Rate and Review: "Elementary School Musical" (MABF21)

How do you rate "Elementary School Musical?"

  • 5/5: Musical Legacy

    Votes: 8 3.9%
  • 4/5: Hit-Maker

    Votes: 20 9.7%
  • 3/5: One-Hit Wonder

    Votes: 55 26.7%
  • 2/5: Cover Band

    Votes: 68 33.0%
  • 1/5: South Park Already did it!

    Votes: 55 26.7%

  • Total voters
    206
Neither the total trainwreck that it could have been nor anything above what we've come to expect in recent years.

There were a few bright spots in here to be sure. I absolutely adore the song Good Vibrations and any incorporation of that isn't going to get criticism from me. That started the musical aspect of the episode on a positive note. The Glee cast had such a short appearance is in a way a blessing but also highlights how trivial their incorporation was. I'd appreciate they use guest appearances only when it really adds something. The Flight of the Concords fit in surprisingly well into the Simpsons universe. While I don't think there was really anything exceptional or remarkable about the scenes with them, there was nothing cringeworthy either.

The gags that I thought worked were Maggie with the pacifier, Maggie with the picture of the brontosaurus, and the most monotonous highway sign gag. Marge's bit about the bathing suit certainly fit her character and the kind of anxieties she shows, so I thought that line was pretty good. Homer laughing was well-timed for about two or three seconds, but then it went on forever and became excruciating.

But on to the negatives. The subplot was pretty lifeless I must say. It seems they forgot to add anything humourous or interesting. Maybe they just patched something together to pad time. If it was actually meant to parody the whole Polanski business from July, that would indicate a rush job. I also see that in any given scene Lisa is either bitter or dull. I miss when I actually felt sorry for her in her crisis.

I also see the list jokes aren't going anywhere as two were here tonight (Lisa's activities by day and the Krusty videos). You'd think given how much they talk about having less time, they could can these in favour of actually expanding the episode. The terrible puns are continuing to get heavy use in the Simpsons. Also, it seems now that essentially every scene must incorporate a gag or reference to some technological device.

The rest of the music was alright I guess. I'm not sure if it works as well in the Simpsons context as it would on the Flight of the Concords, but pretty much any music is a breath of fresh air after last season's Ke$ha business.

Watchable, but nothing to get excited about by any means. 2/5 (D)
 
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I gave the episode a generous 3/5.

Why? This wasn't a complete disaster that I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a Glee crossover but it wasn't. Yes, I'm someone who watches Glee, but promoting it via The Simpsons? That's like mixing Mentos and Diet Coke. Thankfully, the 3 Glee actors had very limited lines, but they had to all sound off-key? Thankfully, we got to see more of the Flight of the Concords stars. But why name the episode Elementary School Musical when there was only 1 scene at Springfield Elementary?

The Krusty subplot was better, and I really liked the whole "we're Region 1" line by Homer. But calling Youtube "MyTube"? Does it mean that the Simpson world version of Youtube is owned by Mapple? (Recall the MyPod...)

What was with that song over the end credits? It sounded like that Nelly Furtado song Promiscuous.

Overall: C-
 
Maybe a little, it's a throwaway joke. lol Why would people build a stairway to nowhere by real life logic?

Well I don't think it was quite the abortion that some are making it out to be myself, but it was still a pretty lame way to open up the season overall, especially opening up to an hour long Family Guy premier in comparison.

Like Nathan, I really liked the idea of Lisa being enamored with the life of an artist, getting all indigant and self important about it, but then going and finding out that it's not all it's cracked up to be a lot of the time and I do agree I wish that were expanded a little more. Most of Homer's scenes from the beginning, to his time with Bart overseas was pretty alright too, as were Bret and Jemaine. In general though it really was just very boring. Was the subplot necessary? Was the main plot necessary? Were the songs even necessary? I don't know, but the couch gag attached to this...as well as the almost snarky nature of the fuck your dreams theme kinda sets the tone for the episode in general. Not much felt necessary, it's an almost aloof episode.

So 2.
 
Holy deepfried fiddling Milhouse on a carousel. The first act of this episode was so forced and exaggerated that my eyes almost killed themselves. Why would they come up with an international mission that clearly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and the Nobel Peace Prize to arrest a clown? But it goes deeper. Homer is invited because he's an easy laugher. That's almost as forced as Moe's coincidental talent for judging in the previous episode. And of course, meanwhile, the main plot overflows with exposition. "I'm Lisa and I'm so misunderstood and smart and unique and artistic and smart" I almost agree with D'ohmer now. When I saw the preview of the art camp scene, I was sure that it must have been cut down for time. Lo and behold, it's just as horribly paced as I thought. The song about entering art camp could have been better written by a Youtube commenter. "Hey, what rhymes with 'Lisa'? Oh, VISA! Why don't we use that FOR THE ENTIRE SONG?" (Anyone notice that whoever animated that scene seems to really enjoy straight-on shots of Lisa?) YEARDLEY SMITH'S SINGING VOICE SOUNDS LIKE 200,000 CATS GOING THROUGH PUBERTY WHILE BEING INDIVIDUALLY SODOMIZED BY GILBERT GOTTFRIED ON HELIUM. Flight of the Concords were the best thing about this episode and anyone who disagrees is a straight-up communist plain and simple. However, as per usual, the writing fucked them so hard that whoever could pull it out would become the King of England. The Glee cast members weren't as annoying as I thought they would be, which basically means that I would rather hack off only one of my own arms using my teeth. And they had 4 lines in the entire episode. So after the Nobel Prize airs a fraudulent broadcast and Springfield arranges a fraudulent speech for Krusty in front of the entire town and arranges what appears to be a custom-painted Boeing 747 to fly Krusty and Homer to a place that they were unaware they were actually going to--on second thought, I'm not gonna finish that sentence. Anyway, when Lisa is dragged away from camp, she misses it and I can't say I blame her due to the fact that according to the episode, the time she spent there was about three minutes max. So yeah, we get a classic List Joke™ from Lisa's camera, they go home, and yada yada artsy yada yada unique yada yada misunderstood. Continuing that egregious formulaic theme, Lisa decides to run away to Sprooklyn, as opposed to Spaten Island, or the Spronx. Stay classy, Simpsons. After having the brilliant idea of leaving her bike on the street in a rather seedy area, she goes upstairs to see the only two non-forced guest stars in over a year. So her dreams are disintegrated when she sees that they work at Subway™ and then the plot takes an interesting turn when-- oh wait it ends there nevermind. So after a desperate stall for episode length involving a Region 1 DVD, the judges decide to let Krusty go after seeing him... behave like a jerkass before an act? Well, at least it's not the most forced thing in the episode. All in all, nearly every plot point in the episode was developed out of a technicality and the episode as a whole had worse pacing than Larry King's heart.

or maybe im overreacting i dunno
 
It wasn't a good sign that after last season ended with a finale shamelessly promoting American Idol, that we were getting a premiere that would shamelessly promote the other most annoyingly overexposed show on FOX, Glee. And the fact that Tim Long was writing the show didn't exactly get me excited either. I walked into this episode expecting to be completely let down, to get one of the worst premieres ever.

And I got just that.

For starters we have a completely unnecessary and lifeless subplot involving Krusty that needlessly shoehorned Homer and Bart into the situation also. It starts off horribly with the extended laugh joke with Homer, and considering that anyone could have resolved Krusty's situation in the courtroom, there was no reason for Homer or Bart to even be there. There was nothing funny about Krusty's dilemma, there was no reason for anyone to really care about him or what was going on, there was no reason why it had to take place in another country, and there was no spark whatsoever to the resolution. It just ended, pure and simple. I was actually a little hopeful at the start that this Nobel Peace Prize thing would be some kind of commentary about giving the prize to someone who doesn't deserve it, but no.

Then we have Lisa's main plot, which was equally lifeless and uninteresting. The direction during the musical numbers was completely bland (except maybe a couple moments in the first number), Lisa's love for music has been dealt with much better in other episodes, and we spend so little time even seeing Lisa or any of the kids expressing themselves at the camp that we have no reason to believe that Lisa was truly inspired or touched by anything that happened. If they had just cut that stupid subplot we might have been able to see why any of this meant something to Lisa, but instead we get a lame collection of snapshots from Lisa showing what happened. It makes Lisa's decision to run off ring completely false, and there wasn't even a sense of danger that something might happen to Lisa. The conclusion wasn't even particularly original or clever either. Again, it just kind of ends. Oh, and apparently Lea Michele is as bad a voice-over actress as she is a live-action actress (does she ever talk in a normal tone of voice?).

I have seen Flight of the Conchords, and Jermaine and Bret had their moments here and there, but overall even they felt a little overused by the end of the episode. It is ironic that in this episode that was heavily promoted as a Glee episode that the kids got about 4 lines of dialogue each (including the song), while Flight of the Conchords which is a bit obscure and canceled got as much time as it did. That was probably the point, but irony alone can't save this episode. There was the occasional chuckle, like Stephen Hawking showing up in the rap number, but the plots were limp, the humor was laughable, and the entire product is quite possibly the worst season premiere I have ever seen.

Not the best way to start off this season. Not the best way to do anything in fact. 1/5
 
I thought the songs were a nice twist and pretty funny, I enjoyed the episode, a nice different kind of episode.
 
while Flight of the Conchords which is a bit obscure and canceled got as much time as it did.

Their show didn't get canceled, they chose to stop after 2 seasons to pursue other ventures, saying it was becoming a strain to keep up the show's quality, with the demand for new songs and what not. Just clarifying. At least that's my understanding.

______________________ < ------- (space for obvious Simpsons joke to coincide with this post)
 
Everything I have to say about this episode has already been said. "New Simpsons on Cruise-Control." I honestly feel like somebody could create some sort of "new Simpsons episode auto-generator" and it would feel exactly the same as watching this boring, uninspired drivel.

It must be nice to work for The Simpsons these days - you don't even have to try, at all, and despite how horrible the episodes you produce are, you have no chance of getting cancelled.

2/5

Edit: no, there was one joked I remembered and liked a lot: Spider-Man dancing for no reason.
 
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Full review up on my blog, but suffice it to say I thought it was a good, but not great episode. I think that most of the gags were hits, and I really enjoyed the incorporation of the Conchords, especially their campfire song with Stephen Hawking and the artistic cow, but the B-story was just kind of there and I think we've pretty much mined all the comedic juice out of Krusty that we're going to get at this point. 3.5/5 feels about right to me.
 
Elementary School Musical

First off, I signed up for an account here just so I can review this episode, Righters Untie gone into a hiatus and I've been reading the threads here so I hope I get a warm welcome. Moving on, first episode of the season and I didn't think it was up to par. I was initially put off by the fact that it took a title directly from South Park and The Simpsons have been leaning on them too much, they may be right about Family Guy but they should be better then them, not rely on South Park to cover for their own faults, an example being the lack of edge in recent episodes.

Firstly, I do not like The Simpsons adding another gag to the scene, I don't want to see gags such as Spiderpig flying or Otto flying a magic bus, I want to see clouds and only clouds. The opening scene involving the geeky characters was well done and reminded me of past episodes, very surprising and I thought the whole episode would be of this quality. The downhill decline in quality would be when they announced Krusty to be a Nobel Piece Prize winner. I mean if they're trying to lure Krusty to court then why have him win a Nobel Piece Prize, they should of used a letter or an opportunity or something, why ruin the Nobel Piece Prize for a bust? Anyways, Homer laughing was hurtful and just served to get him on the plane and on the side story, Bart was half-heatedly added in there just so he'd support the side-story in some way. It also served Lisa to get in a car and to our main plot point. The jokes relating to Krusty felt done, tired and boring throughout the entire episode, I'm just saying this to get this out of the way.

Lisa should still not be acting like a teenager, I mean sure she's part of a dysfunctional family but she's still 8 according to the still consistent timeline so she should act her age. The audiobook gag I did not like, I felt like the funny voice that tried to be boring was the joke itself... I feel like they should of played a song Lisa would listen to or something, it would of made it better. The performance arts camp reveal was good but it feels like all purpose has been sucked out of her, this isn't the Lisa we're watching, but a weird flash sideways Lisa who is boring and lacks compassion for anything. The joke with the pacifier didn't feel funny to me, it felt like Maggie was smoking the pacifier like it was good, we get it Al Jean, she likes the pacifiers.

When Lisa gets to camp, Glee stars start singing to her in the tune of Good Vibrations which I heard better on Lost, yes Lost. They don't sound like kids, they sound like teenagers even though they look like kids... Also Lisa's singing throughout the song was bad, It felt like she was not trying at all, she was tired and lacking energy. This is a consistent issue throughout the episode, Lisa has lost the magical singing voice and the ability to care, so have The Simpsons writers. Also the curtain transition is especially for the kids, aged 6-14. I'm surprised that Lisa has to signup for the camp, I thought Marge would of done it already, then comes the FotC which is the only good part of the episode, they like save the parts they appear in. I admit they're funny but it's not enough to bring the episode to classic status.

I was kinda mad when Springfield suddenly had New York style burrows, while Bart was raised in one, they did not have to rip off New York haphazardly. I mean Sprooklyn... Clever, so are all the other cities on the sign which Lisa passes by... It's like Capitol City and New York never even existed according to Al Jean, Bill Oakley and Josh Wienstien must be rolling on their graves. Moving on, yet another music number but this one's a rap, normally I'd be excited since I'm a fan of rap but I felt bored throughout the number. Not a big fan of the cow joke and the MC Hawking joke felt like it was done about 6-4 years ago when an actual MC Hawking made an album and released it on the internet. I'd appreciate it if it was a shoutout to MC Hawking but it was a joke about Stephen Hawking so... Yeah. They introduce the "go to the city" mentality into Lisa's mind, so I kinda know the outcome of this.

The sign gag (the one where it says "International House of Pancakes") felt lame. They need a court for Krusty's "heinous" crimes. I'd like it if it involved an actual incident involving an international politician but these crimes should be handled by a European court not an international court. Krusty's stuff still borders the same. And justice in The Simspons seems to be an odd version suited to fit their story. South Park this is not, this is just lazy sitcom writing. Back to the camp, the way Lisa was brought out of that camp seem aprupt, Marge obviously has been taking drugs because she has no feelings at all nor does she care about Lisa's feelings when she's leaving the camp, she seems really, really happy and carefree. The fat camp joke seemed uninspired, we get that they're slow and sweating Al Jean... Also when they're driving home, they play Raffi in the CD player, I am tired of these obvious reference to earlier episodes especially the monotonous sign gag, I do not need to be known that it is a reference, especially when Lisa is trying to escape. Marge shows slight care for Lisa but that is thrown away when she just misaddresses Lisa.

Lisa is still overreacting, like she was in this state on purpose. Otto playing a video game while driving seemed uninspired. The bullies picking on Lisa like he was Bart also seemed uninspired, they don't even beat up Lisa, they just let her walk. Lisa in the music classroom is decent but I did not care for the musical composers misery, I get that Springfield Elementary is full of depression but do we really need a Mr. Edna moment here. Lisa must be obsessed with being Lisa again. The gag where Bart and Homer look through YouTube videos was more of the same for Krusty especially when they admit something but this is what concerned me about the Electric Company gag, how can Krusty remain the same age, that was the 1970's version of the show, how can he remain the same. This goes against any known continuity known to man, like his Talk Show past did not happen at all.

Lisa has handled boring dinners before, I guess obsessing about art camp like you were in love with it can make dinners seem boring. Lisa easily escapes from the house for the nth time and escapes to what appears to be a transplanted version of New York, straight down to the Brooklyn... er I mean the Sprooklyn bridge, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstien must be rolling over in their graves. Looks like Sprooklyn is automatically a dump, realism be damned. The scene where FotC are living in poor conditions is good but then there is suddenly crime in a city that appears to be completely empty and bare. I swear, that job must of payed them nothing at all as they're working at Sprubway (get it? Al Jean wants you to get it?) And in another music number, Lisa's voice still sounds grating and Krusty does his usual thing. One things for sure, The Simpsons suck at satire.

The Euro gag is meh, only thing I liked is the cuffs, I liked that they would even consider using these things. Then appear Bart and Simpson to save Krusty, there comes a lame DVD region gag which relies on the fact that the USA is better in Homer's mind and the number 1, the clock gag felt like I was watching Family Guy... And they're behind South Park why? Also when the video is played, it felt like it was to wrap everything in a pretty package without regards to intelligence and Krusty still looks the same!. The ending of the subplot, they go and get high... Great. Back to the Springfield Burrow who's name shall not be mentioned, we're in a coffee bar which is also torn apart as is the rest of this city. Every building in a burrow of Springfield should not be a slum., this is supposed to be realistic not something trying to be satire. FotC appear and they save any scene of which they're in. Lisa's scene were decent and likable, especially the clapping scene.

The scene where Marge barges in like she was at Disneyland looking for her child. It's like "There you are Lisa!" instead of "Oh Lisa, where were you, you could of been hurt!" and she's wearing a smile. What kind of drugs is she taking, seriously? The last FotC joke with Lisa when they're leaving is good but the scene after that felt like "The State of New York vs. Homer Simpson". Especially the poster (which some people will like) which FotC painted using Magic, and this is apparently enforced by having them fly to Sprubway (the series should not be using surrealism like having people fly and having people use magic.). The scene in Sprubway felt alright, we finally get to see them working and "surviving" but that's it, the sandwhich dropping was alright and the last line was alright to close the episode. The stuff that happened at the end of the episode felt wrong, they should of had the moo replace the shh instead of the otherway around.

So... This episode is a bad premiere, I felt like they were superheating the oven eveywhere they go, a lot of errors, bad jokes, forced personalities and a general sense of weryness and undeadiness. It's almost like this show will go on to try to parody and satire instead of bring us what we really want, a show about the family. It's not South Park, It's not Family Guy, It's not The Boondocks. It's The Simpsons, not any other show. I swear, this show needs new blood, new writers and a new showrunner. I don't know how anybody gets hired on The Simpsons but somebody should post that stuff on the internet, so people can improve The Simpsons and make a show that people should watch, for free, not for any sort of paycheck. I have a bad feeling about this season if the episodes end up like this episode.

3.0/10

EDIT: I just watched the Family Guy episode "And Then There Were Fewer" (which aired on the same night) and compared to this, it's just better and more risktaking overall. Let's hope "Loan-A-Lisa" will be better then this drek.
 
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As guessed, I thought this episode was boring. I did enjoy some parts, but not the majority of the episode. I *chuckled* at the joggers from fat camp, and that's basically it. The guest stars from Glee were absolutely pointless - both plots completely ran out after about just five minutes into it. They both grew stale and really uninteresting. I didn't find ANYTHING funny about the Krusty subplot, it was just completely needless and stupid. The main plot of Lisa was *okay*, but almost as stale and unfunny as the subplot. Hopefully something can be thought more funny of in the next episode - anything will be better than this.
 
Musical based episodes never caught my attention anyway. Just dont like them. That and both plots just arent convincing. Krusty the clown and a peace price, really? I'm also getting quite sick of all the forced guest appearances.

2/5. I'm being very, very generous here. :rolleyes:

Just... Dont do musicals anymore. Please?
 
I don't think I have been into this show since Season 14 when I finally gave up, but I decided to watch this last night.

Seriously, this is the worst putrid shit I have ever seen. This could have been a Family Guy episode.
 
to be honest, I found less cringeworthy moments than in half of the Season 20 and 21 episodes. still shitty shitty shit, but I thought a few Bret and Jermaine exchanges were outright pleasant, which is something that usually doesn't happen more than once or twice tops in episodes these days. also Mark Kirkland's shots were fine.

maybe it's just because this is the season premiere and people forgot how terrible the show is supposed to be, but can we stop having the expectation that the show is supposed to be clever in any way? all I hope for in new episodes is that they don't fuck up majorly-- things like the fat-camp cutaway and "Formerly IHOP", while of course they're tired and wouldn't surprise a newborn, at least they're real jokes, the kind of jokes you could explain to your children one day and be called lame or simple, but not outright retarded. though really, what is The Simpsons supposed to be anymore? I know they've been without purpose since Season 13, but when we're judging an episode, what should the purpose be? they can't do satire, and any satire they do is just a terrible five-second gag that says nothing, just to fill the quota of being satire like good ol' Simpsons. is their duty just to 'flesh out' OFF and the residents of Springfield? that seems to be closest to what they could claim, and it's an effort whose purpose is just to emulate The Simpsons. what I guess I'm trying to get at is, why bother judging these episodes? of course it's going to be terrible and a mockery of all we love. is it more depressing to think that the writers, etc.

(please don't feel like I'm actually saying anything to any reviewers here who want to defend themselves, my current cynicism aside reviewing the episodes is worthwhile.) right now all I'm doing with these episodes is counting the number of one kind of offense to shock myself and attempting to overlook the crimes of another sort. 1/5 normal, 4/5 these days.
 
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Horrible... :( Okay, 2 or 3 gags are funny but that's it.

Songs was unbearable. Totally unbearable.
 
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You could write it off as being a French judge, but the dude who arrests them at the airport is also clearly a French accent

No, the judge was saying 'Our Windmills are ze envy of ze world', so he was definitely a Dutchman with a mysterious French accent

Flight of the Conchords guys were pleasant, but I don't have much nice to say about the rest :oops:

3/10
 
Eek, kinda surprised to see the poll results, though I do have some issues with the episode. These might be unfair complaints but my problems with the episode were all about missed opportunities, and less to do with what's actually in the episode. Without getting into the comedic aspects of the episode (I'll just say the Jemaine and Bret were the best parts), the thing that irked me about the show was that I found Lisa's story had such potential for both deeper meaning and some great satire on hipster/artist culture, but the episode fell short on all fronts by trying to cram in too much.

First things first, I would have totally dropped the Krusty b-story since it was a bit low on laughs and felt like filler for Homer and Bart to be included in the episode in some way instead of involving them in some secondary aspect in Lisa's story. Had the B-story been scrapped, there would have been more time to explore the summer camp itself (felt pretty quick) and, more importantly, seeing more of Sprooklyn than simply Bret and Jemaine's apartment.

Anyway, despite what was in this episode, I was let down that it copped out on going after hipsters, which I was very curious to see coming from the current writing staff since they're a generation ahead of youth culture now and I was interested to see if they could handle it accurately. More importantly though, Lisa has been an aspiring jazz musician throughout the show's run, and Bret and Jemaine's characters could have easily represented Lisa 15-20 years in the future, living as hipster musician failures, showing Lisa the harshest reality of aspiring musicians trying to make it big. There could have been some deeper analysis of the dark side of having big artistic hopes and dreams. I felt like it was kind of a cop-out one-sided approach to just have Bret and Jemaine be openly miserable about their lives in Sprooklyn and simply telling Lisa it's horrible to be an artist and simply leave it at that. It would have been far more convincing and interesting if at least Bret and Jemaine's characters really enjoyed their struggling artist lifestyle, but Lisa gradually saw it's not so pretty on her own. They could have at least shown some hipster/artist culture stuff as an appealing aspect of being an artist, despite struggling financially and career-wise. Then at least "artists" could be given some credit, for at least following their dreams and living within a certain culture instead of simply being treated like poor, lonely bums living in a grungy apartment and working at subway. Even Bret and Jemaine on Flight of the Conchords don't complain about their lives or look at things bleakly like these Simpsonized versions of them did.

Also, the whole "performance and art" aspect was basically irrelevant - wasn't Lisa already obsessed with music and culture? Is that different from her being into "performance and art"? They exemplified her excitement over this by having her solo freely in music class (a scene taken right from "Moaning Lisa"), so it seemed the same to me. Aside from that "Moaning Lisa" scene, this episode did suffer from a sense of retreading. The camp wasn't too far off from Homer's "Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp" experience, including Homer and Lisa's unwillingness to let go of it after it's over. Lisa moving to the city was similar to Bart doing so in "Barting Over" in terms of the city being given the "lonely and scary place" treatment.

Another thing: It seemed very odd to me that FOX was hyping this up as the "Glee episode" while the kids are A) hardly even celebrities, B) are only featured in about 2 minutes at most, C) are less integral and less famous in reality than Bret and Jemaine. I guess FOX was hyping up the Glee aspect because it's their show, but this was far more a Flight of the Conchords show.
 
WORST...SEASON PREMIERE...EVER!!!

I have no idea who Flight of the Conchords are, but they weren't funny to me.

Also: I missed part of Bart's blackboard writing: mentioned falling asleep and Leo Di Caprio...little help?
 
Elementary School Musical: B-, 3.5/5, 7/10, Good

Bad plot, Ok subplot, Bad characterization, Good jokes, Good songs (Not all of them but some were quite catchy) Bad Season premier
 
I'm usually very positive towards new episodes, however this one was a dud. I've never watched Glee or FotC (I don't find guitars to be funny), so I didn't understand any of the references. The "SPR" gag got tired quickly. It was all just very blah. I didn't like it.

Only good parts: Marge missing her queue to announce the camp, Maggie shitting herself in surprise (if only because it would make for a great animated gif) and Moe's potential song

1/5
 
Just watched this episode.

I don't usually hate new episodes, tend to be an easily-amused spectator and The Simpsons has given me some worthy entertainment even during its worst years, but that doesn't mean I can enjoy shit when it's so clear and redundant. This one is just a mess. The only things I've mildly enjoyed are the occasional jokes it manages to give (mostly visuals) among the tired mediocrity.

Would like to talk about the songs at first... they are unredeemably bland. I know what they tried to do with this episode, there have been great musicals even in the post-classic years (The President Wore Pearls). But this is just wrong. Just because, the good musical scenes in The Simpsons never seem to try to fill a gap between one dialogue and other, they are spontaneous, somehow natural, and an important part of the plotline. Instead, the introduction of every one of them here is random as hell. The lyrics... well ok, trying to make the joke/reference too hard. Uninspired at best. And the visuals? Aside from the fact that none of the gags featured during the song made me chuckle a little, there is what is maybe among the worst animation in the whole damn show. And trust me, I'm a sort of defender of the HD change because don't see a real connection between this and the crappy and robotic animation they've given in recent years, but seeing this mess I'm starting to think otherwise. The first song, specially, was terrible. Everything was slowed down, lifeless, the gestures and movements are bland and artificial. Things that make me wonder how could this be approved and aired, are the people behind it just blinded to incompetence?

About the story... well, there is not really much to say. Seriously, did it even have a plot? A conflict? A something? All I saw is Lisa portrayed like a dehumanized walking cliché, loving an art camp for completely unexplored reasons and everything happening so fastly that it never had enough time to get me into the story. Marge decides to give a nice surprise to her daughter, I don't care. Lisa enjoys her stay, I don't give a damn. Lisa misses her glorious days, I feel absolutely nothing. There is a sort of valid lesson to end the plot, and I keep being totally indifferent to what is happening.

Fuck. Give. Me. A. Break.

And the subplot? Oh, the subplot, it's intended to be the absurd-humorous type, but the absurd seems redundant and uninspired and the humor tries to survive with references and visuals (and this is the same for the rest of the episode). Not a good dialogue, not anything really worth remembering. Nothing happened, I didn't get brutally bored but didn't laugh over the whole experience either.

Crappy ending scene too... did this (already tired) joke work any time? Maybe in the Xena segment, but even there it felt forced. Here, it not only is uninspired and idiotic as a joke, but absolutely interchangeable with the one they tried in Husbands And Knives.

So bad, terrible, lifeless premiere, not a good start for season 22, that's for sure. 4/10, and that's because I'm not used to give really low grades in a first viewing.
 
did people actually miss the part where they said "Sprooklyn" was the artsy part of Springfield? It seems like a lot of you think it was supposed to be Brooklyn but they just changed the name.
 
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