The Simpson's: Season One (1989-1990)

I have no intention of going through all the seasons of The Simpson’s, lord knows the show had past its prime by the turn of the millennium, I haven’t made any effort to watch new episodes I think since before the start of the Iraq War. However that first year was something different, and I chose to view it again for the nostalgia kick. I was just the right age for this show when it first came on the air, I was 9 and fortunately for me my folks weren’t like many in our Mormon world who barred their children from watching the program. The show was an original, and could swing through genera’s and tones with great ease, and because it was animated youngsters like myself could be exposed to some not unsophisticated satire and ‘life lessons’. What I remember about the early show was that it actually had heart beneath its critique of modern family life, and I’m sure the series still does. What it may lack now that it had before however was a sense of the existential, I didn’t have a word for it then but I knew some of the episodes actually affected me. In Life on the Fast Lane, the seasons Emmy winner, you have perhaps the most true feeling depiction in television of a child’s terror at their parents martial difficulties. That episode was long an emotional point of reference for me when I heard about friends parents getting a divorce. While the series has now long passed it’s relevance, I can’t give the revolutionary first season anything less then a grade A.