Good latter-day Simpsons episodes

Wanting a break from big ticket TV I guess, I started cherry-picking "well reviewed" latter day Simpsons episodes. Surprisingly little info online about what the good ones are? beyond untrustworthy algorithm results? There was nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a new-to-me episode of Simpsons that reached the same level of the golden era

Curious if anybody else has good tips in this regard? I enjoyed "The Book Job" S23E6 (an homage to Ocean's Eleven plus young adult fiction), "Steal This Episode" S25E9 (internet piracy), and "Werking Mom" S30E7 (Marge gets mistaken for a drag queen and decides to roll with it, worth it just for her read of Helen Lovejoy)

Bookmarking this thread, with hope. I finally stopped watching around S20 for the most part, and the scattered few I have seen since have been painfully bad.

most new Simpsons I've watched has been downright horrible, but the two-parter "A Serious Flanders" is at least pretty interesting as a one-off non-canon Treehouse of Horror type thing. there's one joke in the standoff scene that made me laugh really hard, credit where it's due I guess

This is the last one I attempted. I used to enjoy their musical episodes, but I couldn't finish this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_of_the_Backstage

^ yeah I tried this one too but only made it to the first commercial break

I remember hearing good things about Eternal Moonshine Of The Simpson Mind (although I never watched it) but turns out that was from S18 back in 2007...

Yeah, how are we defining "latter day?" There are quite a few episodes from the 2000s that I think are either consistently funny or at least have enough funny bits to recommend them.

Anything S10 onward is new to me. I've seen every episode of seasons 1-8 anywhere from three to ten times over the years. The episode where Homer goes to NYC (S9E1) was the first episode I saw post-high school and I thought "wow this suddenly sucks" and attributed it to having grown out of it. I've seen most of Season 9 at this point by osmosis.

It struck me that a lot of the "widely seen as good" latter episodes are straight-up homages. The best Simpsons did homage-as-synthesis, the way Lyle Lanley was a nod to Harold Hill, or the way Gil is a nod (I think?) to Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross. Straight up "it's Boyhood, but Simpsons" or "it's Lego, but Simpsons" or "it's 24, but Simpsons" episodes seemed to appeal to IMDB ratings more than they appealed to me. (The 24 one was good I must admit)

The three I listed earlier made me laugh out loud throughout and it was such a good feeling. Surely there are ten more of that level of quality. I saw an awful "it's Survivor, but Simpsons" episode that nearly turned me off this entire line of inquiry

Are you referring to "Helter Shelter" (s14), where they move into a late-19th-century-style home, or did they do a more overt Survivor episode later on? 'Cause "Helter Shelter" is one that I would hold up as a mostly excellent post-90s ep.

These might be more clever than hilarious, it's been a long time since I've seen them, but I'll rep for:

Trilogy of Error (S12)
Tales from the Public Domain (S13)
The Seemingly Never-Ending Story (S17)

The last one in particular stuck out for me after a number of mediocre seasons.

I remember liking a lot of the S9 episodes at the time, but I was only like...11 when they aired. The two that killed my interest in the show were 1) the episode where Bart starts taking care of a baby bird, the first episode which I thought had no funny bits at all, and 2) the one where they killed off Maude Flanders for no discernable reason. and making it be Homer's fault!! idk the number of S10 & 11 episodes where my brothers and I just looked at each other and said "uhh...that wasn't very good"

The Baby Bird one is also the final Phil Hartman one.

I was referring to another recent episode where Homer and Marge go on Survivor, are immediately eliminated, and then are holed up in a hotel and it suddenly goes black and white and “noire” for no entertaining reason

I’ll check out those episodes you suggested Dan!

The three I mentioned actually had me laughing uncontrollably tbqph! The Book Job in particular was spectacular, feat a dubious guest star that worked out amazing in the end

Trehouse of Horror kept being good for longer than the rest did: s13 had the automated house voiced by Pierce Brosnan. "This is Constable Wiggums. We'll be right there. Remove your knickers and wait in the bath."

"My MOther the Carjacker" from s15 was a nice revisit of Homer's mum, and has that great bit where the FBI are readng Homer's mail:

Most people write to movie stars, this guy writes to movies. "Dear Die Hard, you rock. Especially the part where that dude is on the rooftop. P.S. Do you know Mad Max?"

My kids love simpsons now and seem to prefer the newer episodes, and I don't have any specific ones but whenever I happen to join them for a bit I find myself laughing. I have to assume they've cycled through practically a full writers room or two since I decided the Simpsons had gotten bad and gave up, and by now you probably have a room full of people who literally grew up on the golden era eps.

Thanks for Book Job recommendation - some really good gags, and fun all the way through.

It’s funny the few times I have accidentally seen some zombie simpsons in the last decade or so it always seems to be “a one-off non-canon Treehouse of Horror type thing” (3 bible stories but with Simpsons characters is the only one I remember) (they were all fucking terrible) - I’d be interested to know if that’s something they’ve resorted to more & more

I’ve def wondered whether a generation of OG fans in the writing room might have brought some of the spirit if not the quality of the classic stuff but it isn’t just the scripts that are bad in the stinksons era, what often bummed me out was how off the performances seemed, the timing & chemistry all wrong. Scared to try any recommendations but would be heartened even if they had regained the spark to sell weak jokes

most of the zombie Simpsons episodes I've seen will have a good joke or three, but yeah there's something really off about it that makes it unwatchable. not just the "this show used to be better" factor but also that the characters are more Looney Tunes now than anything, they don't have personality traits outside of what's needed to move the story along. like in the episode where Lisa becomes a Buddhist and suddenly everyone can talk about nothing but Lisa not being a Christian anymore. also they have this need to overexplain every fucking joke now

The show is always best when it's centered on the conceit that it's a heartwarming sitcom about a borderline dysfunctional family, and when the characters play their respective roles in the family drama, and then the humor may come from stretching that conceit to its absurd extremes, or even pushing outside them in a "meta" way in brief moments, but always returning back to its grounding. The show always seems to be at its worst when it just leaves that gravity entirely and becomes a free-floating joke delivery platform.

something that bothered me about the Buddhist episode is that they revealed Lenny & Carl were Buddhists for no reason, it doesn't fit into their character they don't have anything funny to say, it's just whatever, here's Lenny and Carl

xp I dunno man, people say this but I think there are golden era eps where it does all the bad things and it doesn’t matter because it is just solidly perfectly hilarious

I remember the early series where you would suddenly realise that there was a plethora of references to things going on almost in the background that you might only catch if you knew the source material being pastiched. So having that telegraphed seems to go right against what made it so special.

Also I remember somebody saying several years ago that when they went to a more formulaic understanding of how to write the show certain nuances disappeared. Like Homer being a lazy, sometimes mindless, short cut taking everyman becoming somebody who was actually of very limited intelligence to almost a pathological level.

I also remember watching some of the somewhat early shows and having spasms of laughter to near discomfort all the time so I haven't checked out the more recent episodes.

"Book Job" is from 2011, well into the zombie era. The episode works because the script and gags are great - the animation and the performances (except Moe and, uh, Neil Gaiman) are totally perfunctory, just portraying what's on the page and nothing more. It's an Ocean's 11 parody, but an older Simpsons episode would've (at least) made a couple of visual jokes about Sodebergh's directing style. Otherwise it's basically just an animated radio play (albeit a good one).

Ok yeah Book Job was fun, thanks!