Review: The Simpsons ‘Sky Police’

 

Spoilers Below:

Moe and Marge have been getting a lot of attention on The Simpsons lately, with a Moe-centric story last week, a Moe/Marge split two weeks ago, and an episode that starred Marge last night. Although all these episodes seemed like they were on the verge of success, none of them – including “Sky Police” were able to reach their full potential.

Chief Wiggum mistakenly received a Jetpack in the mail, and due to lack of proper training, crashed it into the church, setting it ablaze. To raise money to repair the important town landmark, Apu suggested they attempt to win the money by gambling at the local casino. Using a card-counting system, a team of Rev & Helen Lovejoy, Sideshow Mel, Ned Flanders, Agnes Skinner, and Marge were soon rolling in the dough. However, Homer ended up being kidnapped by casino security in retribution. With no other alternative, Marge prayed on the casino floor, and her prayers were answered – by the casino management, who decided to free Homer as long as the church group gamblers never returned.

In Case You Missed It:

1) No chalkboard gag, no couch gag.

2) Chief Wiggum’s Stuffers Family-Size Lasagna (serves 15-20) had the tagline: “You know it’s Stuffers ‘cause the noodles are THICK.”

3) When Wiggum crashed into the police station, the prisoners that escaped included Snake, Fat Tony, and someone that looked like Sammy Hagar.

4) Apu was thrown out of MIT by a robot called the Bum’s Rush-A-Tron.

5) Rev. Lovejoy’s biggest fear? The church will be demolished to open up an Atheist Strip Club (Appearing tonight: Crystal Hitchens.)

6) Homer to the kids: “If anything happens to Marge, we’ll all be orphans!”

7) Ned’s confession: “Those free ginger ales at the casino: I didn’t declare them on my taxes!”

8) The local budget hotel was called The Quantity Inn.

9) Homer was thrown out of the casino by a robot called the Bum’s Rush-A-Tron 2.0. You’d think they’d have made more models in that time.

I really hesitate to throw a statement of this magnitude around, so I’ll be very careful with my choice of words: when a show is on for a very long time, they can sometimes appear to run out of ideas.

There. Everyone okay? Good.

I get that this was a spoof of the film 21 (or the book on which it was based, Bringing Down the House), but it still had obvious similarities to episodes like season 5’s “$pringfield (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)” with Marge having a gambling problem, as well as season 13’s “She of Little Faith,” with the church needing money after a small aircraft crashed into it. These similarities, coupled with the fact that the episode had a single storyline, didn’t do much to help its case. Plus, they weren’t even acknowledged. If The Simpsons is going to blatantly plagiarize itself, it should at least have the stones to own up to it.

Also, it was a bit awkward. It started with Chief Wiggum, and because of the name seemed like it would stay centered on the police department’s new flying toy. But this storyline was soon replaced with one centering on religion. (I get it, “Sky Police” has a double meaning, hardy har har.) Obviously the show is no stranger to subjects of this sort, with more episodes dealing with the religion topic than I could even begin to mention. Most are satirical with a grain of wisdom, but this one went a bit overboard. I felt it got too preachy, and although a line like, “Maybe prayer is just taking a moment to tell yourself that there is good in the universe,” sounds sweet, it really just highlighted the fact that the show seemed to bounce around without a clear focus or tone. The gambling sequences were well done visually, but were only momentarily interesting to watch and ended up devoid of humor.

Homer, the one character that could add some comic relief, was absent (save for a few good gems like telling a frisky Marge: “Okay, but if I’m sleepy at work tomorrow I get to tell everyone why.”) Basically, other than that fact that he was constantly deceived by Marge in a reverse Breaking Bad-like scenario, he only acted as a pawn in the card-counter vs. casino struggle. Plus, the Simpson matriarch manipulated the kids into keeping up the lie as well, which was a bit dark.

Speaking of dark, why the hell did a bunch of soldiers fire upon a police officer at the beginning? That really bugged me too.

Overall there was about as much humor as I would come to expect for current Simpsons episodes, but in the end it wasn’t nearly enough to float this shoddy, inconsistent premise.