Project-Blu 'The Simpsons: The Complete 20th Season' Blu-ray Review, By Nate Boss

The Simpsons: The Complete 20th Season

By: Nate Boss, 1.23.2010

The Movie Itself:
Project-Blu Points Bulletin (The PB PB)

Pro:
The first season of The Simpsons to hit Blu-ray!
Some superb, amazingly crafted episodes
Still smart after all these years

Con:
The HD switch occurs mid-season, creating a two-toned season with two aspect ratios
Some terrible, terrible episodes, though they are outnumbered by the strong ones
A short season by modern standards (not Simpsons standards), weighing in at just 21 episodes

It feels like just a few years ago we would see the sights of young Lisa Simpson wailing away with her saxophone on a bridge with Bleeding Gums Murphy, feel the touch of drive-through restaurants with collectible Simpsons dolls (collect all five), or even the first Simpsons toys, which came replete with a few varied quotes (because all kids want to play with quotes!!!). It certainly has been anything but a short time since "aye, carumba!," "eat my shorts," or "cowabunga, dude" were considered acceptable Bart Simpson expressions, too

Twenty years, who would have thought The Simpsons would have made it that long, with no signs of imminent demise? In fact, the show received a surge of popularity due to the late, late bow of the film adaptation of the show, with the internet abuzz with the spider-pig, or avatars made from mock Simpsons characters.

Still going strong, The Simpsons are moving on to Season 21 (let that sink in. Season TWENTY ONE), and what better way to celebrate than to release the most recent season on home video? Sure, the DVD sets are only up to Season Twelve, with the first bowing nine full years ago. So what if there are seven seasons between the last release and the most recent? May I remind you that even Frasier was released out of order? Sure, the fact that neither the DVD, or the Blu-ray (the first season release to hit the high def format) feature a collectible character head package may upset some fans, but to be honest, something is better than nothing, right?

Matt Groening's four fingered, yellow skinned universe is back once more. Follow the Simpson family (Homer, Bart, Maggie, Lisa, Marge) through their varied misadventures and predicaments, mostly self-induced, as well as the debacles of the entire town of Springfield around them. No movie will be left un-parodied or un-referenced. Few characters of the past will not make their presence known, even if only in the background. Journey to the past, and to the future, but don't forget to journey to the Simpsons staple Treehouse of Horror episode!

Where to begin? This 21 episode season has its share of ups and downs, from some hilarious inventive twists, with great intelligence, and some cutting satire, to some episodes that feel entirely "been there, done that," in previous years. For every flash of brilliance, there is a scoop of malaise.

Season 20 begins with a bang, with Sex, Pies, and Idiot Scrapes, which may possibly be the best episode in the season. In a season full of plenty of Homer/Ned Flanders interactions, the cake is taken here, as the unlikely duo find common ground often, as they pair up as bounty hunters...terrible, law breaking, eventually bickering bounty hunters. The sideplot, involving erotic bakery, is fairly weak, not enough to run an episode, but enough to take a few minutes away from the main plot.

Lost Verizon keeps up the pace, focussing on the current craze of children with cellular phones, which bugs the shit out of me. The twist on this episode is somewhat lame, but the interactions between Bart and Boston funnyman Dennis Leary are worth their weight in gold (call me biased, though, as I'm a huge Leary fan).

The Treehouse of Horror episode (the NINETEENTH installment) is somewhat underwhelming compared to the past genius found, but certainly has a few shining moments to make up for it, that will be remembered fondly by yours truly. Make fun of the Transformers, and no one will care, as no one cares about those damn movies. But to parody the title of one of the greatest, most underrated comedies ever made (How to Get Ahead in Advertising), with a tale focussing on taking advantage of death, then to go on to do a full segment parodying the animation style of Peanuts, and the story of the Great Pumpkin, and you have a winner. The Robot Chicken parody of the same tale may win in a head to head comparison (due to how horribly, horribly wrong it is), but the ironies in this segment are utterly delicious!

Mypods and Boomsticks is a play on the anti-Muslim prejudices still in play in this country, with Homer playing the stereotypical racist, who cannot look past the color of skin or choice of religion in a new family in Springfield. The fact that the family work in demolition, and discuss said profession at home, to some misunderstanding, creates some fun, but this episode may be a few years too late, even if the hatred is still alive. The best part of this episode is the constant barrage on Apple and its products and services.

How the Test Was Won is a fun satire of the current teaching world, in that real knowledge with practical application is discarded for studying questions found on state and federal tests that decide funding levels, yet have no use in the real world, just a waste of time, a misuse of the education system.

The most educational story, for human relationships/mis-relationships has to be Eeny Teeny Maya, Moe, as the homely bartender finds love...in a little person. The differences are great, but the love true, if Moe can overcome Maya's height. After the episode so long ago with Moe and Helen Hunt, this tale of love and liquor is a welcome change in the right direction.

Fun, but somewhat average episodes include Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words (which is really fun if you take the time to watch the pseudo-documentary Wordplay), The Burns and the Bees (this season's Lisa vs Mister Burns episode), Take My Life, Please (the first HD episode in Simpsons history, this episode will remind you again and again), No Loan Again, Naturally, Gone Maggie Gone (which is more about Dan Brown novels than Ben Affleck films), In the Name of the Grandfather (this year's foreign trek, to Ireland), Wedding for Disaster (which features a Saw parody), The Good, the Sad, and the Drugly (which features some blatant CG with the expanding smiley faces that are so horribly out of place), Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh (which features Anton Chigurh!!!!), and Coming to Homerica, which mocks the current America-Mexico job and border issues.

Utterly forgettable episodes include Double, Double, Boy in Trouble, Dangerous Curves, Lisa the Drama Queen, Father Knows Worst, and Four Great Women and a Manicure (which may be one of the very worst episodes in the series history, and is amongst the worst rated, too!). The less said about said episodes, the better.

The season, as a whole, is solid, but there seems to be way too many speed bumps along the way, with most of the great episodes spread too far apart, between the bad, bad episodes. I don't think the less-than-inspired (or less-than-original) episodes in this set bring down the entire season too far, but they are far too far in number to ignore. This is something I expect from South Park, the fact that about 1/3 of a season can be utterly unwatchable. The longest running cartoon show ever??!?! Not so much.

Also annoying was recycled themes, in this season alone (let alone previous years). How to Get Ahead in Dead-Vertising (part of the Treehouse episode) featured Homer being lured into killing celebrities, part of a multi-part episode, yet, near the end of the season, the Four Great Women and a Manicure episode repeats the very theme, with Marge acting as Homer's murderous muse, as he kills his way through MacBeth.

The parodies in this season are fun, and far from outdated, but a few could have been done in years before for better effect. I about died at the Once parody, but the Saw joke (the original Saw...) was too many years too late. The play on the ages old riddle involving transporting three elements which do not coexist when left to their devices was genius, at the very least, and had to be the very highlight of this season in my eyes.

">I took a very long sabbatical from The Simpsons when I graduated high school, and coming back to the show, I see great change, for both the good, and the bad. I don't see The Simpsons going away any time soon (barring Groening walking away from his creation for some god unknown reason), as this season attests, there is still ground to be ventured. Twenty years and still going strong. Most people can't even make that claim, let alone television shows of any kind, considering how the target audience when this show first came out is now over double the age of said theoretical number. One of the landmarks in television history, The Simpsons appears to be here to stay for another 10 years at least. And so, the fans rejoiced, and it was good.
Rating: 7/10

The Presentation:
The first season of The Simpsons to hit Blu-ray coincides with the first season that aired in high definition. Kinda. The show made the jump midway through the season, so this release is a tale of two Blu-rays, in more ways than one.

The packaging for the release says everything that one needs to know. Episodes 1-9 are presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, with a 1080p upconvert. Episodes 10-21 are presented in the 1.78:1 ratio, in high def (not an upconvert). Fox made things nice and simple for those of us at home, by splitting the episodes across two discs in this exact matter: the 1.33:1 episodes on disc 1, the 1.78:1 episodes on disc 2.

So, grading this Blu-ray for its visual prowess is tough. The first batch of episodes has obvious, obvious issues, especially compared to the high def episodes. They're also not as much up to par with the FUNimation upconverts, though they do a faithful job presenting the material that was never made for such a presentation.

In the first disc, characters stand out far too far from their backgrounds, while background characters are utterly undefined. Color banding is hefty, while colors don't retain clarity or tint, often changing tones between scenes. Aliasing is bad, bad, bad, while ringing is an issue. Artifacting is visible in solids, particularly clothing, while pans and zooms create pulsing lines. The opening segment for these episodes is amazingly aged, and is a real pain to watch, with the jump to new animation for the couch gag.

The second disc is not without problems, possibly due to having more content, more clarity, yet same disc size (in other words, perhaps a split on the high def episodes into two discs may have been best). Stairstepping is present still, though not as much. Banding is the same way, there, though not major. There's a few bits of dirt and scratches, though they're fairly light. Colors are amazing in the fact that they're bolder, brighter, and cleaner. Zooms still create waves, but this time around, there's a few scattered shots where character outlines have a white ring around them that isn't ringing (which is still around). It's like a photoshop job using paintbrush, with some unclean edges.

The upgrade is obvious, but the way it is done on this release is less than superb. Still, quite solid, the transition is.

While the video for this season of The Simpsons may be a bit uneven due to obvious changes in production, the audio seems somewhat uniform, with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that gets the job done.

With television on Blu-ray releases, I always have to wonder about potential vs actual, as sometimes a show just isn't made to utilize all the speakers or have serious range or dynamic awesomeness. Sometimes shows are just there, and the advantage of Blu-ray for lossless audio is in the clarity of the dialogue, rather than the sonic aptitude (which would have made an ok band name about 20 years ago).

In this regard, The Simpsons isn't an audio marvel, but it is certainly quite acceptable, with fantastic clarity in dialogue. Sure, sometimes there's a rustle in the background of voice recordings sometimes, but that is obviously a problem with the source material, not the presentation of the audio (if anything, it shows how solidly captured the audio is!). The rear speakers on this release are primarily used for score and/or soundtrack use, though there is a few bits of localized audio, and an occasional (though rare) bit of movement. Bass levels are reserved for the score, and a few bits of atmosphere, very light. Dialogue stays front and center, with no exceptions. This track is good in how well it brings out what is being offered, even if it isn't bringing out The Matrix level craziness.
Rating: 7/10 (video score: 7.5/10, audio score: 7.9/10)

The Extras:
The menus for each disc are a hoot, with hand-drawn sketches from creator Matt Groening.

20th Anniversary Special Sneak Peek by Morgan Spurlock (HD, 3 min)
A preview for the 20th Anniversary Special, discussed by the host of the program, not the program itself. Again, a preview, not the special itself.

There are no other extras on this release, which may upset fans. No commentaries, features, interviews, nada. I'm less than bothered, but it I may be in the minority on that one.
Rating: 0/10

Overall:
The twentieth season of The Simpsons is available in stores now, ahead of seasons thirteen through nineteen. The show has aged well, but a word of advice: don't marathon it, spread out the viewing to a few episodes a night, and the show will stay fresh and engaging. View it all in two days like I did, and be prepared for a bit too much of a good thing in too short a time. My other words of advice? Buy this Blu-ray set if you are a fan of the show, so Fox can see the high def community will support the show, and release future seasons in the format.
Rating: 6/10