Rate and Review: "Moonshine River" (PABF21)

How would you rate this episode?

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Oh that's raspberry!

Oh that's raspberry!

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September 30, 2012: Season 24 Premiere Bart seeks out several of the former women in his life in an attempt to figure out why he lost them all. Eventually this leads him to Mary Spuckler, daughter of Cletus, who happens to have moved to New York City. Discuss!
 
A waste. By the time Mary came into the picture, she was already forced to go back home by Cletus, and any development from this was wasted on that useless Romeo and Juliet thing. 0/5. Hell, we even know Mary's gonna be back because FOX posted a summary for the finale. I'm sure she's going to officially break up with him then or the premiere, because of two reasons, status quo and guest star girlfriend.
 
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Quite frankly, I was nearly bored to tears. About the only funny line was Homer's "Love is that brief time before you're married and then you're too tired to get away" or something.

2/5, Barely.

BTW, my couch gag idea is: "The Family runs towards the couch to find Smokey the Bear setting the living room on fire."
 
Come on dad, they blew up your two least favorite buildings, [TWO BUILDINGS COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE WTC].

Hilarious.
 
I wonder when Kevin Michael Richardson will be promoted to "Also Starring" status? I say that because he guest-starred in a LOT of episodes for some time now, usually as some one-off/background character, like Chris Edgerly does.
There were some parts that made me giggle though; the rest of the episode seemed to be filler. We still need to find another executive producer to either replace or team up with Al Jean (Matt Selman or even Mike Reiss anyone?)
 
I'm gonna have to watch Apocalypse Cow again because I actually liked Mary in that episode but here her voice was pretty grating. I didn't really enjoy the performance at all and the design change stunk. I wonder if they can even draw her old design competently anymore as she looked oddly warped in that tape Bart was watching.

Aside from that the episode had a handful of nice lines but not nearly enough. I enjoyed the two buildings reference and Milhouse near the beginning with Lisa. Marge sounded rather poor for the most part. It's still pretty bad though. 2/5
 
Handsome B. Wonderful said:
A waste. By the time Mary came into the picture, she was already forced to go back home by Cletus, and any development from this was wasted on that useless Romeo and Juliet thing. 1.5/5.
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I agree, however there were some good jokes

They obliterated your two least favourite buildings: Old Penn Station and Shea Stadium

Fievel reference

SNL joke

Homer attempting to ditch Bart

Khlav Kalash Guy

Can I borrow your guitar?
Sure sure, it's the case that makes money

The song was OK, but Bart should have taken Mary's advice and "just listened"

She'll be fine, your mother too

The couch gag epilogue bit was interesting as well
 
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Pretty good, first act was the best. My problem with it is that Marge and Lisa's hunt for culture felt really tacked on and wasted a lot of time that should have been used furthering Bart and Mary's story. It was OK but I expected a little bit more. The episode did have some really funny jokes like the callbacks to "The City of New York vs Homer Simpson" and the beginning, like I mentioned.
 
This episode had SEVERE pacing issues. Tim tried to cram 44 minutes worth of plot, gags and story ideas into one 22-minute episode.
There were some nice one-liners but these were offset by a number of unfunny gags simply went too long or went nowhere.
As a result, everything felt shallow and undeveloped. It's a real shame.
 
al and mike;2995631The couch gag prologue bit was interesting as well[/QUOTE said:
I knew they were desperate for couch gags but this was ridiculous, I laughed at that harder than anything in this episode. Not for a good reason, either.
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Ehhhh...mediocre. The plot with the rest of the family was like a much more boring version of The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson (they really missed a flashback opportunity early in the episode, and instead replaced it with a black-and-white parody of whatever the hell that was), and the I felt no connection to a Bart/Mary relationship at all. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Wait...okay, she's leaving Bart now? I'm sorry, I feel no sad emotions. Yeah, not a great episode, but the funny part here and there. 2/5.

And the coming up with a couch gag? We've got to use that couch gag idea thread. One of us MUST come up with the idea for the couch gag, although I feel they want a long, drawn-out sequence instead of a short, "proper" couch gag that induces a giggle.
 
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Not bad. I actually felt like I was watching an episode of The Simpsons instead of some whacky cracked-out mess. Much better that 90% of the crap they aired last season.
A few things:
-Moe isn't dead.
-The way Edna Flanders was animated in the first act made it seem like I was watching a zombie, until she started dancing.
-The song they were dancing to in the first act was "Jellyfish" from the 14th season episode "A Star Is Born-Again"
-"W" getting under the hood of the car, then the car rolling into the lake seemed like a "cop-out" act break. (Didn't care for that at all.)
-Sideshow Bob got hit by a train... I guess that's a "thing" now.
-I have to admit... I laughed at Al Roker offering to buy back his own autograph.

By Modern Simpsons standards... I give it a 2.5/5, rounded up to a 3/5 for the poll. No overtly crazy stuff, and a decent story. Still not enough "meat" in the plot to satisfy, though.
By Classic standards, it wouldn't even register. All in all, a pretty forgettable episode.

Handsome B. Wonderful said:
Come on dad, they blew up your two least favorite buildings, [TWO BUILDINGS COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE WTC].

Hilarious.
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For a series that pulled their WTC episode from syndication... I'm glad they had the balls to do a WTC joke, no matter how shitty it was.
 
Financial Panther said:
Ehhhh...mediocre. The plot with the rest of the family was like a much more boring version of The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson (they really missed a flashback opportunity early in the episode, and instead replaced it with a black-and-white parody of whatever the hell that was)
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I agree, when Bart set that up, I was so hopeful we would get some flashback footage to City of New York vs. Homer Simpson. The Sweet Smell of Success parody did nothing for me
 
You guys are way too easily impressed. This was a deplorable mess that had absolutely no main story, the supposed main story lasted about three minutes, considering how long it took to get to New York, the Marge and Lisa thing, and useless filler. Awful, over-explained jokes, as well. What else is new? The more I think about it the more I hate it.
 
The timing of the episode was funky. Had some good call backs. All the old girlfriends plus the Khlav Kalash guy. The marge and lisa segments seemed forced. Best one liner: "Theres a storm a brewin down there"
 
First Impressions:

Well I do not know what to think of this episode. I will make a real review tomorrow night to give you my real opinion after "having seen it twice, but I would just like to share with you my first impression. First act was really good and I had laugh during it, but I must admit that it is much worse then without being really episode bad. The ambiance in New York is so not the same as in season 9 and I don't feel like I'm in New York in Moonshine River. The history with Mary and Bart's still passable, I can not wait to see the second episode with Mary in this season. Their kiss i at the end was really cute before Mary go. The history with Marge, Lisa and Maggie, I'm sorry, but it was just BAAAADDDD! it does not really served the story and it was very annoying. For my note for this episode , you will have it tomorrow in my real review, but this will most likely be below average. (under 2,5).
 
Stevohump said:
The timing of the episode was funky. Had some good call backs. All the old girlfriends plus the Khlav Kalash guy. The marge and lisa segments seemed forced. Best one liner: "Theres a storm a brewin down there"
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All I saw were post classic girlfriends and ones we've never seen.
 
Oh. So it's just Baby Gerald doing exactly what he did in the short?

What the hell...
 
Was it just me or did Mary/Zooey voice sound funky or not recorded right. Im not sure. But I do know that BART song was one of the worse in Simpsons history
 
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