I don’t care what anyone says about The Simpsons - it has become the popular refrain saying that the show isn’t as good as it once was. It’s still one of the funniest shows on television. The current episodes may not be as slick as the newest DVD release, Season Five, but I’d rather be watching it than some horrible new show like Numb3rs. I think it’s amazing to consider how many talented writers left at the end of Season Four (Conan O’Brien was off doing his show, Al Jean and Mike Reiss were off doing The Critic) yet the show still continued its pace of excellence uninterrupted in Season Five.
The Simpsons DVD sets have been getting better and better since they were first released. About the only complaint I have, and it’s about the only one you’ll hear concerning the show’s DVD releases, is that they don’t come out fast enough. I might be dead by the time that Fox releases the season being broadcast now. It seems like, for whatever reason, they are only able to crank them out about one season set every year or so. The fact that they are so good, I can live with it, but at the same time I wouldn’t mind if they hurried it up just a little.

All of Season Five’s 22 episodes are here and they look fantastic. I doubt there was much that needed to be done for these to be released, but whatever was required was done expertly. The whole season is so good content wise that I’m hard pressed to even pick some favorites. These are some of the first episodes of the series that I remember watching as first-run episodes, and are some of my favorites in the series, particularly Homer Goes to College and Deep Space Homer. As usual there are a lot of pop culture references in the episodes, but what they did so well at this point was not beat them into the ground or use them in terms of the story itself like the homage to The Graduate in Lady Bouvier’s Lover. These episodes are smart, witty and don’t go over the edge into self-parody too much. The guest voices keep coming too, with the likes of the Ramones, George Harrison, James Taylor, James Woods and Buzz Aldrin showing up just to name a few.

Extras
What really makes a Simpsons DVD release stand head and shoulders above other TV series releases on the format is the amount and quality of extras. I myself enjoy the commentaries as much as the episodes themselves. Continuing the trend started on the Season Four discs, in addition to the writers and directors, some of the voice talent also occasionally appears on the tracks. Jon Lovitz is around for the track on opening episode, Homer’s Barbershop Quartet, even though he isn’t even in the episode. Personally I enjoy Al Jean the most of any of the long time Simpsons writers and miss him on the commentary tracks, but it was interesting to hear from David Mirkin who took over as show runner from Jean. He brings a different perspective. I think this season’s commentaries weren’t as hilarious as say Season Four, but were maybe a little more informative overall. All 22 shows, as in seasons past, have commentaries.

In addition to the commentaries there are deleted scenes on 14 of the episodes. They are accessible from the episode menu or during playback of the episode itself (an icon appears on screen during the episode in this case indicating when to press your button on your remote to show the scene).

There are also animatics, audio outtakes and original sketches among other extras. Each is a great addition to the set. Even more impressive to me are the animated menus. Normally DVD menus don’t warrant too much mention. It’s usually simple artwork or something, but again this set goes well above and beyond what the others are doing. Each main menu is animated, as are the episode menus. It’s little things like watching the five characters in space suits run to the couch only to have their couch rocket up, and then periodically have suited fireman come in and put out the fire from the exhaust. It’s not a big thing but it makes each part of every disc so much more watchable and enjoyable.

Parting Thoughts
Last, the packaging is fantastic. I rarely care about the packaging. I honestly don’t even usually notice them. With The Simpsons though, they are so sharp and actually add to the DVDs I think. The booklet that is included with the release, as usual, is also fantastic, and again shows in my opinion exactly how you should do extras and content for DVDs. This is a must own for even the casual Simpsons fan, much less the die hards. It has got so much content that I’m still investigating the discs two months after its release.