

Graph TV – The Simpsons - ColinWright
http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0096697

======
gilgoomesh
This graph of The Simpsons illustrates (for me at least) that IMDB is more
reflective of the viewing community's weird quirks and biases.

Honestly: is "Homer the Smithers" the best episode of The Simpsons? I doubt
anyone would truly put it on their "best ever" list. It's really more "solid"
than great. Most importantly: it doesn't rub anyone the wrong way.

Is "Saddlesore Galactica" one of the worst episodes ever? No. It's extremely
funny and the story is structured well. It gets lots of very low votes from
viewers who favor realism over humor (the episode is implausible with the
horse racing then gets silly/fantasy). The episode's score reflects a
community desire rather than an objective opinion.

~~~
gabemart
> The episode's score reflects a community desire rather than an objective
> opinion.

I don't really understand your point. You think it's biased for audience
members to rate an episode poorly because they didn't enjoy it and didn't
think it was funny?

~~~
corkill
People that disliked something are more likely to vote on that episode to
voice their dislike.

For example if the episode makes fun of christians you may have a heavy amount
of christians vote the episode down even though it was a good episode. The
people that thought it was good aren't as motivated to vote as the people
offended.

This is also common with service providers and internet reviews. If the
service is good there is no need to go online and post a review. If it's bad
you are much more likely to take the time.

------
jvdh
This is a great example of how to lie with statistics, or what someone can
claim by applying just college-level statistics. Those trend lines are
completely worthless.

See the trend lines for Futurama:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0149460](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0149460)
The difference between all the episodes make having a "trend" very doubtful.
Especially season 5 is a wildly varying season where if you take one episode
away the line would completely flip.

Much the same can be said for The Next Generation
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0092455](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0092455)
where you have basically clouds where seemingly at random a line is drawn
through it.

Yes, I know there are statistical methods for determining trends, but without
data on their accuracy they are pretty much worthless. And you really should
use a threshold for those accuracies if you're presenting this kind of data to
a very wide audience.

~~~
jdaley
Forfty percent of all people know that.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2Duy_xzEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2Duy_xzEA)

------
bane
Love this. You can really see how some series took a while to get their feet
under them.

Star Trek: TNG
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0092455](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0092455)

Deep Space 9:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0106145](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0106145)

Enterprise:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0244365](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0244365)

Or in each season

Game of Thrones:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947)

Or took a while to hit their stride, then left right after the peak Seinfeld:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098904](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098904)

Had a story arc: B5
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0105946](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0105946)

Or were clearly failing:

Andromeda:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0213327](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0213327)

Sliders:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0112167](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0112167)

Futureama:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0149460](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0149460)

Or are experiencing a revival

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0121955](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0121955)

I wish this could be correlated against ratings data.

And or course: Dr. Who
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0056751](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0056751)

edit:

Also Law & Order
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098844](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098844)

and Law & Order SVU
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0203259](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0203259)

and Law & Order CI
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0275140](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0275140)

and the Stargate series

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0118480](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0118480)

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0374455](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0374455)

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt1286039](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt1286039)

and Battlestar Galactica

(1978)
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0076984](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0076984)

recent
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0407362](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0407362)

caprica
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0799862](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0799862)

~~~
sp332
Your _Enterprise_ link goes to TNG again. And somehow I was sure Andromeda
kept going for 7 seasons, it was just so bad I wasn't even keeping track
anymore.

~~~
bane
Fixed, thanks.

Andromeda really only had five seasons. I think it went episodic in Season 3
or 4 after blowing its load on the major story arc (putting together the
federation^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h commonwealth again). It was never a great show,
but fine to put on in the background while I was doing other stuff. But then
it got really really bad and I don't even think I ended up finishing it.

------
freshyill
For what it's worth, I watched every episode over the course of the last year,
so I've got a real good perspective on this.

Here's proof that IMDb is bullshit: Simpson Tide is very highly rated. That
episode is one of the absolute worst.

Here's a rough overview:

S1: terrible!

S2: promise!

S3: very good!

S3-S8: the absolute best!

S9-S10: still very good—but not as good

S11: definite decline

S12: yep.

S13-17: ok wow this is pretty bad.

S18-19: a little better

S20-21: definitely better

S22-25: actually pretty good!

The series has been extremely underrated since Season 20 or so when it came
out of the slump that began with Season 11. It's not the

------
bretthopper
This is great!

Here's a few interesting ones I've come across:

* The Wire ([http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0306414](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0306414))

Known for being a slow starting show, this is visible with the season trend
lines.

* The Shield ([http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0286486](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0286486))

Season 4 is such a massive outlier.

* Seinfeld ([http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098904](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098904))

Held very steady until the last season.

~~~
dkl
And, of course, Breaking Bad:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0903747](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0903747)

~~~
Dorian-Marie
This is most impressive one I found too

------
djtriptych
The 'Red Wedding' episode of Game of Thrones was the best single show rating I
could find - 9.9!
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947)

The 4th episode of True Detective was 9.8.
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt2356777](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt2356777)

Check out this outlier on Dexter's last season lol
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0773262](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0773262)

~~~
xanido
Breaking Bad episode Ozymandias (s05e14) has a rating of 10!

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0903747](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0903747)

~~~
bortoelnino
Interesting that for each season of Breaking Bd, episode 4 is the worst rated.

------
flycaliguy
It's a great hack that uses lousy data. IMDB ratings are best perhaps with
films, a lot less reliable with individual episode scores. Also, if a show
goes south do viewers keep watching it and rating it? That phenomena alone
sort of spoils the fun for me.

------
josh-wrale
Nostalgia wins, for the Simpsons at least.

I sometimes feel this way about TV in general (early stuff is better).

Example (circa 1967-1968):

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12sekq_the-prisoner-
arriva...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12sekq_the-prisoner-
arrival_shortfilms)

BTW, I was born in '84 and not 1884. ;-)

~~~
cclogg
I think with regards to the Simpsons it's just that it was better quality
pre-2000 or whatever.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/reviews?ref_=tt_urv](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/reviews?ref_=tt_urv)
you can read through the reviews and see several good points about it.

------
FollowSteph3
Jumping the shark seems to be more perception than reality:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0070992](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0070992)

~~~
bhandziuk
FWIW that is in Season 5. Season 6 went even higher!

------
mxfh
It's quite weird;used to remember that the recent highlight in a rather dull
decade "Steal this Episode" was being rated higher.

11% 1 star ratings with a pretty remarkable demographic distribution.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2966850/ratings](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2966850/ratings)

In general an alternate IMDB algorithm probably would give a truer image if
you clip of the extreme ratings 1 and 10 before averaging, thereby getting rid
of most fanboy/rage votes.

~~~
kevinwuhoo
IMDb does do some type of weighting to the votes, but they don't release their
method.

[http://www.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?ratingsexplanation](http://www.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?ratingsexplanation)

------
fletchowns
Law and Order was fairly consistently awesome, as I expected:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098844](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0098844)

------
kevinwuhoo
OP here, I'd really love to include viewership data if anyone knows how to get
their hands on some. I was looking at the Nielsen site but saw no easy way of
acquiring or requesting data.

------
habosa
Glad to see "Lisa Goes Gaga" as the lowest rated episode. I used to watch the
Simpsons religiously but I stopped ~5 years ago. I turned on FOX the other day
and happened to catch that episode ... really glad that's the exception and
not the rule because it was unwatchable.

------
jpdlla
This is great stuff! One that I found pretty interesting was House of Cards
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt1856010](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt1856010).

Notice how first and last episode of season 2 are way up there.

------
dfc
The West Wing:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0200276](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0200276)

Sorkin co-wrote the first four seasons. I was expecting the dip in S05 but I
did not expect such a dramatic upturn in S07.

------
frooxie
Here's a great analysis of what made The Simpsons good and why it started to
decline after season eight:

[http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/](http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/)

------
FollowSteph3
Another interesting one is Two And a Half Men. You can clearly see when things
changed. And it's building back:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0369179](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0369179)

------
chadrs
Sad the "jumping the shark" theory for Happy Days doesn't really hold up
against the data:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0070992](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0070992)

------
ovulator
Scrubs is the one I've found with the biggest outlier season. And for good
reason:

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0285403](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0285403)

~~~
function_seven
You know, I actually liked the last season. No, it was not as good as the
other seasons, but when I add the handicap for it basically being the first
season of a new show, it held up ok. I would have kept watching had it been
renewed.

But I understand where people are coming from when they compare it poorly to
the other ones. The original _Scrubs_ was a growing up story about JD (and
comrades to a lesser extent). The last season was more straight sitcom, less
story arc. It wasn't attempting to be as meaningful.

------
iamwithnail
I like how this generally confirms my opinion of shows; I can only infer that
I hold meta opinions/no opinion of my own. Season 2 finale of The West Wing as
some of the best tv ever, though.

------
FollowSteph3
That's how you end a series:
[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0165598](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0165598)
huge bump for the series finale

------
pierlux
Funny thing: all star treks except TOS end up higher than they started!

~~~
bane
I just worked by way through TNG and DS9. TNG took a while to get it's
legs...in today's environment it wouldn't have lasted past season 2. But then
it became great television for the rest of the run.

DS9 started pretty solid, and became one of the best written pieces of sci-fi
TV quickly for a long time.

~~~
chris_wot
Really? I started watching the first two seasons, and it's honestly _dull_.

~~~
bane
DS9? Yeah, it starts pretty soap opera-ish. That never really goes away
(they're kind of stuck on the station for the most part), but the stakes get
higher and higher and the various players and factions involved become pretty
interesting. Not quite Game of Thrones, but way out of character for a Trek
show.

------
enthdegree
Pretty predictable plot of Rick and Morty:

[http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt2861424](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt2861424)

~~~
rossy
I'm not seeing Something Ricked This Way Comes, which is definitely my all
time favourite. It's present on IMDb, so I guess this site caches data.

------
colechristensen
It's pretty clear that something fishy is going on with the ratings
distributions here.

~~~
chadillac
It's pretty clear that Simpsons fans hate Lady Gaga and Musicals.

~~~
gordaco
Really, the Lady Gaga episode was _awful_. And not only because it was a very
obvious 22 minute advertisement. It was just plain bad, very bad. I absolutely
agree that it's the worst Simpsons episode I've watched.

The individual ratings may not be very "accurate" (well, they're going to be
subjective no matter what. My favourite episode is near the bottom of its
season), but the trends are interesting. The fact that the floor of seasons
1-9 is above the ceiling of season 14 and onwards (save a few outliers)
reflects quite well what many fans think.

------
eclipxe
I really enjoyed playing around with this!

------
batbomb
no sqrt(n) error bars?!?

