For season 3, the opening credits change again. This time, the tune Lisa plays on the saxophone is different from episode to episode. Season 3 continues to have a lot of famous-at-the-time guest stars. There’s sports stars such as Magic Johnson and Darryl Strawberry, musical stars like Michael Jackson, Sting, and Aerosmith, and actors like Neil Patrick Harris, Jon Lovitz, and Steve Allen.

The first episode of the second season is the highest rated episode of The Simpsons overall, getting 33 million viewers when it originally aired. I remember “Bart Gets an F” (S2, E1) being the last episode of the first season. Since it takes place at the end of the school year when seasons typically end, this would make sense, but I guess my memory is wrong. I was fully expecting Bart to go on to the fifth grade the next episode and was surprised when he remained in the fourth grade. I was Bart’s age when the first season aired, so I thought Bart and I would always be the same age. Alas, I have continued to age while he has remained a permanent fourth-grader.

The Simpsons is the longest-running American primetime TV show. It may also be the most influential in terms of phrases and memes. Several new words invented by The Simpsons such as d’oh, meh, embiggen, cromulent, yoink, and craptacular are now in the dictionary. It’s probably influenced every comedy show that’s come after it in some way. Merchandising was hugely successful from the beginning, with as many as one million Bart Simpson t-shirts selling on a single day.

After yesterday’s post in which I expressed my disappointment in Deadpool & Wolverine, it occurs to me I tend to spend more time reviewing movies and TV shows I don’t like while not even mentioning shows I do like. Shows I’ve enjoyed recently include Evil, The Penguin, Agatha All Along, and Dune: Prophecy, but I don’t have much to say about them other than I like them. I think this is because when I love a show, I simply go along for the ride, but when I don’t like a show, my brain has to do something to keep from being bored, so I start to analyze it and pick it apart.

The Fall of the House of Usher completely retells some of Poe’s most famous stories and contains numerous easter eggs referencing his writing and his life, sometimes directly quoting from him. Vulture has a list of many of these references, although they did miss the reference to Toby Dammit from “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” and a character wrapped up like a mummy being a reference to Poe’s story “Some Words with a Mummy”. Also, they miss the fact that several of Poe’s humorous stories involve making a deal with the devil.

There’ve been a lot of episodes of Star Trek over the years. Over the course of 12 television series, there are currently 890 episodes in total. I now hold the dubious distinction of having watched all 890 of those episodes.

I watched quite a bit of Voyager when it was originally on the air, but live TV being what it is, I missed several episodes, especially in the later seasons. So I hadn’t watched every episode of Voyager until recently. With 172 episodes, it’s a lot. Many of the episodes were fun, but there were many filler episodes as well that I struggled to get through.

I recently watched Wednesday, which is one of Netflix’s most watched English language series. There’s a lot to like about it. Jenna Ortega makes the perfect Wednesday Addams. Thing (the disembodied hand) is a lot of fun. The dance scene in episode 4 is amazing. The dialogue is witty, and there’s a lot of great one liners.

I rewatched Batman: The Animated Series recently. I hadn’t watched it since it was originally on the air. There were several episodes I hadn’t seen before. Apparently, the name of the series was changed to Adventures of Batman and Robin early on in season 2, then changed back to Batman: The Animated Series again.

The Orville is basically Star Trek with dirty jokes and lots of twentieth-century references thrown in. Lots of Star Trek alums make appearances both in front of and behind the camera. Because I’m a bit of a Star Trek completest, I felt compelled to watch it. I sometimes enjoyed it, but overall, I wasn’t that into it.