I've always loved the fact that for some people, one bad episode instantly means the beginning of a downfall for a show because of course after seven or eight seasons, bad episodes can't happen, not even once in a while.
I too think that is really quite a silly notion, but everyone who has that opinion can have it. Doesn't bother me.
One reason I've always considered season 8 my favorite of the show (although I don't know if that's still the case today, but I still love it) is because it's sort of a transition. Yes, it sort of ripped the universe and the style of the show as it was before it, but most of the time, in a good, interesting, and like Nitsy said, "daring" way. It became more absurd to enhance the point of some episodes in a good way, like You Only Move Twice and the Shary Bobbins one. There's never gonna be an episode like Homer's Enemy, despite exaggerating Homer's behavior for the sake of its twisted point of view (kinda like what Lisa the Simpson did one season later). The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase is a very fun experiment anticipating the show being milked to the last drop. Yes, the show was a little different at the time, but in my opinion, in the best way possible, and I feel like Scully tried to imitate it without getting its magic quite right.
This, very much. Season 8 was definitely the experimental oddball season that really did a lot of new things (and to mostly great effect), ad some really absurd premises and even changed up the status quo here and there & that is one of the reasons I think it's great and oh so interesting and colroful. It did change the overall style of the show some ("ripped the universe" I think is a kinda funny way of putting it, but is more or less an apt description in a sense) but I don't see it as a negative, but something new and fresh.
It really did feel like Oakley & Weinstein (bless them and their work) really took a lot of things to the max and weren't afraid of certain things that were "taboo" (such as, again, 'My Sister, My Sitter' with it's dark take on sibling rivalry gone bad) and it did come off as the show was winding down and nearing its end, but it all changed when the Scully attacked.
Speaking of which, when I was a kid, I was a little like Wire hangers. I noticed the difference between some seasons, but I didn't care as long as what I was watching was funny, and that's why young me prefered the gagfest that Scully era was over, say, season 1 for example. It changed obviously, but it was noticeable to me, even at the time, that Scully prefered a faster pacing, and yet, I can see what has led him to adopt the style he adopted through the era he produced.
I get what you mean. Very initially when I started watching (maybe especially before I joined the board, let alone really had any of the DVDs) I didn't especially care about any differences between showrunner eras and enjoyed most that I saw as l(I seem to often circulate around season 12 for some reason, I seem to remember?), but once I did get into the show, joined this place I did start to look at it more analytically and it was apparent that the Scully era was the really weird one with a particular cartoony style, different structure & quicker pacing and while I didn't hate it like some, I could see and understand why it signaled the decline.
My point is, I don't think there's a moment the show suddenly declined, but instead, I'd say it's an accumulation of things that were interpreted in a personal way and ultimately didn't land for a lot of people. That said, to me, even as a kid, season 17 was the moment I started feeling bored by a number of the episodes it was filled with, and not bored like "season 1 bored", I just felt like something was definitely off.
In regards to that first thing, that is well put and agreeable. It wasn't a particular point the show hit a sign of decline, but a gradual build that soon made itself very apparent, both seen and heard.
As for the second point, when viewing the seasons in order, I also find that the later SD Jean era (post season 16) was pretty much the real point when I didn't find the show as consistently enjoyable anymore: The Scully era has a lot of problems but it still was (and is) funny and memorable & the first half of the Jean era is entertaining and fun overall (with 14 & 15 probably being the highlight of the post-classic era), but around 17-18 it started to feel, in retrospecte specially, kinda dull and tired and not as entertaining. After that, the show has, as said, been very on & off and up & down with the overall quality and never really hit a consistent stride again.