CLASSIC Simpsons: Season Seven Review
a great, but consistently not excellent, season
In my teens and early twenties, I watched a whole lot of Season Seven. It was one of three seasons I owned in DVD box-set form, along with Four and Nine. I wasn’t a particularly reflective young man, but my college roommate and I sure loved the earlier two— though we never quite landed on which of the two we preferred. Some amazing episodes in both. Season Nine, on the other hand, had its moments, but pretty clearly wasn’t in the same league.
More than a decade later, I’ve finally given that old comparison the sophisticated, neurotic treatment it deserved. According to the CLASSIC scale analysis, Seven outranks Four by a slight .04 in cumulative category score. Which strikes me as odd. Because, after this re-watch, I am more convinced than ever that I prefer S4. Clearly, these numbers don’t tell the simple story of superiority they seem to.
When we turn to the categories, the numbers continue to tell strange stories. For example, S4 and S7 have an identical Characters score of 8.33. It’s the same number… but it doesn’t feel the same to me. And I think I know why.
S4’s 8.33 represents a show on the rise; it’s a big jump from S3 (8.11), which was a major improvement from S2 (7.57) and obviously S1’s humble 6.66(7). A momentum gathers steam through the fourth season, and 8.33 is higher than everything before it. In S4, this A- represents genuine progress. It captures the moment when the show’s characters begin to realize their full potential. It’s exciting to see the thing start to come to fruition.
Meanwhile, S7 steps back in Character, average score, and nearly every other category.. I tracked that step this time around. That descent—subtle as it is—felt far more drastic than the numbers show.
Beyond that, S4’s 8.40 Laughs score is actually higher than S7’s 8.35, which also lags 0.20 behind S5’s 8.55 (a proper A score). It’s reasonable to expect that the show would at least begin to fall away from peak form somewhere around this point in its history. But it is noticeable that Season Seven as a whole struggles to match the climb toward the peak in a category as vital as Laughs.
There are 25 episodes in Season Seven of The Simpsons. In this post, you’ll first find the CLASSIC Scale episode score for each, listed from best to worst. Then, the season’s cumulative results. Then, I continue to put S7 in perspective, comparing it to the high bar that is the rest of the prime of the show.
ICYMI: I explain my method here. This is the master document, containing my up-to-date all-time rankings list.
Incredible (A+)
22 Short Films About Springfield
Lisa the Vegetarian
Excellent (A)
A Fish Called Selma
King-Size Homer
Bart Sells His Soul
Treehouse of Horror VI
Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield
Great (A-)
The Day the Violence Died
Two Bad Neighbors
Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily
Bart on the Road
Homer the Smithers
Much Apu About Nothing
Marge Be Not Proud
Team Homer
Mother Simpson
Lisa the Iconoclast
Who Shot Mr Burns [Pt. 2]
Radioactive Man
Bart the Fink
Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'
Homerpalooza
Summer of 4’2
Good (B)
Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming
Almost Good (C+)
138th Episode Spectacular
Season Seven Rankings
Average Category Score + (Change from S6 → S7):
Characters: 8.33 (-0.09)
Laughs: 8.35 (-0.10)
Artistry: 8.49 (-0.01)
Story: 8.30 (+0.05)
Setting: 8.34 (-0.16)
Irreverence: 8.16 (-0.18)
Classic-ness: 8.41 (+/- 0)
Total: 8.34 (-0.07)
Average Episode Score: A-
Only Improved Category:
Story
If we consider a Top-Tier(s) Episode to be an A or an A+, this is how frequently they come through over the last few seasons:
S3: 3/24 = 8%
S4: 8/22 = 36%
S5: 11/22 = 50%
S6: 13/25= 52%
S7: 7/25 = 28%
Accordingly, Season Seven has a whopping 16 episodes coming in at A-, meaning 64% of the season hits ‘Great’ territory, short of the rate of Excellence / the Top Tier(s) established in seasons 4, 5, and 6.
On the plus side, only two episodes fall short of Great, and one is a clip show (those never do well on this scale, which seems right). 16, however, is lot of A-minus episodes. Feels like too many. And so, despite the scale showing S7 barely edging out S4 according to average episode score, there’s still a legitimate reason to prefer the latter: one symbolizes the show’s ascent, the other the beginning of its descent into a steadily Great, rarely Excellent show. Excellence matters—especially when measured by how often Top Tier episodes appear— and S7 tracks at pre-prime levels of it.
Is Season 7 a bad season? Not at all. There are so many classic moments and a few of the best episodes in the entire series, I think. But at times it leans too heavily on what’s already been established as funny about its characters, instead of taking them in fresh directions. Often, characters are guided by weird drives and motivations that don’t even seem to make sense with what we know about them… Why is Homer suddenly a diehard Rock & Roll historian in Homerpalooza? He’s never known so much about anything else. How did Burns get strong enough to kick Bart to the bottom of the sea in the Fighting Hellfish episode? His whole bit is how horribly weak he is. Why do several episodes try to make me care about Milhouse in a way that isn’t particularly funny, and how did they manage to make such a mediocre Sideshow Bob episode? And so on.
Now, these Character category nitpicks, flaws, and oddities are of course balanced out by greatness. A full-episode character study on Troy McClure? Amazing. An extremely rare, enduring character change in which Lisa levels up in her principles and becomes- and remains- a vegetarian? Breakthrough stuff. 22 Short Films? In some ways it’s the best Character episode of all time.
It’s a good season. Two episodes, as of writing this, are alive and well in the Top 10 (22 Short Films About Springfield and Lisa the Vegetarian). Another two make the Top 20— (A Fish Called Selma and King-Size Homer). The highs are still high. It’s just that the average episode comes across as much more flawed than the last few seasons…
Unlike S4, S7 actually aligns more closely with S3 in its Top-Tier episode rate than it is to S5 and S6— a sign that could be a bleak one. Looking ahead to Season Eight, I predict the show will recover in a few categories, and hope it does— I would be surprised to see a number as low as 28% hit the Top Tier(s). And yet, as we know, it will only be a matter of time before it becomes the norm.
