While The Simpsons season 33 proved that the long-running animated sitcom can improve, the series can never get over its bad reputation overall. At the height of the show’s popularity, The Simpsons was broadly regarded as one of the best television shows in the history of the medium. A confluence of factors made the so-called “Golden Age” of The Simpsons uniquely successful in television comedy, from an extraordinarily talented writer’s room to a revision process that saw each script go through dozens of edits until it was perfected.
In the years since this bygone peak, the critical reception of The Simpsons has ranged from abysmal to moderately positive. Although classic Simpsons episodes continue to predict the future with alarming accuracy, the show’s new outings are often criticized for being disted, satirically blunt, and uninspired. Even looking back on an atypically solid set of episodes like The Simpsons season 33 underlines the fact that the series will never be able to return to its early success.
The gradual decline of The Simpsons can be chalked up to a variety of causes. Iconic individual writers like John Swartzwelder, Conan O'Brien, and Larry Doyle left the series, the show’s fame meant it was now arguably more famous than many of the shows, movies, and real-life figures parodied on The Simpsons, and a stream of Simpsons-influenced shows like South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers began to render the original series increasingly irrelevant. Regardless of what caused the decline of The Simpsons, though, the series can’t return to its Golden Age glory days for reasons that are just as numerous and complex.
When The Simpsons Really Went Downhill
Online, The Simpsons season 9 is often singled out as the point at which the quality of The Simpsons began to decline in earnest. While this assessment is fair when an episode like “The Principal and the Pauper” (season 9, episode 2) is compared to a Golden Age outing like “Lisa’s Rival” (season 6, episode 2), this doesn’t provide a full picture of the gradual critical downfall of The Simpsons. Throughout seasons 9, 10, and even 11, The Simpsons was still regularly producing strong, quotable fan-favorite episodes like “Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken” (season 10, episode 11) and the underrated Simpsons Christmas special “Grift of the Magi” (season 11, episode 9). However, while the series was still undeniably good for the most part, there were a lot more notably weak episodes in these seasons.
While The Simpsons always had its weak spots, there was a particularly bad three-episode run in season 11 (episodes 13-15) where none of the show’s usual charms could save each episode's unfocused characterization, plots that felt incomplete, inconsistent tones, and abrupt, unlikely twists. By The Simpsons season 13, these once-minor cracks became unavoidably obvious. “The Blunder Years” (season 13, episode 5) and “The Frying Game” (season 13, episode 20) were standout failures that signaled the shift in the show’s writing as The Simpsons become more comfortable with simply abandoning inconvenient storylines and jumping between wildly disparate tones without much warning or reason. From there on out, The Simpsons season 15—20 were outright forgettable, while controversial Simpsons retcons become more and more commonplace thanks to episodes like “That 90s Show” (season 19, episode 11) changing even pivotal character details such as the generation that Homer and Marge belonged to. These sort of retcons made The Simpsons feel less rooted in reality and more outright cartoonish, which wasn't helped by the show's once-sharp satire growing blunt with age.
The Simpsons' New Episodes Are Better Than You Think
While The Simpsons season 33 is a long way from even its season 13 levels of writing, the show is not the disaster that it was throughout seasons 20-30. There is no denying that The Simpsons has been nowhere near its Golden Age heights for over 10 years but, particularly in comparison to the show’s weakest outings, The Simpsons season 33 is often solid and mostly doesn’t feel like the so-called “Zombie Simpsons” of seasons 20-30. Simpsons season 33’s story of Marge’s pranks leading to her unexpectedly bond with Bart proved that The Simpsons can still mine heartwarming moments out of its familiar central characters, while the season finale’s incisive satire of America’s dwindling middle class was far sharper than critics typically give the show credit for. However, the reason that these standout episodes haven't led to a revival of The Simpsons' critical fortunes is that the show only works when it focuses on characters, with its attempts at topical writing earning the later seasons their bad reputation.
The Simpsons Isn't Relevant Anymore
One particularly weak gag from The Simpsons season 32 envisioned Senator Bernie Sanders as a baby, and the moment distilled the show’s most frequently-voiced criticisms into one awkward gag. The moment was forced, clumsily didactic, and divorced from the events of the episode without being surreal enough to authentically surprise viewers. Like the wasted Succession parody in The Simpsons season 33, the joke was evidence of the show’s primary problem and the real reason that no amount of sweet, cute character-driven episodes will ever save The Simpsons. After more than three decades, The Simpsons has become an institution and, as such, the show has fallen out of touch.
Why The Simpsons' Bad Reputation Can't Be Fixed
In its later seasons, The Simpsons tends to succeed (however briefly) when the show focuses on its famous characters and their interactions, briefly allowing viewers to forget how much time has ed and how much has happened in the world since the show’s peak decades ago. However, when The Simpsons tries to comment on contemporary culture, society, or politics, the illusion is shattered and the reality that the series had gone on for far too long becomes obvious. The Simpsons season 33 ended a decade and a half after the show’s first theatrical movie was released, and not one of the 14n seasons that The Simpsons has produced since that movie's 2007 release date has been as critically acclaimed as the first 10 seasons of the show.
The Golden Age Of The Simpsons Isn't Coming Back
The idea that The Simpsons was once relevant, sharp, clever, funny, warm, inventive, and original before the series became a shell of its former self is far too ingrained in the collective cultural consciousness for the series to ever recover and be restored to its former glory. It is rare for viewers who stopped watching a series due to a very real decline in quality to return and give the same show another chance, particularly when Bob’s Burgers, American Dad, and even some later seasons of South Park offer more interesting adult animated comedy. The Simpsons will never be as good as it once was as the series has long since lost the audience it once had. Regaining these viewers would mean somehow recapturing the lighting in a bottle success of its early seasons, something that seems nigh-on impossible after decades of creative stagnancy.