The Simpsons – Season 17
DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:
The season ended up being the final one released on DVD. While digital episodes of The Simpsons are in many places, specifically the FXX channel and app, I still long to own each season on a physical media where I can watch when I want, without the fear or concern of any licenses being pulled or expiring. I wish they would have made DVD box sets for Seasons 18 and 19, but this season will serve as the ending of one on a long time standard of DVD releases.- Marty Mankins
In this season, the episode about outsourcing to India (Kiss Kiss Bank Bangalore) tickled me and the episode “Girls Just Want to have Sums” hearkened back to older episodes in its wittiness. Overall, much of these later Simpson episodes have lost their originality, regurgitating a lot of the same plot lines you can get in other programming. When the Simpsons, years ago, picked on Bush Senior, doing an episode that punned Dennis the Menace at the same time, it was hilarious and fresh. When they pick on Bush Junior and modern day Republicans in this season, it’s nothing you haven’t heard or seen before too many times to be funny anymore. Making cracks on the Iraq war, Fox News, etc. isn’t edgy like the original Simpsons were in their time, it’s stale and overdone.Much of the characters by this point have lost the sparkle of their souls, which also weakens the show. Homer has always been stupid, but often he would act in ways that would remind you of our own fathers or (dare I admit it) ourselves. Now he’s so idiotic that he makes Daffy Duck appear genius. Lisa has always been preachy, but she was also a sweet little girl. Except for a few sterling moments (like in “Girls Just Want to Have Sums”), she’s an annoying Liberal shrill with very little of her childlike innocence remaining. And don’t get me started on what they’ve done to Flanders. I don’t even think the current writers understand this character at all. He is supposed to be Homer’s foil–he does everything right while Homer (the human) does everything wrong. A few seasons ago they turned Flanders into the generic Overbearing Evangelical, a character you can get from million other different places. The Simpsons used to be an outlier making insightful social commentary about the foibles of middle-class America. Now they just repeat a lot of the same junk you can get elsewhere from other comedies. Hmm, maybe they’re following Krusty’s career advice. ‘Tis easier to borrow other people’s material than make your own.-Ginger Wright
Hilarious as always, great packaging as well. Same boxset style as the previous few seasons. Never really liked how you kinda have to fight with it and crease the outer box to get the boxset out, and the discs are a bit jammed in there as well, but a lot better than most of the generic boxsets you see out there. Cool little episode guide booklet as well.-Russ
DVD Wholesale Main Features:
Actors: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria
Format: Multiple Formats, Animated, Box set, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Dubbed: French, Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. )
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 4
Rated: NR-Not Rated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Release Date: December 2, 2014
Run Time: 506 minutes
ASIN: B00OBDKPCU
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