Synergy Flunks Math

The IGN review for this week’s four part Zombie Simpsons clusterfuck is the first one they’ve put up since I’ve been doing these synergy posts that isn’t a rave.  To be sure, it’s pretty gentle criticism, but it’s not a glowing review and that’s a first.  What puzzles me, however, is the fact that the episode still garners a rating of 6.2.  6.2!  When the review considers only one of four segments to be good, shouldn’t that be more like a 2.5, or, if you’re rounding up, a 3?  What, precisely, is the point of having a scale go from 1-10 if even things you really don’t like score a six or higher?

Anyway, this week’s review needed considerably less editing than usual, but I still found plenty of synergy.  Enjoy:

May 11, 2009 – Aside from the annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode and that disjointed piece of shit “Gone Maggie Gone,” season 20 hadn’t had another anthology episode until this week. “Four Great Women and a Manicure” told had four stories parts, all involving historical female cultural mainstays, all spurred by Marge taking Lisa for her first manicure. And as is often the case with these types of episodes, the segments were hit and miss. One was a clear standout slightly less bad, while the others couldn’t find enough anything resembling good jokes in their subject matter.

The first segment, giving a Zombie Simpsons-style retelling of key moments from the life of Queen Elizabeth, was very weak. Maybe it was Selma as Elizabeth, maybe it was Hank Azaria’s go-to effeminate Spanish-accent “gay” voice, or maybe it was the rushed pacing. Whatever the reason, the story never found its footing and the jokes were few. Some small bits worked, like Lenny and his tiny Spanish Armada, but more over the What jokes there were fell flat. Queen Selma’s “how dare you make out… while I make out not” made me cringe. Worse was Homer and Moe’s “Spanish armada?” exchange: “Armada? What’s armada?” “Nothing. What’s armada with you?” Sure, they mocked the lameness of the bit, but if you know it’s lame, why use the bit?  [Editor’s note: The answer to your question is: because this is Zombie Simpsons.  Try not to imagine how lame the stuff they left out was.]

The second segment was the best of the episode least stupid by a very large margin. This was Lisa’s retelling of Snow White, complete with appropriate changes to pretend to avoid being sued by the Disney Corporation. This story had a different set of seven dwarves, like Crabby, Drunky, Lenny and Doc… tor Hibbert, which isn’t nearly as funny as the Seven Duffs. I think the dwarves were a key part of this segment’s success lack of total failure, because it’s always funny to see our favorite familiar characters effectively put into other familiar roles. Really, this segment had everything you could want from the beginnings of a Snow White spoof, but neither the brains nor the time to make it work. The “Ho-Hi-Ho-Hi” song was hilarious decent, both in the segment and the extension at the end of the episode: “This song’s not like any song you know, ho-hi, ho-hi, ho-hi.” Lisa had started telling the story as a warning to having a “dangerous obsession with female beauty,” and ended the story further pushing her feminist agenda: “Snow White… waited for her prince to come, but he never did. Snow White was brought back to life by a lady doctor.” as quickly as possible with direct, jokeless narration. This was such a fun and funny segment that If you put a gun to my head I would have much rather seen it expanded to an entire episode than watch the other three stories, but that isn’t saying much.

But since that couldn’t happen, there had to be two more. Macbeth was the subject thinly used template off for segment three. The Scottish play has been spoofed by the series in various forms before, but “Four Great Women and a Manicure” put yet another spin on it. Instead of Lady Macbeth scheming to take over the throne, she’s scheming to take over the lead role in the play Macbeth. It was a mildly clever idea, but as usual it wasn’t enough was implemented horribly. A series of murders and some fun theater references followed, (“Why do they write a new review of this play every single day?”) but nothing elevated the segment beyond that lone smart twist.

The fourth segment was something new for the series. Three has been the standard number of stories for all of the previous 19 seasons, and the series joked about mentioned this with Marge stating, “That’s it, three stories. That’s what we always tell.” But with the new format that kicked in midway through the season, there was time need for a fourth. This segment turned crammed Maggie into the architect protagonist in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, using building blocks instead of, you know, buildings. This was another weak segment. A string of scenes showing a man creatively knocking down Maggie’s structures does not translate into big laughs. The segment’s only memorable, and not in a good way, moment was hearing Jodie Foster (Nell) join Elizabeth Taylor (The Flintstones) as a voice for Maggie Simpson. Beyond that, there is little to add.

Four stories instead of three, but there was really only one worth watching that wasn’t complete garbage and even it was still Zombie Simpsons.