The Simpsons: Every Season Ranked Worst To Best

Though many of The Simpsons' later misadventures are best characterised as hit-or-miss, season 12 is the very definition of a mixed bag. For every all-time classic like "Lisa the Tree Hugger" and "A Tale of Two Springfields," there's the N'Sync parody "New Kids on the Blecch" and the joyless "Children of a Lesser God."

Season 12 introduced Homer as Mr X in an episode that is half brilliant and half too surreal for its own good, and later finds Homer and Bart posing as con artists, in an episode which is as exciting as it is strangely lacking in anything worth saying.

Not bad, not great - just good. Funny where it counts, touching when it needs to be, but maddening in its inconsistencies.