33 on E4

As one door closes, another must open. In the great shake-up of late 2024, E4 became the only place to see new-to-linear-TV Simpsons in the UK, following their releases on Disney+ a few months beforehand. Season 36 became the first season to premiere on the channel in this way at the start of this year, but E4 are still playing catch-up with Seasons 33 through 35, which were first seen over here on Sky shortly after their US broadcasts.

One week after their debut of S36 concluded, the first of these seasons entered the fray. Season 33 aired on FOX in the US from 26 September 2021 to 22 May 2022; was first seen in the UK on Sky with "A Made Maggie" as a Christmas special on 24 December 2021, then weekly from 21 January to 5 June 2022; and now it has completed its cycle with its first run on free-to-air TV, which occurred in double-bills from 1 March to 3 May of this year (with one or two little wrinkles we'll come to soon). After E4's premieres of Seasons 32 and 36 were largely untampered with, how did Season 33 match up?

Dedications and Other Discourse

E4's narrative repeats were on Thursdays and Fridays at 7pm, much the same as how Seasons 32 and 36 were scheduled for the most part; scheduling of the premieres was pretty consistent until the very last week, when the Bank Holiday pushed the final two episodes to 4.30pm in favour of a screening of Mrs Doubtfire.

No episode from this season has standard end credits, and whilst I didn't see every episode live, nearly all the ones I did were shown without pushback or continuity announcer (even "A Serious Flanders", which is just different music and font); however, "Girls Just Shauna Have Fun" had a voiceover despite the credits featuring a song and full motion video, and both of the last two episodes had credits pushback which started before the credits actually did (even though the extra scenes during the credits finish partway through and there's a section of normal credits it could have gone over); presumably an issue stemming from the earlier timeslot, as both episodes began with no continuity announcement.

The following FOX broadcasts carried dedications, which are missing from all other known versions (info on reruns cribbed from The Simpsons Archive contributor Matt Garvey's notes on alt.tv.simpsons):

02/01/22 premiere of "The Longest Marge" -- dedicated to the memory of AABF08 guest star John Madden

08/05/22 premiere of "Marge the Meanie" -- dedicated to the memory of animator Ian Wilcox

05/06/22 second airing of "My Octopus and a Teacher" -- dedicated to the memory of XABF10 guest star Ray Liotta

19/06/22 second airing of "Poorhouse Rock" -- dedicated to the memory of FABF20 guest star James Caan

31/07/22 third airing of "Pretty Whittle Liar" -- dedicated to the memory of Terry Harrington, who played Lisa's sax in the vast majority of cases

07/08/22 third airing of "The Sound of Bleeding Gums" -- dedicated to the memory of FABF15 guest star Nichelle Nichols

QABF17 The Star of the Backstage

This is very very strange indeed. I have a clear memory of the word 'shit' appearing in this episode, and it being left in Sky's original broadcast back in 2022, but upon checking E4's first airing for cuts it appears -- despite me mentioning it several times over the last four years, including in my brief preview of E4's premiere of this season -- that this is a false memory. (Either that, or I thought it very loudly in my head whilst watching the episode for the first time.) So if nothing else I owe an apology to Sky's editorial department.

(The 7pm repeat had a notable massive cut, taking out about 30 full seconds at the top of a scene because a line has 'pissed' in it and there was no way to just cut that line and have what was left make sense.)

QABF21/22 A Serious Flanders (Parts One & Two)

This is a two-parter pastiching prestige dramas (most noticeably Fargo), with a noticeable amount of blood and gore on display. Despite routinely airing graphic violence uncut in Seasons 32 and 36 (and in this season's Treehouse of Horror just a week earlier), E4 took exception to this and broadcast these episodes as a double-bill from 10.45pm on Friday 20th (meaning the 15/03 premieres jumped from "Lisa's Belly" to "Portrait of a Lackey on Fire"); this appears to have been quite a late change, as early schedules still had Part One in the Sunday slot. (The narrative repeats were in a post-midnight slot the following Monday, technically the early hours of Tuesday.)

There's probably a satirical comment to be made about British broadcasters' treatment of certain American dramas here.

UABF07 You Won't Believe What This Episode is About -- Act Three Will Shock You!

When Homer is introduced to his team of other people who've been cancelled:

THEO: Larry Doogan, a.k.a. "Pissed O'Shorty". He throws tantrums in public. A lot.

As Theo introduces each member of the team, their name and reason for their cancellation appears onscreen as a caption. When we get to Larry, on E4's edit the screen freezes before the word 'pissed' can appear, leaving just his name whilst the rest of the line continues. Immediately after this edit, we're treated to some clips of Mr. Doogan in action:

[Outside a nightclub, in a clip being filmed on a phone:]

LARRY: Oh, sure, the club's at capacity as soon as the short guy shows up. I get it, and I'm pissed-o!

[On convenience store CCTV footage:]

LARRY: Oh, so you don't have any blueberry muffins left for the short man? I'm pissed-o!

[At a wedding that's being livestreamed for some reason, to his bride:]

LARRY: I do... realise you only agreed to spend the rest of your life with me because I'm short, and it's pissing-me-o!

A few moments after that:

COUNCILMAN JED HAWK: Wait, how am I supposed to revive my reputation associating with these scum?

LARRY: Watch who you're calling short!

KIRK VAN HOUTEN: Whoa, somebody's pissed-o.

HELEN LOVEJOY: Siri, call 911!

HOMER: Look, everyone, let's just calm down.

The second line presumably goes just to hide the edit, although after the cut Helen can be seen holding her phone up. A scene or two later there's another non sequitur; when Theo outlines his plan to wipe all records of the crew's misdemeanours from the Internet, Larry says "I think we can pull this-o".

As a solitary 'pissed off' was left in the 8pm airing of "The Star of the Backstage", I can only presume the repeated use crosses a line here. Or maybe it's just another double standard.

* * *

So: I think we just about remained in the Phantom Zone where these posts are obviously much less substantial than they were from 2019-23, but still have enough to them for me to keep going. If E4 keep up this schedule, we should get Seasons 37 and 34 from the end of the year; more changes were afoot for S37, which ran to just 15 episodes on FOX, with Disney+ exclusives now scheduled to run between seasons rather than mixed in with network broadcasts like S36 (whilst Season 34, with its double Treehouses of Horror and other graphic violence elsewhere, does offer some potential for edits). Depending on how many cuts there are, I may do a combined post for 37 & 34 next year, but we'll see.