(s20e07)

Tonight’s episode of “The Simpsons” was probably the most coherent episode in a while. The episode starts off with a lengthy Apple, Inc themed parody, that leads to Bart running away from the mall and ending up in the yard of his new Muslim friend “Bashir”.

Bart tries to show Bashir the ropes at school, and everyone, even Homer, seems to like him. After Homer’s buddies at the bar convince him that Bashir must be a terrorist (based solely on the fact that he’s Muslim) Homer tries to poison the family with a cake that looks like the American flag.

When that doesn’t work, Marge gets upset and demands that he apologize to them. When he goes to their house, however, he finds out that Bashir’s father has boxes of dynamite, and blows up buildings.

Long story short – Bashir’s dad is a demolitions expert, Homer makes an ass out of himself, and accidentally blows up a bridge that leads to the Duff beer plant, and so on.

Lisa’s Apple parody subplot moves throughout the entire episode too, with her getting a MyPod, then spending $1,200 on music downloads. After that she visits Mapple headquarters at the bottom of the sea, and ends up handing out leaflets for the company to pay off her bill.

This episode was filled with mild laughs throughout, so from that perspective, I suppose it was a success. The show is really beginning to feel a bit long in the tooth, though. The Apple related parody jokes were very dated, using a slogan the company hasn’t used in 5 years for the basis of a good portion of the humor, and they even went so far as to rehash a few bits from MadTV in joke form as well.

The Muslim neighbors plot was also filled with jokes we’ve all seen on this subject 100 times or more, and it even used some classic comedy gags that go as far back as “I Love Lucy” or even further. It just really felt kind of “been there, done that”.

I think the show could benefit from an injection of new writers, or perhaps, after 20 years, it’s time to put this one to bed.