TV-Reviewed

It’s admittedly been a while since I’ve reviewed Fox’s animated shows. It’s been a busy summer and these just haven’t been a priority. Here, we find Milhouse and Bart at odds with one another when a new girl comes between them. Milhouse gets punished for a prank at school, while Bart spends all his time with the new girl, paying no attention to Milhouse, who was suspended and grounded.

The prank that started the episode was rather clever: remove every screw in the school. As the school day unfolded, so did most of the school. Just about everything fell apart, almost all of it humorously.

Actress Anne Hathaway delivered the voice for Jenny, the little girl who got so much of Bart’s attention. Jenny was portrayed as an angel, whereas we all know Bart is more of a little devil with his many antics over the years. However with his new relationship with Jenny, Bart’s behavior had changed dramatically. He was finally behaving, helping out around the house.

Everything came crashing down when Milhouse found out what was going on. As he was trying to split them apart, Bart confessed all of his sins to Jenny and within minutes, the two were no longer together. Bart and Milhouse would later reconcile, but Jenny was out of the picture at that point.

Meanwhile, Lisa Simpson had her own thing going on. She learned the sad truth about the future of Springfield when she got on her computer and read more about global warming, overpopulation, etc. It meant sure doom for the city. After a mini-meltdown, Lisa was put on antidepressants and that was all she wrote. Lisa was turned into a zombie at that point.

A last prank ended the show, but it wasn’t very funny. In fact, it was more cool than anything. I rather enjoyed seeing the halls of Springfield Elementary turned into a massive skating rink.

This episode didn’t have anything new in it. However it still felt somewhat fresh with the humor. We’ve all seen girls come between Bart and Milhouse in the past, but it was the humor sprinkled throughout that kept this episode going. The 20th season remains one of the best seasons in recent memory.

Rating: 7.6