10 Exact Moments The Simpsons Stopped Trying
6. So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show
So many shows resign themselves to doing it at some point, but it's still almost like an open admittance of laziness and a lack of effort when a show stoops to producing a clip show. It never fails to send the message that the writers are out of ideas.
Though The Simpsons were able to poke fun at themselves for their first clip show, it doesn't change the fact that the writers gave up and phoned it in for an episode during season four.
It's incredible to think that the show resorted to this kind of episode so early in its run, after less than four full seasons and 80 episodes. Not to mention that the rest of season four contains some of the strongest episodes the show has ever produced.
Among other fantastic episodes, the Simpsons clip show is sandwiched in season four between Last Exit to Springfield, and The Front. How can a show go from such a great episode, to a no effort clip show, back to another fantastic episode? Surely if the writers had tried even a little they could have given the world another excellent episode of The Simpsons instead of this?