Ahah, didn’t actually expected anyone to recognize I was the same person as the Boeing graph, time to create a new throwaway account I guess 🤷
I post a lot on Lemmy, mainly content I find on over social networks, and I try to avoid posting on lemmy.world, it’s getting too much activity, and really hurting the decentralized aspect of Lemmy, which imo is its biggest advantage.
I’m not criticizing the mods or admins or lemmy.world, just saying that for the content I post, I try to avoid putting in there
No worries, I’m sure most of people didn’t notice.
Definitely agree on the fact that LW is a too central on Lemmy. If you want to discuss this, we created a community recently on that theme: !fedigrow. Feel free to join, some discussions might interest you!
It appears that the colours are not on a fixed scale. The season averages and individual episodes are coloured using different ranges.
It ranges from lowest to highest regardless of the value. Like conditional formatting in Excel does if you don’t specify the scale.
The seasons average ratings range from 6.1-8.4, so it goes red to green in the span of 2.3 points.
The episodes range from 3.9 to 9.3, so it goes red to green in the span of 5.4 points.
The full IMDb ratings range from 1-10. This should have been used as a basis for the colouring instead. The overall average on IMDb is somewhere around 7, so it would be fine to skew the colours so the middle/yellow was at 7, but it should be able to represent any possible ratings.
Should probably also be acknowledged that the sample size is not going to be the same.
You’re going to get a bunch of people piling in to highly rate the early episodes that they remember watching when they were kids, but a significantly lower number are going to be voting on the episodes that came later.
Really the whole premise of trying to compare and contrast the seasons for such a long running show that existed before IMDb even started is flawed on many levels.
Yes, it has been observed that IMDb sometimes get a lot of new “single post users” putting in 10/10 ratings on Disney movies that otherwise scored badly.
How people rate things is skewed. 5 really means there isn’t anything redeemable about it.
For someone to mark below the midway point it tends to be because they are offended or upset about it. At that point a quality rating isn’t appropriate, it should be 0.
That’s just how humans are. The average rating is 7. If it was perfectly even it would be 5. But it isn’t. We are objective or rational when we’re asked to put a number to our personal opinion.
Indeed but I’m questioning the scores themselves in S1 and S2. Put it this way, I didn’t think that those seasons were considered almost as good as most the next 8, I would have expected them to be mostly in the 6.8-7.2 range.
I’m glad you asked actually. Looking up any info is not easy. Apparently nelson TV ratings are really hard to look into these days. Even in that link I tried to follow the refrences for more info and hit a dead end pretty fast.
Also I find it interesting that they do match up with the IMDb numbers. Because your not wrong, the nostalgia is strong for those early seasons. Pretty cool is not unwarranted.
If you were around during the early 90s on Usenet you would see a lot of people talking about how Simpsons peaked in season 1. More grounded. More focused on struggling family.
You have to remember the setting…the first couple of seasons the Simpsons was a huge change from standard sitcoms in the late 80s. It got eyes on it as it grew into itself.
I was seventeen when the Simpsons became their own show. The cultural impact was enormous and immediate. By the summer of 1990, images of the Simpsons were freaking everywhere. Clothes, glasses, miscellaneous trinkets, everywhere.
So it’s not really necessary for the first couple of seasons to come short against seasons three and four.
The seismic wave the show caused from its beginning were enough to garner those scores you see.
To get uniquely good, I’d agree, but I recently started rewatching from the start and it starts strong. At least for a start, anyways. Some cliche plot lines, but it’s never JUST the main plot line so even the cliches aren’t boring or lazily done.
During the first 3 seasons Simpsons was animated by KlaskyCsupo, “animation executive producer” and “supervising animation director” was Gábor Csupó. After he left animation style changed to more conventional.
So while the characters, writing and plotlines were not as genial as in the following seasons the animation style was much more interesting, with strange perspectives and point of views, distorted spaces, etc. Just look at this early recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LUf-GGHpuU
I never noticed this, it just looks like this for a few frames, but yeah, it’s a strange design choice, it makes the characters look like they are made from clay or rubber.
I watched the Simpsons as a kid. Never thought much about it, but Homer’s Enemy is the one episode that resurfaced in my mind as an adult decades later.
However, I recently completed a straight watch-thru of every Simpsons episode, and while watching the lackluster episodes from seasons ~20-~30, I have to acknowledge one thing:
Quality of the show and its writing have noticeably improved since around Season 32.
The most recent episodes feel more centered on the family and much less on bizarre cameos and really outrageous situations. It actually feels like a show about the Simpson family and treats the characters more age-appropriately.
I don’t like that they lost/recast established voices of minority characters (Apu, Carl, Dr. Hibbert, etc), I do think the quality and the focus of the show is much better than it has been in almost 2-decades.
How do you know they suck ass if you haven’t watched them?
Legitimately, what is it about the Internet and this show specifically where people feel compelled to sound off on something they are not actually watching, and haven’t watched in years?
The graphic in the post does cut off 4 seasons before the current one and also before where the top level comment mentioned writing got significantly better again.
The graphic shows a stellar first 9 seasons, a medium next 15 seasons, and a terrible last 8 seasons… so the majority of them are medium with equal about good and bad episodes.
Honestly, the scores aren’t really terrible for the most part. The colors of the graphic are certainly painting it worse than it is. Dark orange is still up to a 6.7 rating, which isn’t bad, and that’s close to the average for the majority of the “bad” season. What hurts them the most is that the first 10 season were so good, the delta between them and after was large.
Not necessarily, context is pretty key on IMDb. There are plenty of shows and movies that get review bombed, especially if they’re tackling a controversial subject. And nowadays, if anything has even the slightest hint of either being “woke” or alrernatively making fun of “woke” subjects, either side will come in and drop a ton of 1’s, dropping the rating significantly. This happens with videogames all the time, too. The most famous example being Last of Us 2, where the game itself was really quite good (e.g. gameplay, design, pacing, etc), but because it included a trans character and a certain event at the beginning with a key character, the internet went rabid and bombed the shit out of the game at launch.
Imdb ratings mostly range between 5-10, and 6-8 range usually has the most difference within it. Even with ‘controversial’ items that seems true. Not to mention Simpsons isn’t that controversial of a thing
Oh, I’ve checked in with new episodes occasionally over the years, and they were awful. Legitimately, I’m sounding off on this show because in many ways it defined my childhood. What is it with the internet that people feel compelled to sound off on someone sounding off?!
The bigger issue is that 35 seasons of the Simpsons is over 380 hours of continuous television
The literal worst episode of Simpsons is still pretty good honestly. It’s not as good as the best episodes of Simpsons, but it’s still better than most TV shows.
What’s the worst episode? I think the lady gaga one used to have the lowest review score but I’m wondering if a more recent episode has taken the crown
Actually good point, I was thinking the lady gaga episode, but I don’t know if at this point that is still the lowest rated. But really, even not going by ratings and just going each persons personal opinion, the worst episode they can think of, or even while they are watching it, thinking, " this isn’t a great episode". It’s still better than most other stuff on tv, just not a good episode of simpsons.
Kind of like saturday night live, even the bad episodes and seasons are still a pretty good show. And easy to appreciate the effort involved.
I distributed the watch over a long period of time—I only ever watched episodes while on a lunch break at work. It was an effective way of unplugging and just watching something “familiar”. I would typically bang out (up to) 2-episodes/day, 5-days a week over the course of about 2-years.
I just checked, and I have not watched the most recent episode, but I’m sure I will while on lunch sometime next week.
I would argue that majority are not as bad as you imply, though some are a tough watch—like the pointless travel shows, I recall Denmark and Canada as being a difficult watch.
I have to agree, the recent seasons feel like they have a cohesive story and often even pull away from the 3 piece storyy telling they were doing between seasons 20-30.
I wonder if there was a new writer brought on from s32 onward who’s responsible for the uptick.
I caught some clips of a recent season and the VAs just sound so old and tired. Regardless of the current writing, just let the show end. Have the writers write for something else.
Yea, not a problem either, she tries, but she sounds her age too. Burns though, I saw a recent episode and had to look up if they changed the VA because it’s so different.
The way the Internet talks about the Simpsons is so damn annoying. The vast, vast majority of them haven’t actually watched an episode and formed their own opinion on it in over a decade, they just keep repeating the same tired meme over and over again.
Long running shows have different writers coming and going, therefore quality fluctuates up and down over time. That’s one of the nice things about a long running show: it gets to experiment and let new blood invigorate new life into it. There is no singular “death”, there’s just hills and valleys.
You nailed it. Individual episodes are good bad and meh. I have a feeling if I was younger and exposed to the Simpsons now, I would’ve liked it just as much as I used to.
The constant shitting on the Simpsons needs to stop. It obviously gets good enough rating to keep on the air well over 30 years, so give it a rest.
Lol, what? If you look at a list of scripted TV shows that have ran for 35+ years it’s going to be dominated by shitty soap operas. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Those shitty soap operas generally get views, and it also goes to show that a cartoon is even more rare. The Simpsons is alright, and people clearly do watch it if its still running. Hell, most good shows only get 3 to 5 seasons now if they’re lucky!
All of what you say is true of brand new shows as well, with even more room to experiment. I wish the Simpsons would just die and let new shows and new ideas take its place.
Honestly, what you’ve described sounds like a the Simpsons is an old, rich guy who pays young writers and artists to entertain him. Yes, he employs these people. No, I don’t think it’s anywhere even close to a good use of these economic resources. It’s for the same reason Hollywood makes so many comic book movies instead of dramas.
It’s a clip show. Both low rating episodes from the first seasons are clip shows. That’s why. Clip shows are typically unpopular, even tho for The Simpsons, each clip is original and not a reair of a previous one. They’re “filler” episodes.
I was a major adult fan in my twenties who worked with people who could finish a Simpsons joke when anyone started a line from the show. I remember coming in and sadly announcing that I thought I didn’t like the show anymore. That was in the oughts. It had been in decline for a while at the time.
Gods, how right you are. I stopped after 12 watching as it came out, 10-12 had some great eps but many that I was just… bored watching.
I’ve seen a scattered few from 13-20 and they were nigh unwatchable. You’re totally right about the Family Guy-ication, and it’s not even early (good) Family Guy. It’s like watching newer Spongebob, after the writer (director?) quit.
I need to watch the Gaga episode. It sounds truly awful. I don’t know if I’m ready for that psychic damage.
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