Grade the showrunners

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S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - A-
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - A
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - A+
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - A
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - C+
S13 - Present - Al Jean - C+
 
Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon - 3 / 5
Al Jean and Mike Reiss - 4 / 5
David Mirkin - 5 / 5
Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - 5 / 5
Mike Scully - 4.5 / 5
Al Jean - 4 / 5
 
Groening/Brooks/Simon - Quality: B, Apparent Effort(exerted by showrunners): A+
Jean/Reiss - Quality: A+, Apparent Effort: A+
Mirkin - Quality: A, Apparent Effort: B
Oakley/Weinstein - Quality: A/A+, Apparent Effort: A++
Scully - Quality: F, Apparent Effort: D
Jean - Quality: D, Apparent Effort: C-
 
Simon/Brooks/Groening (s. 1,2) - A-
Jean/Reiss (s. 3,4) - A+
Mirkin (s. 5,6) - A
Oakley/Weinstein (s. 7,8) - A
Scully (s. 9,10,11,12) - D
Jean (s. 13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21) - D+

Jean after his first four seasons probably would ring in at around a C+, but the past 5 have severely damaged that.
 
Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon: 3/5
Al Jean and Mike Reiss: 4/5
David Mirkin: 5/5
Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein: 5/5
Mike Scully: 4/5
Al Jean: 5/5
 
matt groening, james l. brooks, sam simon- B+/A-

Al Jean and Mike Reiss- A-

David Mirken- A

Oakley and Weinstein- A+

Scully- C-

Jean: B+ for 13 (and from what I remember 14 and 15), D from his recent seasons
 
Matt Greoning/James L. Brooks/Sam Simon - A-

Al Jean/Mike Reiss - A+

David Mirkin - A

Oakley & Weinstein - A+

Mike Scully - C-

Al Jean - D-
 
Matt Greoning/James L. Brooks/Sam Simon A
Al Jean/Mike Reiss A+
David Mirkin A
Bill Oakley/Josh Weinstein A
Mike ScullyF
Al Jean(13-16)C+ (17-21)FOverall=F
 
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Matt Greoning/James L. Brooks/Sam Simon : B
Al Jean/Mike Reiss : A
David Mirkin : A-
Bill Oakley/Josh Weinstein : A+
Mike Scully : D
Al Jean : C+
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Matt Groening/James L Brooks/Sam Simon: A. They produced some of the best and most memorable stories in the history of the show and they essentially created a blueprint for the whole franchise while still being unbelievably entertaining. The 2nd best season and the fifth best season were produced in this era imo.

Jean/Reiss: A-. Two undeniably great seasons from these two. Not as huge a fan as many on this site but I do rank their two seasons very highly. Two great seasons of television nonetheless with some fantastic stories and really enjoyable jokes. For most TV programs these would be the best two seasons. They produced the 8th and 9th best season imo.

Mirkin: A. Two of the funniest seasons of the show. Great plots but the greatest thing about this era is just the quantity of jokes and how funny everything was but with plots and characterizations still being grounded. It never got too wacky. An amazing achievement from Mirkin. He produced the 3rd and 4th best seasons imo.

Oakley/Weinstien: A+. Season 7, for me, is the culmination of everything that the show had done before. This season had the most amazing stories and were still hugely funny. Season 7 is by far the greatest piece of TV ever. Season 8 was still excellent but everything seemed slightly more washed out and tired (particularly by the end of the season). Still an excellent season of TV though and I by no means dislike season 8. It's just with such quality to compare it to it is always going to look worse. This era produced the best season and the 7th best imo.

Scully: C. His era feels like it should be split in two parts but as you said rate the showrunner I'm going to take everything he did. First season of his showrunnership is great and, imo, a stone cold classic. The second of his era is great but not quite up with the first 9 seasons but is still pretty entertaining and I consider it a weak classic. 11 and 12 are okay seasons but with some awful episodes aswell which badly impacts their average. All in all, Scully showran the 6th, 10th, 11th and 13th best seasons.

Jean: D+. 13-16 are pretty entertaining seasons overall. Nothing special and definitely not classic era worthy but they provide us with grounded plots (something we didn't see during Scully) and decent gags (a few misfire but generally they're okay. 17-19 are the 3 single worst seasons that the show has produced. Between them they have very few worthwhile episodes. 20 is pretty okay but still poor in places. It's nowhere near as bad as 17-19 but still nothing to be proud of Al. Not seen enough of 21 to can't comment on that. Al Jean's era produces the 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and worst season imo.
 
Brooks, Groening & Simon: 4.5/5
Jean & Reiss: 5/5
Mirkin: 5/5
Oakley & Weinstein: 5/5
Scully: 3/5
Jean: 2.5/5
 
S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - A-
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - A
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - A-
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - A+
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - C-
S13 - Present - Al Jean - ???
 
S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - B
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - A+
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - C+
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - A
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - D-
S13 - Present - Al Jean - C+
 
I guess my effort grades didn't catch on.

The point of those in case anyone cares is that depending on the state of the show it would require varying amounts of effort to improve/keep the show going. For example, Mirkin had the advantage of coming off of what could be the shows 2 best seasons, but he also had to hire pretty much a whole new writing staff. Likewise Oakley and Weinstein could've just kept going with the Mirkin formula and saved themselves some work, but they took the show in a whole new direction, and brought the show back to family issues, etc.
 
I'm actually stealing your idea Jet.

Groening/Brooks/Simon -
Quality: B, Apparent Effort: A
Jean/Reiss -
Quality: A, Apparent Effort: A
Mirkin -
Quality: A-, Apparent Effort: B+
Oakley/Weinstein -
Quality: A, Apparent Effort: A
Scully -
Quality: C-, Apparent Effort: D+
Jean -
Quality: B-, Apparent Effort: B+
 
Matt Greoning/James L. Brooks/Sam Simon A
Al Jean/Mike Reiss A
David Mirkin A
Bill Oakley/Josh Weinstein A-
Mike Scully D
Al Jean(13-16) C+ (17-21)D Overall= D
 
I guess my effort grades didn't catch on.

I didn't list them separately but I took it into consideration, which is why even though I like season 5-6 more than current seasons I gave Dave Mirkin and Al Jean the same grade. Dave Mirkin was handed a great show and took it down a notch in quality, while Al Jean basically had to resuscitate a show on it's last legs.
 
I didn't list them separately but I took it into consideration, which is why even though I like season 5-6 more than current seasons I gave Dave Mirkin and Al Jean the same grade. Dave Mirkin was handed a great show and took it down a notch in quality, while Al Jean basically had to resuscitate a show on it's last legs.

I was debating about it for a while and I thought that I might end up short changing one of them if I didn't list them separately. Seeing that a show like this would be hard to make no matter how good it was, the effort grades would always be better than the overall quality on the lesser seasons.

I wouldn't do this if we were just grading the seasons, but since we're grading them as showrunners, it seemed like there was more to critique beyond the initial quality of the episodes that have their name on them.
 
S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - A-
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - A
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - A+
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - A
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - D
S13 - Present - Al Jean - C+
 
S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - A-
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - A+
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - A+
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - A-
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - B+
S13 - Present - Al Jean - B

I know I'm pretty much alone here, but I think under the circumstances none of them did terribly. Every showrunner has produced some terrific episodes (some more than others, obviously). I embrace the differences in the eras.
 
S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - A-
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - A+
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - A+
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - A-
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - B+
S13 - Present - Al Jean - B

I think this rating system might work best:

S1/S2 - Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon - Ideas = A- / Execution = A-
S3/S4 - Al Jean and Mike Reiss - Ideas = A- / Execution = A+
S5/S6 - David Mirkin - Ideas = B+ / Execution = A+
S7/S8 - Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein - Ideas = A / Execution = A-
S9/S10/S11/S12 - Mike Scully - Ideas = C+ / Execution = B+
S13 - Present - Al Jean - Ideas = B+ / Execution = B

Does that help at all? It's kind of similar to Jet's categories.
 
I don't really see how you could Jean's ideas on par with Mrikin's and I don't understand how people can say Mirkin gave little effort he pushed the show to new extremes and to a different place and his ideas were crazy but they worked and remained loyal to characterizations,themes etc unlike Scully's.
 
I don't really see how you could Jean's ideas on par with Mrikin's and I don't understand how people can say Mirkin gave little effort he pushed the show to new extremes and to a different place and his ideas were crazy but they worked and remained loyal to characterizations,themes etc unlike Scully's.

I think overall Mirkin had the advantage over Jean purely due to the writing staff at the time and the state the show was in. Jean, under the circumstances, has come up with a steady direction (steadily declining, but in increments instead of fluctuating for the most part), and is the only showrunner to take a show many seasons past the usual ending point and, love him/hate him whatever, the show's still watchable-to-decent most of the time (sometimes worse, sometimes better) and I think that's pretty impressive. But that's why I put Jean's ideas on par with Mirkin's; it's not that they were/are better, but I'm giving him the credit due to the difficulty of the task.
 
Anyone else wondering what the hell happened to Al Jean? The Al Jean/Mike Reiss years were gold, and then Al Jean on his own destroys his own legacy. Does this mean that Mike Reiss was the true brains of the operation the whole time?
 
Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon ~ A-/B+

Al Jean/Mike Reiss ~ A+/A

Dave Mirkin, season 5 ~ A+, season 6 ~ A/A-

Bill and Josh ~ A+

Mike Scully, season 9 ~ A-/B+, remainder ~ D+

Al Jean, seaons 13-15 ~ B+, remainder ~ C/C-
 
Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon: A-/B+
Al Jean and Mike Reiss: A+
David Mirkin: A
Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein: A/A-
Mike Scully: C+
Al Jean: C
 
Anyone else wondering what the hell happened to Al Jean? The Al Jean/Mike Reiss years were gold, and then Al Jean on his own destroys his own legacy. Does this mean that Mike Reiss was the true brains of the operation the whole time?

Al Jean was one of the people that initially helped shape the show's success, and you can tell he knew what he was doing when he took over in season 13.

I think the main reason the show has gotten worse is that the quality of the re-writing has declined, and possibly the quality of the scripts. But the re-writing process is what shapes the quality of the show in a series that is driven by a large writing staff.

That being said, the criticism of the last however many years has been completely justified, and Al and pretty much all the writers (perhaps excluding the most talented ones) have been on the same show for too long, and it's bound to get stale. But who can blame them for staying on? Job security is a difficult thing to come by in show business/comedy.
 
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