends as possible she got along just fine without them in the earlier seasons.

[missy_misery]

It's really interesting to think back on how many Lisa's boyfriends-one-shot-love interests aren't very flawed.  Even Langdon Alger seemed pretty perfect.

I can only think of Milhouse, Ralph and Nelson offhandedly as characters who're somewhat flawed creations that've shown interest in Lisa.

[Kif White]

One could debate though whether that's more of a case of Lisa being far too picky and shallow when it comes to the men she likes.

[missy_misery]

It's an interesting way of looking at things, either way.  This past season did a good job of exploring Lisa's dark side, which is quite a change from her usual moral-center-of-the-show status, and was somewhat reminescent of her brattier season 1-Ullman show days.

[c_nordlander]

It's really interesting to think back on how many Lisa's boyfriends-one-shot-love interests aren't very flawed.  Even Langdon Alger seemed pretty perfect.

I can only think of Milhouse, Ralph and Nelson offhandedly as characters who're somewhat flawed creations that've shown interest in Lisa.

Let's not forget Hugh Parkfield.

I personally think they alternate between very flawed and annoyingly perfect. Milhouse is probably the nicest.

EDIT: 6000... no longer.

[missy_misery]

*nods* and Hugh blends those qualities.  Lisa ultimately, at least, learns a lesson about him and how much she'd be willing to sacrifice when it comes to love.

[Dewey Finn]

Colin, Hugh Parkfield and Mr. Bergstrom make a good connection to themselves as Lisa's perfect male companion or role model.  We don't know about Colin yet, but Hugh Parkfield and Bergstrom both share a similarity of being spoiled of Lisa's eye or view due to Homer's bumbling acts

[c_nordlander]

Well, Hugh was a jerk, and the other Simpsons' behaviour just brought that to the fore. He may have had some admirable qualities, but if he had been a really nice guy, he would never have attempted to separate Lisa from her family.

[Kiyosuki]

I know I'm bumping an old topic and I don't post much here, but it's just that I was recently reminded how great a character Milhouse is by an NHC thread. And looking at this well...Thing about Colin is that I don't hate him much. What I hate is the fact he was used to replace what I think was a far superior sounding storyline they talked about to in the DVD commentary, which featured Milhouse.

Originally, Milhouse was going to "step up" his efforts to impress Lisa and it culminated with him being one of the people that helps them escape the angry mob, and the dome. The whole sequence would have shown how the house caught on fire too. To me it just works so much better that way. It makes that mob scene more complete, opens up room for Milhouse hilarity, and it gives both Lisa and us the audience a little more incentive to want the to go back and help save the town. I mean honestly...who do people care more about? One of the oldest and funniest characters in the show? Or some essentially useless gary-stu that we're never going to hear from again after the movie? Plus if it were done that way, that whole little subplot would have merged together with the main one instead of feeling tacked on. They wouldn't even have to become an item or something in the end.

It really does kinda suck. Looking back through it all, Milhouse is just such a great character who's never really degraded either. He deserved a lot better a role for the movie I think. I still don't understand what made them decide to scrap that whole plot in favor of such a useless character. It's probably my biggest gripe with the film after hearing about it.

[c_nordlander]

All I can say is: you speak for me too.

[CalculatedChaos]

Concurrence level: 10

[SirMustapha]

It really does kinda suck. Looking back through it all, Milhouse is just such a great character who's never really degraded either. He deserved a lot better a role for the movie I think. I still don't understand what made them decide to scrap that whole plot in favor of such a useless character.

I can't come up with a definitive answer between "laziness" and "willingness to make the egocentric and self-indulgent Lisa fans project themselves on an 'ideal' and 'perfect' charater instead of on clumsy ol' Milhouse". It scares me to think that Colin might not have been the Gary Stu the writers wanted to make, but the Gary Stu certain fans wanted to see.

[c_nordlander]

It really does kinda suck. Looking back through it all, Milhouse is just such a great character who's never really degraded either. He deserved a lot better a role for the movie I think. I still don't understand what made them decide to scrap that whole plot in favor of such a useless character.

I can't come up with a definitive answer between "laziness" and "willingness to make the egocentric and self-indulgent Lisa fans project themselves on an 'ideal' and 'perfect' charater instead of on clumsy ol' Milhouse". It scares me to think that Colin might not have been the Gary Stu the writers wanted to make, but the Gary Stu certain fans wanted to see.

If that's true, then... it's sad.

[Stretch_Dude]

I can't come up with a definitive answer between "laziness" and "willingness to make the egocentric and self-indulgent Lisa fans project themselves on an 'ideal' and 'perfect' charater instead of on clumsy ol' Milhouse". It scares me to think that Colin might not have been the Gary Stu the writers wanted to make, but the Gary Stu certain fans wanted to see.

I think we can give the writers a bit more credit than that. I seriously doubt they'd knowingly encourage those particular fans.

[fellranger]

I doubt that it's got anything to do with appealing to a certain type of fan, or lazyness.  I think they just missed a trick by trying too hard to play up the emotion of Lisa's subplot.  I suspect they went for a new character as Milhouse's crush on Lisa has largely been unrequited.  Because the emotion in the subplot was mostly from Lisa's perspective, this meant she really had to fall for the person she left behind in the dome.  Presumably given the history between Lisa and Milhouse, they decided it was too much of a stretch to use him in this role.  The Milhouse storyline as described by Kiyosuki probably wouldn't have been as overtly emotional, just far, far superior...
I think it was more a lack of subtlety that led to Colin rather than anything else.