Friday 21 September 2012

Season 1 Thoughts





The Simpsons began as a ground breaking show. After Season one's airing, Bart mania hit in the summer of 1990 as massive T-shirt and other crappy Simpsons merchandise sales exploded. At first, the Simpsons is mostly looked as a show to go for one-liners and funny jokes. After all, "D'oh" made the dictionary and "Aye Carumba" and "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?" are so popular that it literally is known by everyone nowadays. However, as we all know, the Simpsons is so much more than that.

Many Simpsons fans writes off season one as a classic episodes. While a few of the reasons that have been brought up for this maybe valid, many of the reasons merely indicates the Simpsons characters look and behave differently from the later seasons. For me, I feel that the definition of Classical era is a close portrayal of a real and functional imperfect family. In Season One, while it can be said that Smithers is black (Herp Derp), Marge gets drunk, and Homer actually wants the family to behave and contemplates suicide, it is either so trivial or done in a way that is believable. For example, Marge getting drunk and Homer wanting the family to behave are off characterisations, but they don't affect that Marge is mostly unappreciated and loves her family for who they are, and it doesn't change the fact that Homer is a selfish buffoon but does everything he can for his family. Getting drunk and Smither is black are merely differences on the surface, but the heart in those characters never changed when transitioning from Season one to Season two and so on.

Ultimately, I feel that Season one is really the most underrated season in all of the Simpsons. While it is true that there is an off episode called "Homer's Night Out", episodes like that also exist in other classical seasons. In general, I feel that although Season One does have some surface differences compared to other classic seasons, the characters still conform to what we will see in later classical seasons. The characterisations and the storytelling are still consistent, and I do feel that Season One is a solid groundbreaking season that created a solid foundation for later brilliant seasons to come.

Note: All seasons will have the same rating format as episodes. Except that each scoring will be an average of all the episodes within the season. The only scoring that won't be an average is subjective section, which is my view on the season itself. The seasons will still be rated out of 10.

Season 1 Ratings:

Characterisation: 4.8/5
Plot: 2.9/3
Subjective: 1.5/2

Overall Season Rating: 9.2/10


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