Goat Boy wrote:I would say season 2 to 9 is the golden age. Season 9 is where the decline begins perhaps (hello Mike Scully) but there's still enough great episodes (Joy of Sect is a personal fave) to include it in the shows Golden Age I think.
That stretch is genius though. I still watch old episodes and laugh out loud despite having seen them so many times. They still glitter and that's rare with comedy you know?
I would like somebody to put together a greatest hits of the post Golden Age years. My general impression is that from around season 10 onwards things went awry but I've seen newer episodes over the years that I felt were very good. Not as great as the shows peak years perhaps but still worthy.
I dunno, I only got Sky towards the end of season 8, and I thought it was at that point that the show started to suck. That season went downhill badly though was initially quite strong, I thought. And season 9 was mostly rotten, particularly The Principal And The Pauper (just all wrong conceptually, the shark was repeatedly jumped at that point). A couple of episodes pass muster - Natural Born Kissers was cute and had actual belly laughs - but when I watched the older episodes that Sky was helpfully showing, they all seemed so much fresher. I know the bar was high, but late season eight and all of season nine mostly fell dismally short.
But I do understand that the show seems to have made a significant improvement in recent series. Though I've mostly lost the taste for new episodes, I did catch an episode from a few years ago that contained a beautifully-made tribute to Studio Ghibli animation. That was really well done. Maybe it's getting good again.