Topic: Which season of the Simpsons is best?

[Halbred]

The original Hank Scorpio episode was wonderful. He was such a nice guy!

I never liked Malcolm in the Middle PRECISELY because of the mother. I'm surprised that actress can still speak, because she spent the entirety of the series screaming and yelling.

[Luigi Dude]

Well the thing about the Hank Scorpio episode is if the wackiness of it had been contained in just that episode, it wouldn't be a big deal.  The problem is like Ian says, the Hank Scorpio episode pretty much ended up being a sign of things to come.  Even though I still like the episode, when I look back on it, the episode is the first major sign that the writers were starting to run out of idea's and as a result, started taking the series from a family sitcom with some crazy cartoon elements, into a crazy cartoon with some family sitcom elements.

[NWR_insanolord]

I don't mind the craziness as long as the writing is good, which it continued to be for several seasons after the show became predominantly ridiculous. I'd rather they try to stay realistic, but I'll gladly take anything written as well as that show used to be. As I said, that's the beautiful thing about Futurama: in the reality of that show it's completely normal and realistic for everything to be ludicrous.