Data Is Beautiful

I agree with the graphic.

However, I recently completed a straight watch-thru of every Simpsons episode, and while watching the lackluster episodes from seasons ~20-~30, I have to acknowledge one thing:

Quality of the show and its writing have noticeably improved since around Season 32.

The most recent episodes feel more centered on the family and much less on bizarre cameos and really outrageous situations. It actually feels like a show about the Simpson family and treats the characters more age-appropriately.

I don’t like that they lost/recast established voices of minority characters (Apu, Carl, Dr. Hibbert, etc), I do think the quality and the focus of the show is much better than it has been in almost 2-decades.

The first two sub-6.0 episodes are clip shows.

wiki S06E03:

"Another Simpsons Clip Show" is the third episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 25, 1994. In the episode, Marge reads a romance novel in bed, and it prompts her to have a family meeting, where the Simpson family recall their past loves in form of clips from previous episodes.

wiki S09E11:

"All Singing, All Dancing" is the eleventh episode of the ninth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 4, 1998. In the fourth Simpsons clip show, Homer claims he hates singing, so Marge shows family videos of musical numbers from previous seasons. The episode is in the form of a sung-through musical, featuring spoken dialogue only at the start and end of the episode. The original material was directed by Mark Ervin and written by Steve O'Donnell. It was executive produced by David Mirkin. It features guest appearances from George Harrison, Patrick Stewart and Phil Hartman, although these are all clips and none of them recorded original material for the episode.

I'm just nitpicking but why are 7.7 and 6.6 arbitrary the thresholds for the colour change? Also, why is one 6.6 red while another two are yellow?

The last few seasons had a big jump in plot quality imho, with some exceptional episodes. But also yes, 10 years ago entire seasons felt comparatively bland & empty. I also feel like I would rate early seasons a bit lower today than at the time.

Comedy has changed in 31 years. So has humour in general, and so has writing.

The Simpsons is never going to be the same as it was over the seasons because that's not how culture works. Meanwhile, the reviews are mostly coming from long time viewers who lament that it's not like it "used to be".

Shows change. Get over it.

Isn't it also just because it's old and people get bored of it? People crave new things, and even if it's just as good as in the beginning, it'll get lower ratings because it's not new anymore.

I remember quite some years ago i was like "i'm finally going to watch southpark". And people were already complaining about how the latest seasons were worse than the first seasons. Watched a ton of seasons in a short period, and honestly can't say the later seasons felt any worse than the first ones when you're not bored of the series yet. Now so many years later when i watch some more southpark, it's not as fun as when i started watching it since the "it's new and exciting" feeling is long gone.

A very nice wave seeing the series decline... The only problem with it is it seems a little skewed to have 5.5 in strong red...

What's up with that one bad episode in season 6?

Would love to see this mapped to who the primary writers and producers are on each episode. I wonder if there are patterns.

I was a major adult fan in my twenties who worked with people who could finish a Simpsons joke when anyone started a line from the show. I remember coming in and sadly announcing that I thought I didn't like the show anymore. That was in the oughts. It had been in decline for a while at the time.

I mean, they themselves called it.

31... SEASONS???

Nice graph!

By the way, any reason to share this here rather than !dataisbeautiful@lemmy.world, as you did for the Boeing one? Genuinely curious

So... anyone who hasn't seen them should just watch the first 8 seasons and call it. I guess.

doesnt this coincide with matt leaving the writing team for futurama?

I actually stopped watching when I stopped wathing most over the air. the problem is the streaming free options being to convoluted with the gatekeeping. once I miss epsiodes im just sorta out.

Seasons 8-10 were shit. That chart is invalid