The first episode this season is “Treehouse of Horror XI” (S12, E1). It’s not as funny as the usual Halloween episode. The only skit I liked was the one where Homer dies and tries to do a good deed to get into heaven, and that was only meh.

This season overall isn’t as funny as last season. “A Tale of Two Springfields” (S12, E2) had a funny bit where the power goes out and the nurse says, “You can’t do surgery in the dark!” To which Dr. Hibbert replies, “Sounds like a wager to me.” (This is an earlier version of the “Challenge accepted!” joke which would become popular in later years.) Krusty the Clown, who is being operated on, then says, “I’d like a piece of that action.” It’s a good joke, but the rest of the episode was meh.

I’ve been keeping track of presidential references made by The Simpsons. In “A Tale of Two Springfields” (S12, E2), Al Gore’s name is a subliminal message in Bart’s chalkboard gag at the top of the episode. Gore was running for president at the time, but would later end up losing. Another presidential reference appears in “Skinner’s Sense of Snow” (S12, E8). The kids are snowed in at the school and one kid draws mustaches on pictures of presidents Harding and Wilson, but stops when he gets to Taft who already has an impressive mustache. Chief Wiggum makes a presidential reference in “Day of the Jackanapes” (S12, E13), at one point saying, “It’s great to see a kid use a wooden bat. Nowadays it’s all aluminum this and George W that.” (George W. Bush was the newly elected president early in 2001 when this episode aired.)

In “Hungry, Hungry Homer” (S12, E15), the Simpson family visits Blockoland. There’s a block version of Lincoln who says, “Four score and seven blocks ago.” The chalkboard gag at the top of the episode mentions the vice president in “Bye Bye Nerdie” (S12, E16). The tour guide in “Simpson Safari” (S12, E17) mentions that the leader of an African country seized power in a bloodless coup (it was “all smotherings”) to which Homer replies, “just like Jimmy Carter”. The final presidential reference this season comes in the last episode, “Simpsons Tall Tales” (S12, E21). During Huckleberry Finn’s time period, Krusty jokes while making a drinking motion that “President Fillmore is in the news again. Glug glug glug.”

It feels like this season is more slapstick heavy. The Halloween episodes and Itchy & Scratch cartoons always featured over-the-top violence, of course, but in this season, there’s more violent moments in the regular portions of the show. In “A Tale of Two Springfields” (S12, E2), Homer gets attacked by a badger that rips out his stomach, leaving his organs exposed. It wasn’t funny and it felt out of place in a non-Halloween episode.

“Homer vs. Dignity” (S12, E5) is probably the worst episode up to this point, despite the fact there’s an episode titled “Worst Episode Ever” (S12, E11) coming up later this season. This is the one where Mr. Burns pays Homer to do humiliating things. At one point, Homer dresses up like a panda and gets raped by another panda. It’s supposed to be funny, but it’s just gross. The Simpsons sometimes engages in gross-out humor, of course, but in my opinion, they’ve taken it too far this season. I wonder if they were trying to emulate the gross-out humor of other popular cartoons like South Park (which had been going a couple years by this point) and Family Guy (which debuted the year before). Hopefully, this trend towards gross-out humor won’t continue.

“The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” (S12, E6) is the episode in which The Simpsons finally get a computer. My family already had a computer for a couple years by this point and we weren’t exactly early adopters, so it feels like they were a bit behind the times. Homer starts a website called Mr. X in which he anonymously reports on news he finds out about. This seems like it was inspired by the Drudge Report, an internet news website which first broke the story of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal in the late 1990s.

This episode does a good job of depicting early internet webpages with their slow loading times, dancing animations, and annoying sound effects. Lisa claims you can’t put things that aren’t true on the internet, which is adorable. I thought it was funny when Homer said he was just going to start making things up and Lisa asks him to at least take off his Pulitzer Prize when he says that. Homer eventually gets kidnapped and taken to an island in a parody of The Prisoner. It was also pretty funny when Homer has to fight a doppelganger and thinks, “If he’s like me, he won’t like getting kicked in the crotch!” This episode is probably the funniest episode this season.

Sideshow Bob makes his long-awaited return in “Day of the Jackanapes” (S12, E13). It’s okay, but not great. Krusty announces his retirement and Marge says a show should end before it starts to get repetitious. Smithers than announces that Mr. Burns has been shot again and they share an awkward silence. The Simpsons have been dropping hints that the show should end soon for the last couple seasons and with how lackluster this season has been, I’m starting to believe them.

“Hungry, Hungry Homer” (S12, E15) is the one where Homer goes on a hunger strike to prevent his baseball team from moving to Albuquerque. By sheer coincidence, I happened to be in Albuquerque visiting a friend the first time I watched this. We laughed at the hubris of the mayor of Albuquerque at the end of this episode. Great stuff.

“Trilogy of Error” (S12, E18) is one of the better episodes this season. We see the same day from Homer’s, Lisa’s, and Bart’s points of view. Homer’s thumb gets cut off and he has to rush to the hospital to save it, Lisa creates a grammar-correcting robot, and Bart finds a stash of illegal fireworks.

Barney may have given up drinking last season, but in this season, he still hangs out at Moe’s and still talks with his drunk voice rather than his sober voice. The only difference is he has a coffee mug in front of him rather than a beer, so it’s not much of a change.

The best episodes this season are “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” (S12, E6) and “Trilogy of Error” (S12, E18), and honestly, they’d probably be average episodes in a better season. This is one of the worst seasons yet.