REVIEW: [SABF16] Simpsorama

[Stretch_Dude]

Spoiler

The crossover everyone who never read the comics has been kind of waiting for! And it was...okay.

Aside from Panucci's randomly relocating to Springfield, Futurama got a fairly respectful showing. The plot was serviceable for both shows, though I admit when I first heard about the crossover, I figured that with the Jean Era's love of callbacks, the "go back in time to kill Bart" thing would've had something to do with the holy war from "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star." I'd have liked to have seen the two casts bounce off each other a bit more, but there's always the comics for that.

Some amusing bits, too, like the Professor "explaining" how Bender went back in time and Homer strangling the Bart-monsters. A little surprised no one lampshaded the skin color difference, though.

[missy_misery]

My feelings are Wayyyy less mixed than Stretch's.

Spoiler

I know that the comics already went there with a different plot (and some elements here echo back to Bender's Big Score), but this just WORKED for me. I liked the Bender/Homer friendship, Bender completely forgetting his mission in his laziness, Bart's germs resulting in an invasion of evil mutated creatures that looked for all the world like Binky the Rabbit, Lisa being smart and badass, Marge being properly motherly, and Homer not being TOO dumb. It might be considered acanonical crack, but I loved every bit. Professor Frink and Farnsworth confabing was also a great plot twist.

I agree that it also needed to be way longer; I'd rather the FG special be a half-hour long and this have been an hour; the FG one felt like it was stretching for plot while this one felt like it was rushing to cram everything in. I wanted some Amy and Zoidberg and was disappointed we didn't get much of either. I honestly recommend it to anyone who's missed Futurama.

Also, I need all of the Maggie and Bender hanging out being best pals fics.

ETA: apparently people had issues with the Kang and Kodos joke in the stinger.

[c_nordlander]

I haven't seen the episode, so I'm not going to comment on that, but I like how the article Missy linked ends with him explaining that the show's short-lived foray into "kill off characters to awaken the viewers' flagging interest" was a bad idea. I could have told you as much, bro.

[missy_misery]

The strangest part of the entire situation is how oddly they handled the whole range of deaths that occurred. We've had everything from decently-written deaths that least impacted the plots of certain episodes (Bleeding Gums Murphy; Rabbi Krustoffsky); deaths that happened for silly petty reasons that should never have occurred (Maude Flanders; Mona Simpson - I'll forever be bitter over both) and horribly underwritten deaths with unmined potential (Edna's).

[c_nordlander]

I was just talking about the last season with its much-trumpeted "someone is going to be killed off for real!" advertising. Deaths like those of Bleeding Gums Murphy and Maude happened too long ago for me to consider them in this context. (And back then it was like, what, three characters dying in ten seasons? Hardly a problem, even if some of the deaths could have been handled a lot better.)

You're not the only one annoyed by Mona Simpson's death. I can't think of any reason they did that, other than a cheap bid for the audience's emotions.

[Enhas]

I liked this episode a lot more than "The Simpsons Guy", and I don't know how some reviewers rated this lower. My only real complaint is that it just wasn't long enough... too much happened too quickly, but I'm thankful for what we did get.

[Nidotamer]

Not too on-topic but really, why did that article want to paint Kang and Kodos as a couple when they even mentioned that the two were referred as siblings? Ew.
(for the record, I kinda think that both of them might just have both male and female characteristics, they do seem to be not even remotely dimorphic in any way...)

And I can't really blame the writers for underwriting Edna's death for the same reasons I can't with Troy and Lionel's disappearances.

[c_nordlander]

I agree with May. The Kang and Kodos thing just seems dumb to me.

[missy_misery]

@Chris- Oops, I thought we were talking about the general trend of how the show handles deaths versus the choices they made with the Krustoffsky death.

@May: It's less about the way they wrote Edna out versus the way they've scripted character reaction. We got one quick scene of Ned mourning, when they could easily explore Skinner's feelings about the subject, or how Bart would react to the loss of one of his greater nemesis, versus everyone just glossing over it and having Skinner replace Edna in the classroom scenes.

And at both of you: the article painted them that way because I suppose the writer read it that way

Spoiler

In the episode it was kept semi-ambiguous, and suggested that both characters were multigender.

[c_nordlander]

Kang and Kodos being multigender makes more sense and just seems generally better to me.