28x04 Treehouse of Horror XXVII

6.8/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale. The opening, featuring notable Simpsons villains Sideshow Bob, Kang, The Leprechaun, and Frank Grimes teaming up to take on Our Favorite Family (and lampshading the absurdity of the fact that they've all good toe-to-toe with Homer and lost) was amusing as a quick bit, though didn't have much to it. I did appreciate that if they were going to bring ol' Grimey back, they used him to be characteristically baffled and beside himself that The Simpsons made it to 600 episodes.

The actual couch gag, a parody of Planet of the Apes was cute enough. I don't have VR capability, so I'm sure some of it was lost on me, but it stuck me as the show's usual amusing-if-gentle couch gag humor.

The first real segment was a Hunger Games parody that had some amusing jabs at the series of films (mostly the quick cuts to "part two" and the "two sunken dreamboats" bit), but felt pretty much like a drive-by spoof instead of something that either told a quick story or found some neat angle on the material. (Though I did like Hom-ish's "Logan's Rum" bottle.)

The best segment, oddly enough, was the middle one, where the show usually dumps the weakest of the three. The idea of Lisa trying to fight her imaginary friend, who is now committing murders that Lisa is being blamed for, is a really weird and cool idea for a Halloween story. (I'm not sure if it's a reference to anything in particular.) There was some tension and drama and a lot of laughs from the imaginary friend-on-friend combat.

The last segment, the Bond parody, is in keeping with the recent trend in these episodes of doing something that's more just genre in general than something that fits into the horror category. It's no big deal, but it feels outside the spirit of the tradition to do something where the only horror element is killing. The 007 bit itself is pretty mild, with some amusing jabs about Steely Dan, but not a lot of real humorous bits that take the stuffing out of the source material. Again, maybe it's the four-part act break structure that the show's had since Season 20, but a lot of these bits feel pretty rushed. The highlight of the last segment was the closing Bond intro parody, which had some creative visuals like the fractal Sideshow Bobs.

Overall, a solid-to-slightly below average THOH installment, which really coasts off the strength of its middle segment, and the more ancillary flights of fancy like the intro, couch gag, and closing.