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Though The Simpsons never seeming to mature, Season 35, episode 2, "A Mid Childhood Night's Dream," shows the series may explore this issue. Marge's worries about Bart growing up as she came to terms with him no longer caring about the annual Bounce-a-- Thon dominated the episode. The Simpsons brought emphasis to Bart's ten-year-old status since 1989 during the process. Though not for the reasons viewers would first guess, the program was a huge hit despite this dangerous choice. The Simpsons merely overlooked Bart's lack of ageing, not explained it.
For spectators, Bart's age is clearly never going to alter. Marge lives in the same universe as him, hence she has no reason whatsoever to know this. The Simpsons broke Bart earlier, but this episode made excellent advantage of his strained relationship with Marge. The idea of an empty nest frightened Marge as her fever-dreams told her of a world in which she had no purpose without Lisa, Bart, and Maggie around. This concern seemed reasonable and grounded in reality exactly since the show disregarded the meta-world Bart and Lisa do not live in.
"A Mid-Childhood Night's Dream" focused on Bart growing up, although it steered clear of really aging him up for forever. Like season 8, episode 9, "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)," dream logic dictated the entire trip, hence Marge had no reason to be concerned. A weaker episode would have included throwaway jokes whereby one of Marge's dream guides pointed at the characters of the show never age, but The Simpsons was right to object to this punchline. Despite its lack of implications, the choice taken Marge took makes her situation shockingly poignant.
Though theoretically viewers knew The Simpsons would not make Bart older in Season 35, "A Mid-Childhood Night's Dream" showed the characters don't always need to know this. It was somewhat evident in season 2, episode 11, "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish,’s Homer wasn't going to be killed off after eating possibly dangerous sushi, and Milhouse's mother poisoning Bart in season 35's finale was obviously not going to result in his permanent canon death. The crucial point was that Marge's worries were relevant even in the ridiculous cartoon reality of the show.
Although The Simpsons has many unresolved riddles, season 35's best episode at last tackled one of them. The Simpsons would still struggle to make sense of its perplexing, contradicting canon even if the whole season 36 was dedicated to elucidating the universe of Springfield. The Simpsons has been on the air for thirty-five years, hence it has basically given up on defending its several Continuity mistakes and plot gaps. A meta-reference to the elastic canon of the program, the Simpsons season 34 even saw Homer admit he wasn't sure which decade he was born in.
The Simpsons never age, but this has not stopped the program from altering their birthdates whenever it would be most expedient. In season two, episode 12, "The Way We Was," Homer and Marge were seen together attending high school in 1974. Season 33, episode 1, "The Star of the Backstage," revealed Marge's high school musical to be "Y2K: The Millennium Bug," so indicating her 1999 attendance in high school. The show never tackled this disparity going beyond a few meta-gags. Season 35's finest episode did, however, acknowledge that despite this the show's canon is erratic and failed as a narrative.
Although pointing out its own internal conflicts with meta humor helps the Simpsons gain some cheap laughs, too many gags like this finally compromise the show's stakes. Although The Simpsons is conscious of its complicated past, acknowledging the numerous riddles of the program will help one to see that the series is best suited avoiding these problems in moving episodes like "A Mid-Childhood Night's Dream." Ignoring these consistency issues helps The Simpsons to create more emotionally relevant storylines even if the characters do not really age. Episodes that really interact with subjects like aging show this.
The Simpsons makes sense in occasionally parodying its own canon since not every episode of the show needs to be a tearjcker. Though it's not as overtly ridiculous as South Park or American Dad, the show is a subversive cartoon comedy still. The Simpsons first seasons were as grounded as Bob's Burgers, but since its more cartoonish Golden Age, the show has never returned to this level. Still, The Simpsons doesn't always have to draw attention to its own contradictions in order to keep a fun, self-referential tone and dramatic episodes benefit from avoiding this.
Marge's honesty makes her a fitting heroine in The Simpsons season 35 since episodes like "A Mid-Childhood Night's Dream" wouldn't work with a more self-aware character at its core.
Marge's character is more real and less cynical than the rest of the family, thus her character journey in The Simpsons season 35 fit her exactly. Marge's episodes were less dependent on meta-gags regarding the flaws in the show since these winking gags seem out of place given they come from the matriarch of the household. Though Marge has less of these moments, the cynical Lisa, the cartoony Homer, and the rebellious Bart have all acknowledged their part in a TV series over the years, generally via sneaky meta-jokes regarding the fourth wall or the length of the program.
Marge's genuineness makes her a fitting heroine in The Simpsons season 35 since episodes like "A Mid-Childhood Night's Dream" wouldn't fit with a more self-aware character at its core. The Simpsons season 36 has to include feature Bart and Lisa, but Marge is the ideal starring lady for the show based on critical success of "A Mid-Childhood Night's Dream". A program as subversive as The Simpsons nearly cannot overlook its own Plot Holes, yet focusing Marge's viewpoint helps the production to avoid confronting the inherent conflicts present in the universe of the series.
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