The Simpsons: The Fourteenth Season [Import]

Whew! After the 20th season debacle, I thought it was all over.

In the 14th season DVD, there is commentary on every episode. Though only four episodes have Matt Groening, each episode has at least seven people commenting with one episode containing 12. Guests Joe Mantegna, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Tony Hawk, Mark Hoppus, Scott Thompson and David Byrne join the regular writers, animators, directors and cast during the commentaries. In fact, there are noticeably more visits from the cast in these commentaries (no Harry Shearer or Julie Kavner, though).

While the storylines and jokes may be a tad weaker, the 14th season is the first season to utilize digital animation and coloring, abandoning cels, ink and paint, so the overall LOOK of the show is different, probably better and crisper.

Homer also is stupider than in previous season with some gags falling flat, making one wonder if Homer is too stupid/less funny in this season. However, remember that in season 14 Homer died in the first episode when he was first over the cliff chasing the giant donuts hanging from the helicopters. The Homer in the rest of the episodes is a clone. That is how I am rationalizing the ultrastupidity of Homer this season.

Also, the usual deleted scenes and animation showcases are here. The menus are formatted the same as the last few collections with menu animations worth sitting through their entirety before they loop. In other words, it's the same comfortable format fans of the DVD sets have been used to and sorely missed in the 20th season DVD set.

If you are a collector of all the seasons, then do not hesitate with season 14. Just pretend that the 20th season set didn't happen.

If you hate the "accordion" packaging of seasons 11-13, you'll hate this packaging, too. It's the same.

Life is back to normal.

As I've seen the quality of The Simpsons decline over the previous two seasons, I was very hesitant to buy season 14. I had not seen these episodes before, as i do not have/watch broadcast/cable TV. Being desperate to get a fix of one of my favorite shows, I ordered S14 not expecting much. To my surprise, the quality of this season is an improvement over the last 2 seasons- and a big improvement over season 13.
The commentaries (one of my favorite features of the DVDs- and alone worth buying the DVDs for) are again relevant and entertaining (In S13, they seemed like they had stopped caring and had run out of steam...but thankfully, these commentaries on S14 are as good as ever).
This was the first year they went digital, as far as the actual animation goes...and I have to say, that it looks great. While this season may still not be up to the standards of seasons 2-10, it is definitely getting back on track. The absurd plots of the last few seasons are gone; The disjointed separate "A" and "B" stories are gone- with each episode now centered around one unified storyline.
Homer's annoying screaming and bumbling are largely gone (Thank you!)....and many of the things we loved about the classic seasons have returned- like the inclusion of many of our favorite secondary characters.
Still, the show is a little flat compared to the classic years; It is not as funny as it once was...and much of the good intellectual humor is still missing...but this is a vast improvement over the crapfest which the show had become over the last few seasons.
I can only hope that this trend continues with season 15- and maybe there will yet be some good seasons of the Simpsons to come, which rival the quality of earlier seasons. (If only they'd release seasons in a timelier manner!)
So if you have been put off by the declining quality of the past few seasons...cheer up and give this season a try- it is on the rebound! Sure, other than the commentaries, there isn't much in the way of worthwhile extras (But who cares? We have good commentary on EVERY episode!) and they're still packaging this show in the abhorrent cardboard accordion ruin-a-disc cases (at least now they've got little cheesy plastic baggies over the DVDs to protect them from scratches).....but [in Krusty voice] Whadduyah gonna do?
After season 13, seeing this season was a relief! While I wouldn't want to pay a high price for this because of the terrible packaging, I got mine for around twenty mazoolahs...so I am satisfied. While this season really doesn't have any "favorite" epsiodes...it doesn't have any real bombs, either...which is an accomplishment for this time period of the show.

23 years of my life out of 30 has been spent watching this show. I remember when it used to be on Thursdays then it was changed to Sundays. I've seen the show change throughout the years and all the highs and lows. I also remember when I fell out of love with this show which was around season 10, but now that I own all the season so far released the later seasons have grown on me.
I think the reason why I stopped obsessively watching the Simpsons was because the dip in quality and the fact that I was burnt out. Season 1 I was 7 by season 10 I was 17 and it was just getting old, plus the fact that the show seemed to go from top notch writing to all over the place was all too boring for me. But now that I've watched all the seasons on dvd over and over again I've realized it wasn't as bad as I remember it being and by season 12 the show seemed to get better for awhile. Yeah some episodes are terrible but there is a lot of funny moments on this season. Sometimes I wonder if some of the newer writers watched the show at all before and other writers got it right. These days I try not to worry about the bad episodes, I just skip passed them and all is better. What you get with season 14 is some great episodes, some good ones, some alright ones and some bad ones, but it's still worth buying.