Captain Kiddie's Comfort Carnival

Hey, it's time for another Simpsons episode review! Don't worry; this is likely to be the last one for a while, since they're showing reruns in the next two weeks. But anyway, I actually quite liked this most recent one. Nelson as Columbo was great (not that I've ever actually watched Columbo, but it was still funny). I appreciated the old clips in the retrospective on Martin, and we got the first appearance of the Happy Little Elves in some time. The subplot contained some good riffs on fad diets and hidden-camera TV shows. Homer's phone call to the rack of lamb might have been taking the cheating analogy a little too far, but eh, I guess it worked in context.

So, three pretty good episodes following two fairly lousy ones. Is this a return to form for the show, or is it going to continue zigzagging in quality? Only time will tell, and Time tends not to talk much. I'm betting on the zigzag thing, though.