There's No Disgrace Like Home

This is the first episode of 3 written by Al Jean & Mike Reiss in season 1 and it definately is their worst. This episode borders in with Homer's Night Out as being just overtly sitcommy and cliche ridden.

The first act's first few lines disregarding the fight over who loves Homer more are just cringe wirthy. With the dialogue seeming to be striped right out of an 80's sitcom "Don't embarrass me at the company picnic". Those lines are so cliche as is the whole prospect of "the company picnic". This episode just seems to me to be a concept the Simpsons would lampoon in later seasons. The one redeemiong quality of the first act is the interactions between Burns and Smithers. This episode really set the tone for where their relationship was to go and the quick joke about the TV watching the kids isn't bad.

The second act is where the episode gets the most un Simpsons like in that every character is broken down and all resemble one another. There's is no features of any of them that make this episode interesting in the slightest and the 2nd act is rather dull in that it's just them looking through houses and every result is the same they're not a normal family and although some of the results could be viewed as comedic they fall flat because of the poor characterizations presented within the second act.

The third act if any thing with the trip to the therapy center is funny. I used to find the scene hysterically funny but over time my fondness of it has dropped tremendously. The characters in the act are all still mirrors of each other and that doesn't ever change in the episode. The shock scene is the most memorable of this but it too falls to the abnormal characterizations presented in this episode because every Simpsons family member is viewed as somewhat stupid when we know they all had qualities of intelligence. The ending is nice though with therm buying the new TV.

This episode hits the territory of Homer's Odyssey in that the characters are so out of character and people try to defend it by claiming the writers didn't have a firm grasp on the shows characters and boundaries. But there are many episodes in season 1 that disproves that.

Grade: C+