Search - The Simpsons - The Eleventh Season on DVD

Great show, terrible packaging!

C. R. Swanson | Phoenix | 10/09/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Welcome to the eleventh (!) season of "The Simpsons", one of the best and longest lasting shows on television! With this season you get some of the greatest episodes, including one of my personal favorites, "Behind the Laughter". Of course you also get some wonderful commentaries, which are always entertaining, and the usual raft of extras. All in all, a great set, with one notable exception.

The packaging bites. Totally bites.

The producers of "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" seem to have got it into their heads that making "green" packaging for their DVD's is somehow better. This is also seen with movies such as "There Will Be Blood". Basically what it boils down to is "cheap, cardboard packaging that is almost guaranteed to damage your DVD's when you remove them."

The packaging for this season of "The Simpsons" is particularly notable for this failing. The disks are jammed inside tight cardboard sleeves. When you remove them, you're almost going to have to grip them by the top and bottom, promising tons of fingerprints. Unless you're very careful, you're also likely to scratch them.

I understand the idea of wanting to not fill up our landfills with tons of plastic, but really, people. How many of you bought the previous seasons of the show on DVD and then threw away the plastic trays that the discs were in? Not many, I'm wagering.

So five stars for the show and, much as it pains me to do it, only one for the packaging. Thus the set gets a sad little three stars and no love."

Hopefully Helpful Information

Reconnecting To My Childhood | 10/23/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I didn't want to just write a review about my initial response to the new box design because I think we all know how we as fans feel about that. First I wanted to give actual information about the set to people who are unsure or when shopping on Amazon don't want to be bothered to look on tv.com for episode lists.

The set contains the following episodes from Season Eleven:

Beyond Blunderdome- Mel Gibson and Homer team up
Brother's Little Helper- Bart has ADD, takes Focusyn Drug
Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner- Homer, Food Critic.
Treehouse of Horror X- Ned: Werewolf, Bart, Lisa: Superpowers, Y2K: World Ends
E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)- Family lives on a farm, Tomaco
Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder- Homer bowls 300 and his life peaks
Eight Misbehavin'- Apu has his octuplets
Take My Wife, Sleaze- Homer becomes a biker, biker's kidnap marge
Grift of the Magi- Christmas, Funzo and Gary Coleman
Little Big Mom- Marge breaks leg, Lisa takes over
Faith Off- Bart becomes a faith healer
The Mansion Family- The Simpsons live in Burn's Mansion
Saddlesore Galactica- The Simpsons get a horse, again, Furious D.
Alone Again, Natura-Diddily- Maude Flanders dies
Missionary: Impossible- Homer Vs. PBS, save me Jebus
Pygmoelian- Moe gets plastic surgery.
Bart to the Future- Bart is a deadbeat, Lisa is president.
Days of Wine and D'oh'ses- Barney goes sober.
Kill the Alligator and Run- The family goes to Florida, Spring Break.
Last Tap Dance in Springfield- Lisa finds difficulty tap dancing, Bart lives at the mall.
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge- Otto's girlfriend moves in with the simpsons, Marge gets paranoid.
Behind the Laughter- A parody of behind the music.

Those are the episodes for anyone wondering. As for the box, Amazon sells the limited edition Krusty head cheaper but it is the same as the regular box but with a krusty face rubber cemented on, the same stuff used to hold on the listing of episodes on the back of all previous box sets, so you can remove it and have the regular box but I don't know how much damage the stuff is capable of if it bonds too much and I'd rather just pay more for the other one. The inside of the box is very disappointing, we all know and seem to agree, the cardboard is a bad idea because it defeats the most important purpose of the box set which is to keep our discs well stored and accessable. The tight carboard slots rather than plastic holders make it more difficult to get at our discs and store them properly, though I haven't had problems with it yet I foresee down the road a few years when the constant contact with cardboard will erode and scratch the discs no matter how careful I always am. We buy boxsets to own the episodes and be able to keep them so why make a set that won't preserve the life of the discs? It's not for the enviroment or they wouldn't use that wasteful Krusty head on it or use non-biodegradable cardboard. I think it is just laziness or a bad idea.

Anyway everyone debates their last great season of the Simpsons and this is the one truly great last season for me. Opening with Mel Gibson and ending on the Behind the Music Parody it's entertaining from beginning to end. Twelve and thirteen move further into a bad place in the series where for some of us who grew up on it it became too hard to relate to anymore. I stopped watching completely by the end of thirteen. From here the comedy gets more obvious and straight forward and rather than the quick, rapid fire joke pacing they developed (and Family guy came out with and became known for) they move to a place where they hold on a joke for too long and seem to try too hard. It feels to me like they wrote it trying to make it funny to other people when the rule of comedy is to write something you find funny and so will other people.

Great episodes on the set, commentaries and extras are what they always are and provide some viewers entertainment, I find the commentaries rather amusing as they poke fun at themselves and you can see here that they really find what they wrote in those years amusing. Packaging seems to be everyones sore spot here and I agree but sadly am used to Fox disappointing me in these recent years, first by stopping the release of King of the Hill box sets before the last great seasons and second by only releasing the first season of Malcolm in the Middle and finally with the huge amount of time they took in releasing the Simpson box sets thus far. Thankfully I will only be buying season twelve and then after that I'm finally done with Fox and their dreadful box sets. (What happened to the days of Futurama volumes 1-4, those sets were excellent).

PS.
People in America think they've had trouble with the sets but I live in Canada and besides the set back of season 6 and this recent development with 11 I also had them screw me up on season 8 by changing the titling on the side of the boxes to include les Simpson reverting the Simpsons to half the size to make room (since they have moved both around numerous times on following sets in experimentations but none ever match the previous box sets in the series). With the distinctive art of the show on the cover and the name simpsons in yellow on it you think anyone in any language could tell what this is without specific useless articles of speech being translated. Now I buy from the US. GOB BLESS THE USA.

Thanks For Your Time."

That's it, I'm done with the Simpsons DVD's

Consumer | 02/19/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I've resisted for as long as I could, but I'm finally jumping on the bandwagon of complainers about the Simpsons DVD's. I have bought every season up until 13 and kept my frequent disappointment or frustration quiet. No more. It's nice that they want to make the packaging pretty and all, but I (used to!) buy the DVD's to WATCH them, not admire artwork or packaging. This packaging ensures that the discs will become scratched or broken and worse, yet AGAIN, they have opted for transluscent images/holes in the disc printing, making it impossible to read in some DVD players. It's taken me way too long, but Groening, Fox, et al, will not see another penny from me. If I want any future seasons, I will buy them USED from Ebay, thus cutting money out of their greedy, ignorant pockets. Remember the season where the discs had to spin to match heads a bunch times before every viewing?! How hard is it to just make a friggin DVD that just PLAYS well??!!! Worst marketing ever."

Unless you want scratched DVDs...DO NOT BUY. Makes for nice

Jordan L. Millikan | Los Angeles, CA | 01/30/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Ordered this season to complete my girlfriend's set that I got her for Christmas. The only reason this is getting 1 star is because The Simpsons are just all around greatness. The packaging however...ummm...not so much.

I tried to avoid the Krusty head packaging at all costs, but this is just as bad! The DVDs are kept in these little sleeves and the DVDs are so hard to get to, you practically have to pinch it and get your fingerprints all over the DVD, and as you're sliding it out, the packaging is so tight, you're scratching it to all hell. That is...of course...that they weren't scratched when they were put in by manufacturing.

Gave it the benefit of the doubt and asked for a replacement box set to be sent out. I mean...who wants an incomplete set...right? Man, when we got the new set, it was even more scratched up than the first! LAME!

It's really bad. And I mean...really bad. Until they come up with a new packaging system, we won't be purchasing this eleventh season. And to top it off, I just found out that some of her other seasons' discs are scratched as well. Wow. Someone needs to get on this ASAP.

If you don't have any of the DVDs...I suggest you wait for a Blu Ray release. Maybe then...they'll have come up with a way to actually get you unscratched and completely playable discs. There's no point in getting these if episodes are going to be skipping around in places.

WASTE OF MONEY AND TIME.

Not AMAZON's fault by the way."