Fall TV: the Simpsons 19th Season Premiere Lackluster at Best

I sat down with baited breath in anticipation of what Season 19 would bring out of The Simpsons. If you need, review my preview published last week to catch up on my love-boredom relationship with what I still concede is the best show ever. And...well, I think I laughed three times. That is not a good sign.

The Simpsons have done it all; true, however, that is not an excuse to just give up. Last night's Season Premiere seemed to do just that. I charge The Simpsons with resting on their laurels, wallowing in the success of the summer's The Simpsons Movie, which I admit was pretty good. Not great, but entertaining and better than I expected.

"He Loves to Fly, and He D'ohs" was quite frankly dull. What has made The Simpsons so great in the past is the rather formulaic (but usually clever) method of starting episodes out with something that has very little to do or so it seems with the plot of what you will watch later. For example, "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" starts off at a swap meet and goes into a delightfully referential flashback into the early 80's and Homer's fame for all of six weeks. "He Love's to Fly" is a bit too linear for a Simpsons episode. Homer saves a drowning Mr. Burns and then is flown to Chicago for dinner on Burns' private jet. Homer likes said jet and thus tries to get a job where he will have access to a private jet. Yeah, it's that boring.

Lionel Ritchie shows up on the plane (of course), and that is mildly funny as he is somehow pressured by Homer to change the lyrics of one of his hits. Would Lionel Ritchie really change lyrics for some schmo on a plane? Is he that obsequious or paid that well by Burns? Stephen Colbert is the other guest voice, and sorely under-utilized as a "life coach" hired by Marge to help Homer get that dream job. And why has she never tried this tactic in the past? And why would she have wasted the "family savings" on a lost cause? Would it not have been funnier to show that Marge somehow got the "life coach" through other means, like a soup label drive? Come on, Simpsons writing staff; don't go for the easy way out.

The best part of the episode was the opening "credit sequence" (as there are really no credits during the Springfield montage opening, I am not sure if I can accurately call it opening credits). The town of Springfield is cleaning up after the smashed bio-dome from The Simpsons Movie. This marks the first significant change in the opening sequence, and one of the first times that The Simpsons has really ever acknowledged that something with consequences has happened in Springfield. Oh, and I did like the "homerage" to Chicago. The episode tried its best to make fun of Second City, but only started to draw parallels between the un-funny and "trying too hard" nature of improv games and The Simpsons itself.

The best joke of the episode was a line of Homer's when he complains about having to fly commercial as only regular people "and terrorists" fly commercial. The one other high point was the end of the episode when Lionel Ritchie shows up again after Homer crashes the plane, and refuses to part with his American Music Awards. Two funny moments during a 21-minute episode is not quite what we expect from The Simpsons, a show known for its rapid-fire cultural references and witty lines. And sadly, I did not notice any film parodies with is also a Simpsons trademark, but admittedly, I was starting to get distacted by a dog with a puffy tail. Here, Puff. Here, Puff Puff.

At least Family Guy was funny, or I'd start worrying about the future of network animated comedies.