Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life

I will start in a simple way: I have seen episode 5 of the 22:nd season of The Simpsons, titled "Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life", and I can say that it is quite good. No, it is actually BRILLIANT!

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about The Simpsons kind of being in rut, i.e. they are not even close as funny now as they were about ten years ago. The latest Halloween special, "Treehouse of Horror XXI", is a good example of that. It just wasn't funny enough. Even though The Simpsons of the last few years lack some of the direct and simple humor from the show's earlier days, the animation is better, the storytelling is better and the stories feel much more creative than before: the stories are not incorporated in the characters' every-day lives as they were earlier; every episode now-days is like a little adventure.

Well, what about the jokes in episode 5 of season 22? What about the humor? Is it funny? Well, it's all in the details, mostly. First of all, the story is very well written. It flows and unfolds perfectly throughout the episode, and ends just perfectly in a simple The Simpsons way. I personally didn't expect it to be very funny, even though I enjoy watching The Simpsons, so I was sort of caught by surprise. I feel that this is definitely the funniest episode of The Simpsons in a long time! I laughed often, I laughed hard. Perhaps it is a little early still, but this episode might even become a classic. I highly recommend watching it, and I wish you will enjoy it as much as I did. Now I am again looking forward to the next episodes (and the next season), though now with less patience! Simply brilliant work!

If anything, this is perhaps the strongest episode of the season, rivalled perhaps only by '500 Keys'.

Let's face it - the show by this point had tapered off, and S22 wasn't a particularly strong later season.

So although the bar may be relatively low, this episode manages to stand out at the top of the pile. It's reasonably amusing with no flat spots, and there's a touching moment towards the end with Lisa and Marge.

It's not going to stand out as high point for the show, nor even for a Lisa episode, but it provides half an hour of solid entertainment. One of the few recommended watches of the season.

Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life is a good Simpsons episode with a well written storyline and plenty of funny scenes. It's enjoyable, we see Lisa abandon her family and social life in return for her education, it's certainly one of the most serious positions we have ever seen any character on the show in, and it provides great conflict between herself and Marge. It's definitely a weaker moment of the twenty second season, this season has offered some very entertaining and memorable moments, but you sadly will not see any of those here, and it's a perfect example that Lisa's shows are normally the most mediocre Simpsons episodes, although in defense of the character, she did have some great episodes centred on her in this season (Elementary School Musical, Loan-a Lisa, the Great Simpsina). I think the story for the episode had good potential but they certainly didn't take advantage of it, it lingers for a long time where nothing really happens, Lisa should have moved to the new school much earlier in the episode as it was an important plot device, but was only seen for about five minutes at best, and it should have dealt with Marge's struggles to afford the fees for the school much more. It's nothing special, but Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life has many funny moments and is an enjoyable episode.

Lisa tries to find how Marge's grades suffered as a child so she won't destroy her own education. Meanwhile, Bart puts himself in huge trouble after standing up to Nelson.