No Seriously, Take it!

"Oh come on Edna! We both know these children have no future!!" - Seymour Skinner

In the second part of my two part series chronicling my hatred of Zombie Simpsons episodes involving time shifts, I will address the failures of episodes with a flashforward premise. As I warned in the end of part one, there will be some similarities in this post. If you think I am just being lazy (which I do not deny), try this exercise: Make a list of reasons you think the shit your dog took this morning was gross, then make a list of reasons why the shit your dog will take tonight will be gross. You may be pleasantly surprised. Now that you have a better understanding of what I am dealing with, let us get to my complaints with flashforward Zombie Simpsons episodes.

One other point of note, there are only a couple of these episodes. This may be a result of the writers realizing how bad the episodes would be, but that would be a bit optimistic on my part.

1. Impossible team ups.
In the 11th season episode "Bart To The Future" Bart and Ralph are not only roomates but bandmates as well. This couldn't happen because I don't think they let you start bands in prison or the assisted living home.

2. Bart's efforts to regain his sister's love
In both of the episodes I can remember (the other being "Future Drama") some issue arises between Bart and Lisa with Bart getting some benefit and Lisa being on the short end. In both cases Bart comes through to save the day and regain his sister's appreciation. While this tactic produced hilarious results in real Simpsons episodes ( like "Stark Raving Dad") keep in mind that their drama wasn't the ONLY plot point and future Bart (who like I said would probably be incarcerated) wouldn't be forced to live with Lisa and probably wouldn't give two shits about her predicaments.

3. Homer is alive
If you are trying to portray the future, you are doing so based upon the years of episodes that have forged some sort of pattern or predictability of character actions. With that in mind, Homer (who in most episodes is 38) won't make it to 40. This wouldn't bother me so much if Homer and Marge weren't divorced in "Future Drama" which would never happen if you follow the logic I just mentioned. My suggestion is to never ever make a flashforward episode again and just avoid the issue altogether. While you're at it, just stop making Zombie Simpsons period.

4. History
Just like with the flashback episodes, the flashforward episodes (minus "Lisa's Wedding") are completly and undebatably unwatchable. While watching these episodes I actually prayed to God that the commercials would get stuck in an infinite loop.

There you have it. If you add up my complaints from both part one and part two of this series, you will come to the same sobering conclusion I already have: This Sunday's episode will be terrrible. The extra 'r' is for rreally.