The Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season

guys this is a very good season, it has great episodes like when bart and homer get chained together, when homer becomes head of a security clan for springfield, and the cool TREEHOUSE OF HORROR WITH THE HARRY POTTER IN IT. BUY THIS PEOPLE, its good for u

I always really enjoy The Simpsons video releases (except the season 20 release). I always laugh out loud a few times per episode. However, I love watching these shows with for the commentary, but I did find most of them to be pretty weak. I wouldn't be surprised if they just read the phone book when season 14 comes out. This doesn't apply to the episode that Stan Lee comments on, that one was great. So great, in fact, that it is possible that I'm judging all of the other commentaries by the greatness of that one, and they just fail by comparison. I'm not sure if the Blu Ray edition is worth the extra money, because while the episodes look good, the menu looks better. I don't really know about this sort of thing, but I'm assuming that the menus were made with newer technological magic than the episodes were, so the episodes may appear with a similar quality in the DVD edition.

Season 13 of the Simpsons is a decent one, offering many funny and laugh out loud moments. You can, however, see the beginning of the decline in quality as the season progresses. The elements of change are evident, as more pop culture celebrities become the norm, and Homer becomes more mean spirited and less oaf-ish. That said, the worst part of the season is the packaging itself. It's almost like they see the complaints and purposely make them worse. So, last time, when we complained about the terrible packaging that is Season 12, they release Season 20 with even worse packaging. When we complained about Season 20, they release Season 13 with the same packaging. It's almost like they're going out of their way to make things worse. I mean, why add a closed flap when you can save money by not having it? I'd almost swear it was vindictive. If not, then they have no clue what people are saying about the packaging, and they'll continue in the future so we might as well get used to it.

So, the show gets 4 stars for content, and I take away 2 for packaging, as if they'll actually listen.

I pre-ordered my set from Best Buy and was forced to get the 'limited edition' version, even though I didn't want it (I couldn't trade it out as there were no other sets yet out on the shelves). But I was happy to discover you can peel the Ralph face cover off, allowing the set to fit in my shelf nicely. Still though, I hate the packaging because the outer box is much cheaper and flimsier than in earlier years. And ONCE AGAIN, those idiots put the discs in the disc-destroying and hard-to-remove cardboard sleeves! ARG! It's so frustrating that they continue to package them this way. I wish they'd go back to how they were packaged in the early seasons where the discs were easy to remove and the construction was of good quality. OK, enough ranting, but it needs to be said in the hopes that FOX will quit this crap.

On to the shows...
By the time this season aired, I had lost a lot of interest in the series and only caught a few episodes. So I've actually not seen a number of these shows. And it's been a great surprise to enjoy them much more than I expected. I'm talking laughing hard at jokes like you would during the golden era. I've only watched the first eight episodes or so at the time of this review, but my favorite ep so far is "Sweets and Sour Marge." The quality of the shows is great and the set appears to be up to par with previous ones in regards to deleted scenes, commentaries, Easter eggs, etc.

In short, the packaging is infuriatingly bad AGAIN. But the discs are worth the money.

Being that season 13 was about the time I started to lose interest in new episodes of The Simpsons, I was looking forward to this release, but with some reservations. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the episodes are not nearly as bad as I remember them being, and in some (most) cases are actually pretty good. Yes, the plotlines are generally ridiculous, and the episode flow is terrible, but there are still some very funny moments and lines throughout the season.

Maybe over the past ten years or so, I've come to accept that we can't have Season 6-8 over and over again. Maybe my sense of humor has changed. Whatever it is, this season was definitely worth the purchase for me.

Of course, there's the recurring issue with the poor packaging that has to be mentioned in every review. I thought the packaging for Season 12 was a step up from Season 11 (at least the discs didn't scratch in the casing), but Season 13 is far below both of them. They've reused the disc storage idea from 12, but for some reason put the discs in a flimsy box that has to be opened, instead of just sliding out. All of the boxes at Best Buy were already damaged. I also opened the case to find that the booklet for this season was bent and folded, damaged beyond belief for a new product. I see from other reviews that this was not unique to my set. Disappointing.