Season 1 Episode 3: Homer's Odyssey

Original Airdate: January 21, 1990

Chalkboard Gag: I will not skateboard in the halls.

Couch Gag: The couch collapses.

Season 1 is generally one of the least watched seasons for good reason; it was long before the show got great, and lacks even the steady good to very good quality that seasons 2 and 3 had before the show hit gold in season 4. But even then, I like season 1, all things considered. You just have to put yourself into a different mindset to appreciate it, warts and all. That being said though, this particular episode is probably the worst of the season and maybe the only episode I plain ol' don't like from the early years. I know I was a little hard on the Christmas special for being kind of laugh-less and sad, but the genuine emotional pull of the episode partially excused its comedic dead spaces. This episode is also low on jokes AND doesn't really work emotionally, and on top of that it has a bad narrative structure that makes the plot and character motivations seem kind of underdeveloped. The main plot doesn't really kick in until the last 5 minutes of the episode, so by that point there isn't much of a reason to care about its conclusion.

Well, I guess I should say most of the episode isn't funny, because it gets off to a good start, by focusing on Bart's class trip to the Nuclear Power Plant. Bart appears to be the character the writers developed the fastest, and he was in fine form from pretty much the beginning. With Bart's antics and a funny video about nuclear power that the kids are shown (one of the first of many cheap cruddy informationless educational reels that would become a Simpson's staple), the quality is about as good as the previous episode. But once the focus shifts to Homer, it hits a slump it never recovers from.

It's strange to watch these early Homer-heavy episodes, because he's not a very fun character. He's mopey and depressed and overall features little of the spark and whimsy of the beloved character. The different voice also really kills it. Dan Castellaneta was wise to change Homer's voice and manner of talking after the first season, because his usually excellent voice work just comes off as joyless and grumbly here. This is most certainly not the goofy Homer we know and love, and this episode is an early template of the character that was thankfully abandoned. With Marge and Lisa not having anything to do initially, and Bart pushed to the background for most of the episode, it all rests on early Homer's shoulders, and he doesn't have the comedic chops to pull it off.

After the good 5 minute opening focusing on Bart, Homer is fired from his job for gross incompetence and then goes into an unemployment depression that results in him deciding to kill himself! And Homer's attempted suicide isn't really played for laughs either (though his method of tying a rock to himself and planning to jump off a bridge is an amusing idea). Marge and the kids intervene before it's too late, almost getting hit by a car in the process at a dangerous intersection, causing Homer to regain his vigor for life and attempt to make Springfield a safer place.

With only a few minutes left in the episode, they cram in Homer fighting against his former employer, the Nuclear Power Plant, and the wrath of Mr. Burns. This marks the first time Homer and Mr. Burns stand-off, and who could have known some of the greatest chemistry would be generated between these two after such a lackluster first encounter? Homer is offered a job as safety inspector only if he tells people that the plant is safe, causing Homer to have a moral crisis, blah blah blah, eventually everything is A-OK with Homer excepting the job (the one he would occupy for the rest of the series) and promising Springfield's populace to make the city a safer healthier place in a big dramatic speech that fails on all grounds; there's no joke and Homer's commitment to safety is introduced too late in the narrative to make anything he says have any resonance. In other words, every single one of Homer's actions is the opposite of what he would do in a later episode. It is odd to see Homer act in such an un-Homerlike fashion, worried about safety and unable to lie to his trusting followers. He's not even that dumb in these early episodes. Maybe I'm complaining too much about Homer now versus how he would develop as a character later. But even accepting the very different Homer, the episode still lacks any emotional involvement because it tries to fit too much in its last act. To make Homer's arc more compelling, the entire first chunk about Bart (even though it's the funniest section) needs to go in order to allow enough time to develop Homer's plight. And the whole attempted suicide scene is dark and then just brushed off and never mentioned again. This is definitely the weakest episode of the season, and for many many seasons of the series in general, and features little of what would later make the show so hilarious and compelling. I'm being a bit harsh here, admittedly, and these early adventures need to be viewed in a different context from the rest, but even then I think this episode misses the mark. But hey, it's the third episode in a show that's run longer than God himself, and they evened out these bumps pretty early on. The show steadily progressed into excellence from these meager, awkward first steps, and these trial and error episodes, while not as traditionally entertaining as the classics, are important in charting the development of the series.

A few final blurbs: Smither's is black in his first appearance (!), Blinky the three-eyed fish, Otto, Sherri and Terri, and Chief Wiggum appear for the first time, Bart makes his first prank call to Moe (I.P. Freely), and Lenny and Carl don't exist yet. Anywho, I am happy to be moving on to better episodes.