Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season (Blu-ray Review)

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Is Season 13 a Lucky Strike?

TV critics and pop-culture pundits have slagged The Simpsons in recent years—well, the past decade—for
favoring out-of-left-field non sequiturs over character-driven stories, for never re-reaching the savage satirical highs of
its first nine seasons, and, in short, for losing much of its banana-yellow luster. Newer, flashier, wackier shows, like
The Family Guy and South Park, have since unseated The Simpsons from its animated satire
throne, but I don’t think t...

Video

Season 13 marked the end of an era for The Simpsons, as it was the last full season to use traditional cell
animation. However, while this season was shot on film, it was likely assembled using a standard definition digital
intermediate, meaning that a true high definition presentation is out of the question. What we have here, then, is a
1080p/AVC-encoded up-convert. Before you heave a sigh of exasperation, though, read on. It actually looks quite good,
and the up-rez yields a st...

Audio

Another reason to choose Blu-ray over DVD for this season is the presence of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround tracks
on every episode. Granted, the show’s somewhat spartan sound design never takes full advantage of the lossless codec,
but at least you’re getting the best possible version of each episode’s soundtrack. Obviously, dialogue is the main
element of each mix, and it’s handled perfectly—clean, always intelligible, and comfortably balanced. You’ll never miss a
joke because of poo...

Supplements

Audio Commentaries
Talk about value for money! The three-disc set includes new audio commentaries for all 22 episodes. Show creator
Matt Groening leads seven of the tracks, and the rest are hosted by an assortment of writers and animators. And as
you’d hope, there’s never a dull moment. Most of the time the conversation veers way off topic, but there’s much
joke cracking and reminiscing. There are several guest commentators as well, including comic creator Stan Lee on
I am...