Episode 1 - He Loves to Fly and He D’ohs
4 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Homer saves Mr Burns life once more and gets a free dinner as a result. Burns flies him to Chicago in his private jet. Home falls in love with the private jet and becomes depressed by the rest of his life. Marge hires a Life Coach to help him get what he wants in life. Homer goes for a job interview at a company where he will be able to fly their private jet. But when he doesn’t get the job he lies and says he did. The Good: Let’s do something different with this review. There is half of a good episode here, so let me recount that part: we start with a nice opening sequence showing a devastated Springfield. It is the aftermath of the Simpson’s movie and a nice way to kick off the episode. Homer then gets his trip on a private jet including a silly joke about how the stewardess will do anything (except sex), “I’m aroused. And confused” he says. They arrive in the “Miami of Canada” and we get a few Chicago jokes about Second City and the White Sox. But the trip on a jet has left him feeling glum about everyday life so Marge hires a “Life Coach” to help him. It’s a typical Simpsons plot and Homer mocks it as so by screeching “Ah! A fresh face” when he sees him. He encourages Homer to become more confident and he heads off to get a new job which will allow him to fly on the company jet. Sadly Homer doesn’t get the job and soon Bart discovers his lie. The Bad: Sadly the bad half now begins with Homer lying about getting the job and having no plan as to how to get around it. Bart asks Homer what happened at the interview and we see Homer desperately trying to impress the Texan and embarrassingly failing. So he takes Marge on a private jet to cushion the bad news. But on the jet the pilot falls unconscious and Homer has to land the plane. Great Simpsons episodes are built on great plots. The jokes flow from logical stories that make sense and make a point about life or a character. This episode seems to be going somewhere and then rapidly dissolves. The writers have no point to make about Homer’s work struggles so they just have him land a plane and make poor jokes about Lionel Richie. It’s sad to see because for a second it felt like maybe season nineteen was going to be different to the last seven or eight and actually reverse the decline which the show has been in. My mistake. Best Joke: The big Texan is the boss of the copper tubing company and when he asks “Are you here for the safety inspector job?” Homer saucily replies “Well I see the position of handsomest C.E.O is already taken.” The Bottom Line: Don’t get your hopes up. The good stuff in this episode is a false alarm, by the end of the show we are back to normal. Normal being a show which has forgotten how to write plots that feel logical or make a point and which give birth to jokes which are genuinely clever and funny.
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