QUICK SYNOPSIS

Townspeople believe that Lisa has unearthed the fossilized remains of an angel.

POINTLESS GUEST STAR(S)

Stephen Jay Gould as the resident paleontologist who happens to be doing research in Springfield, of all places, for some reason. He only has about five lines and they’re pretty funny, so at least he’s not running around with Homer looking for a lost golden bowling ball before the cops catch them or something else equally as zany that they would come up with 5 years from now.

WHY THIS EPISODE SUCKS

I started watching weekly new episodes of The Simpsons religiously starting at around Season 6 while keeping up with old episodes airing in syndication. I can say with confidence that “Lisa the Skeptic” was the first episode that made me arch my 10-year-old eyebrow. I suppose you could say… skeptically? Heh.

Here’s the problem with this episode: it takes the well-worn religion theme and ramps it up to fucking 19 with the Self-Righteous Lisa vs. the Rest of Springfield plot and accidentally rehashes the “Bart’s Comet” end-of-the-world scenario. That the angel was a very elaborate, and likely expensive, ploy for shopping mall publicity was beyond the usual levels of suspension of belief for the classic era, and we had episodes where Homer went into space and Grampa Simpson had an outlandish Flying Hellfish infantry squad.

Starting with “Lisa the Vegetarian”, Lisa gets increasingly militant with her personal beliefs and belittles those who may believe otherwise. Now, if Marge was a Trump supporter I would not only feel sorry for her but I would throw her down the Springfield Gorge and never look back. Here, Marge’s belief in angels is cause for ridicule even though over 70% of the stupid population of this stupid Earth believes in angels. Fine, but Lisa gets pretentious when she should instead be precocious and it gets a little irritating.

Homer’s “Here’s the angel. See the angel. It’s my angel, no one else’s, next to the rakes,” song makes me cringe. It just feels like a lazy joke! I just wanted to point that out.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

David X. Cohen was inspired to write the episode after a trip to Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History, where he decided to turn the visit into a “business trip”, and think of a possible episode connection to the museum. He initially wanted Lisa to find a “missing link” skeleton, and do an episode reminiscent of the Scopes Monkey Trial. George Meyer convinced him instead to have the focus be on an angel skeleton, while keeping an emphasis on the conflict between religion and science.
When David X. Cohen has an idea, you listen to him. You don’t try to change his mind! The dude has a physics degree from Harvard and a masters in computer science. What does George Meyer have? …oh, a biochemistry degree from Harvard. Well… uh… nice angel idea, dumbshit.

The only phrase that Stephen Jay Gould objected to in the script was a line that introduced him as the “world’s most brilliant paleontologist”.
Should’ve gotten David Schwimmer, then he would self-proclaim it at the end of every line.

Both David X. Cohen and George Meyer acknowledged how silly the “angel skeleton” idea was owing to simple questions raised such as why an angel died and why bones were left behind, but they went forward with the idea anyway.
This is some real Zombie Simpsons shit. “Hey, we acknowledge that this idea sucks, but fuck it. We’re only going to start ruining the best cartoon in the history of television, no big deal. Bring on the angel skeleton!” Makes me sick to my stomach, it does!

FINAL GRADE
D+