Yeah, in the commentary of that episode David says that it's just random graffiti. I won't say that it's a "dropped storyline", it's just a tiny glimpse into Rawls as a character.

Isn't Olivia's super powers an ongoing storyline?

Agree with you about the first season being classic television (not thinking about the cultural impact etc., just quality, I would say that there are some better first seasons, among them Lost, Futurama, Deadwood and The Wire), but being so serialized the show as a whole really isn't that good.

You're part of the problem, @avclub-4b85256c4881edb6c0776df5d81f6236:disqus! At least download the episodes or some shit, don't contribute to the ratings of that POS show.

Ah, Emily Procter. I'm not sure I've seen a woman as hot as she was in the West Wing era.

Well, as I understand, Groening's complaint about A Star is Burns is how the Network forced the crossover aspect upon the show. I can understand him being more open to it if it's something the writers came up with themself.

I think he just hated the crossover aspect of the episode. I'm guessing Fox "forced" it on the show in order to let people get to know The Critic, and I can understand Groening hating that. I personally don't like the story aspect of the episode (Jay Sherman seems out of place to me), but I love Homer falling over…

FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forgot about the movie, and I agree that it sucked.

In the commentary to the episode, Ken Keeler (or some other writer, can't remember) mentions that the Skinner episode was a parody of sitcoms (including Simpsons) just dropping storylines for the next episode.

But wasn't Julian supposed to be gay from the start? I'm guessing it was in the role description. It seems strange to suddenly decide that you're too homophobic to play a gay character.

I do think people gloss over how shitty the second season was (or pretty much everything after the killer is revealed). It's an important show, but quality-wise it doesn't belong on any top 20 lists of best shows ever made (in my opinion, of course). There's just too much bad plots in there to justify that. It does…

Yeah, I agree. I wouldn't call a plot "dropped" just because we don't learn all the details. Same goes for The Greek: He's a mysterious guy who's not even greek, end of story.

Yeah, bitching about continuity in The Simpsons is like bitching about continuity in Seinfeld: pointless.

Yeah, maybe the whole afterlife thing was OK (I didn't like it, but I can understand how someone would). But the whole cave thing was just poor writing imo. It just seemed like the writers had painted themself into a few too many corners, and when time cave for them to explain the big question: "Why", they just…

Yeah, that show was very hit and miss after season three. The best stuff is the episodes based on a case from the book.

Yeah, that episode has been mentioned a lot here, and I agree. I think even the writer(s) admitted that the episode was a piece of shit.

Isn't that how we all get ahead in life?

I think the system is that the moderator (Rowan Kaiser in this case) can pick and choose on who's going to be able to post without moderation…and the criteria for being able to do that? I don't know, really, it's bound to be a very subjective decision about the quality of your posts and how often you comment.

It's moderated, so not every comment gets through. If you're cool enough you can post without getting moderated (the people posting without the grey thing around the post).