When it first started, 'The Simpsons' was clever, hilarious, smart and often touching with memorable ground-breaking characters and story lines.
Unfortunately, 'The Simpsons' has been past its best for a long time now (about half its run now), and of all the episodes "Lisa Goes Gaga" is one of those particularly bad at representing everything wrong with modern day Simpsons. It is often considered the worst 'Simpsons' episode ever, or one of the worst, and this reviewer cannot disagree.
The animation is still quite good, detailed and colourful, and the theme tune is a classic. Of "Lisa Goes Gaga" itself however, the only good part is Lisa going mad at Lady Gaga, one of the rare successful attempts at depth, emotional impact and creativity of not just the episode but of all the later episodes, and it's the only scene where there is any hint of Lady Gaga as an ordinary person and not just some megastar. It's not really enough to save the episode however, because it comes too late and also the problems are so glaring and almost offensive.
"Lisa Goes Gaga" has two big problems. The bigger of the two being that it feels too much like a 22-minute Lady Gaga commercial, which will be heaven for fans but a nightmare for those who can't stand her. This reviewer is of neither extreme, reasonably indifferent actually, but even I found the choice of music and self-promotion over-powering everything else and nauseating. Also Lady Gaga is not very compelling here, she's true to character and there is the sense of what makes her controversial but she doesn't come across as particularly memorable or likable and Lady Gaga's voice acting itself is flat and pretty charmless.
Its second problem is something that has plagued the later seasons badly for ages now, it's just not funny and just feels too far removed from when the show was at its best. The jokes are lazy, often cringe-worthy and mean-spirited, there are too many cultural and pop culture references that don't fit at all comfortably within the story and writing. Long gone is the razor-sharpness, satiric bite and wit, and replaced with dialogue that sounds dumb, sometimes childish, often unnecessarily crass and very leaden.
The story fails to engage, Lisa's story had so much potential and could have been really heart-warming but is vastly overshadowed by the whole stuff with Lady Gaga. The storytelling is very annoying and lays on so heavily with the sugar that it'll make your teeth ache. All the regular characters featured are either bland or out of type in the most bizarre of ways, not talking about Homer, he's been obnoxious, stupid and bad father figure for a long time, but mainly Lisa and Marge also does something out of character and it's her one memorable bit.
It's hard to praise the voice acting when it's very talented voice actors having to work with incredibly bad material, they do their best but all have done much more inspired work.
Overall, very poor episode and represents everything wrong with the later seasons of 'The Simpsons'. One of the worst episodes of the entire show's history too. 2/10 Bethany Cox
Unfortunately, 'The Simpsons' has been past its best for a long time now (about half its run now), and of all the episodes "Lisa Goes Gaga" is one of those particularly bad at representing everything wrong with modern day Simpsons. It is often considered the worst 'Simpsons' episode ever, or one of the worst, and this reviewer cannot disagree.
The animation is still quite good, detailed and colourful, and the theme tune is a classic. Of "Lisa Goes Gaga" itself however, the only good part is Lisa going mad at Lady Gaga, one of the rare successful attempts at depth, emotional impact and creativity of not just the episode but of all the later episodes, and it's the only scene where there is any hint of Lady Gaga as an ordinary person and not just some megastar. It's not really enough to save the episode however, because it comes too late and also the problems are so glaring and almost offensive.
"Lisa Goes Gaga" has two big problems. The bigger of the two being that it feels too much like a 22-minute Lady Gaga commercial, which will be heaven for fans but a nightmare for those who can't stand her. This reviewer is of neither extreme, reasonably indifferent actually, but even I found the choice of music and self-promotion over-powering everything else and nauseating. Also Lady Gaga is not very compelling here, she's true to character and there is the sense of what makes her controversial but she doesn't come across as particularly memorable or likable and Lady Gaga's voice acting itself is flat and pretty charmless.
Its second problem is something that has plagued the later seasons badly for ages now, it's just not funny and just feels too far removed from when the show was at its best. The jokes are lazy, often cringe-worthy and mean-spirited, there are too many cultural and pop culture references that don't fit at all comfortably within the story and writing. Long gone is the razor-sharpness, satiric bite and wit, and replaced with dialogue that sounds dumb, sometimes childish, often unnecessarily crass and very leaden.
The story fails to engage, Lisa's story had so much potential and could have been really heart-warming but is vastly overshadowed by the whole stuff with Lady Gaga. The storytelling is very annoying and lays on so heavily with the sugar that it'll make your teeth ache. All the regular characters featured are either bland or out of type in the most bizarre of ways, not talking about Homer, he's been obnoxious, stupid and bad father figure for a long time, but mainly Lisa and Marge also does something out of character and it's her one memorable bit.
It's hard to praise the voice acting when it's very talented voice actors having to work with incredibly bad material, they do their best but all have done much more inspired work.
Overall, very poor episode and represents everything wrong with the later seasons of 'The Simpsons'. One of the worst episodes of the entire show's history too. 2/10 Bethany Cox