Rahul Sharma (Editor)

The Simpsons (season 19)

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Country of origin
  
United States

Original network
  
Fox

No. of episodes
  
20

Original release
  
September 23, 2007 (2007-09-23) – May 18, 2008 (2008-05-18)

The Simpsons' nineteenth season originally aired on the Fox network between September 23, 2007 and May 18, 2008.

Contents

Production

The nineteenth season of The Simpsons is the first one produced after the movie and contained seven hold-over episodes from season 18's JABF production line. Al Jean served as showrunner, a position he has held ever since the thirteenth season.

Army Archerd reported that due to the 100-day Writers Guild of America strike only 22 episodes would be produced instead of the planned 23, which is much closer to the length of a regular season than most live-action and animated programs that were also affected by the strike. Entertainment Weekly also reported that at the time, there were only 6 episodes remaining that were ready, which would make the season's production run consist of a total of 22 episodes.

The nineteenth season featured the returns of several characters from previous seasons. Kelsey Grammer made his tenth appearance as Sideshow Bob and David Hyde Pierce made his second as Bob's brother Cecil Terwilliger in "Funeral for a Fiend". Beverly D'Angelo made her second appearance as Lurleen Lumpkin, who first appeared in season three's "Colonel Homer". Glenn Close returned as Grandma Mona Simpson for the third time.

Matt Groening described this season as "just about our most ambitious yet". The season's "The Homer of Seville" was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award, but lost to season eighteen's "Kill Gil: Vols. 1 & 2".

Critical reception

Robert Canning of IGN gave the series a 6.6 saying that it was "Passable" and that "Heck, read through the comments section at the bottom of our IGN Simpsons reviews and more than half will in some way be talking about the poor quality of recent episodes. (And "poor quality" is putting it politely.)" although he praised the late episodes of the season.

Awards

"Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program, the tenth in the history of the show. Alf Clausen also received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (original Dramatic Score) for the episode "Treehouse of Horror XVIII".

Nielsen rating

The Simpsons ranked 83rd in the seasonal ratings getting a viewership of 7.950 million viewers and an 18-49 Nielsen Rating of 3.8 making it the highest ranking show from "Animation Domination" right above Family Guy.

Blu-ray and DVD release

Series showrunner Al Jean reported, in April 2015, that The Simpsons would no longer see home media releases after the seventeenth season, claiming an inability for DVD sales to keep up with the rise in streaming and downloads, as well as a boom in FXX reruns, and FOX's on-demand video service, FXNOW. Jean reassured that bonus features commonly featured on the DVDs, such as commentaries for each episode, will still be available, now packaged with the digital format.

References

The Simpsons (season 19) Wikipedia