Review of Simpsons, The: Risky Business

Introduction

The latest in Fox’s themed ‘Simpsons’ releases, this one focusing loosely on the family’s various job-related shenanigans. The four episodes are:

‘Realty Bites’ (falsely entitled ‘Reality Bites’ on the disc) from season nine follows Marge in her attempts to join Lionel Hutz’s firm of real estate agents (who include Gill, the bedraggled, Jack Lemmon-alike) where she finds that the moral quandary of lying to potential buyers may be a step too far from the family nest. In ‘Deep Space Homer’ from season five, an attempt by NASA to draw more viewers to space shuttle launches leads to Homer’s journey to the stars alongside Buzz “second comes right after first” Aldrin. Mayhem ensues. ‘Marge Gets a Job’ from season four sees Marge obtaining a job at the nuclear plant due to the monetary demands of fixing their rapidly subsiding home. Once there however she soon attracts the leery eye of Mr. Burns, who even abducts Tom Jones to woo the blue-haired goddess. And finally, in ‘Homer the Smithers’, after Mr. Burns sends Smithers on a much-needed break, Homer steps in as his replacement. Pain, humiliation and much exploitation follows.

Video

Compared to the re-released season box-sets, this is pretty poor, sharpness is lacking, and the image isn’t as colourful as one would expect.

Audio

The 5.1 that is featured on the box-sets is absent, but this stereo track works well.

Features

A brief, vaguely amusing clip-show featuring Chief Wiggum’s finest moments.

Conclusion

Two solid episodes (‘Marge Gets a Job’ and ‘Homer the Smithers’), one showing signs of decline (‘Realty Bites’) and one genuine masterpiece: the deliriously insane ‘Deep Space Homer’, featuring not one but two sublime ‘2001’ parodies. If the machinations of Burns/Smithers and the nuclear power plant sustain most of the laughs in ‘Marge Gets a Job’ and ‘Homer the Smithers’, ‘Realty Bites’ proves a more desperate affair, with subplots involving the Flanders moving into a home which was the site of a gruesome murder and Homer’s purchase at a police auction of Snake’s beloved car all vying for attention. The result, whilst funny enough, lacks the cogency of the show’s best series (seasons 5 to 8), and hints at the self-reflexivity that would come to swamp the satirical impulses in the latter seasons.

Not a bad turn-out then, but the main problem remains the restrictive, slim-pickings quality of having only four 20-minute episodes on a DVD, leading to some obvious omissions: Bart’s brief stint as a Mafia lackey in ‘Bart the Murderer’, Marge becoming a cop in ‘The Springfield Connection’. As well as Homer’s various career-branches in being an unwitting assistant to murderous supervillain Hank Scorpio in ‘You Only Move Twice’, being a bodyguard for Mayor Quimby in ‘Mayored to the Mob’, adventures in the competitive world of snow-plowing in ‘Mr. Plow’ and becoming Springfield’s new head of garbage disposal in the masterful ‘Trash of the Titans’. ‘Simpson’s obsessives should wait for the season box-sets, but passing viewers could do worse, just make sure you don’t spend much.