Since the series began, The Simpsons has taken shots at other TV shows but the show’s season 33 Netflix spoof didn’t add up. For years, The Simpsons has mocked every other TV show under the sun. The show has made fun of its guest stars (sometimes during their appearances on the series), their competitors, and the show's own network in its 700+ episodes.
As such, it was no surprise when The Simpsons season 33 mocked guest star Beck Bennett’s career. However, another joke featured in The Simpsons season 33 may have left some viewers scratching their heads in confusion. The gag appeared in an outing that parodied the style and conventions of so-called “Prestige TV.”
The Simpsons season 33 spoofed the phenomenon prestige TV with the two-part special “A Serious Flanders” (season 33, episode 6), an ambitious story that spoofed offbeat crime shows in particular and self-serious, worthy dark dramas more broadly. As a parody of the type of content found on other networks, naturally, The Simpsons introduced the episode with a “SIMPFlix” banner, an obvious spoof of Netflix’s logo. The problem is, despite being arguably the biggest streaming service of the last ten years, Netflix isn’t known for prestige drama.
As such, The Simpsons season 33’s prestige TV parody seems oddly hollow. Fargo (the episode’s most obvious influence), Snowfall, and American Crime Story all air on FX, while AMC created Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Halt and Catch Fire, The Killing, and Low Winter Sun. This lineup could arguably prove that AMC is the vanguard of Prestige TV, although HBO does offer similar competition thanks to the likes of Succession, The White Lotus, Big Little Lies, The Deuce, and Mare of Eastown. In contrast, Netflix admittedly has Ozark, but most of its famous offerings, from Stranger Things to Bridgerton to The Umbrella Academy, are far from the familiar style that The Simpsons spoofed in the episode.
What makes the choice so strange is the fact that The Simpsons season 33 guest star Brian Cox, who played a ruthless crime boss in the episode, plays a ruthless CEO in HBO’s Succession. Cox’s acclaimed role had an obvious influence on his Simpsons character, meaning the show’s creators were presumably aware of which network the actor’s show aired on. While it’s an understandable mistake, Prestige TV is a vaguely defined term at the best of times and the sort of ambiguous topic that can prove tricky to nail in a parody. Spoofing the trend was an ambitious goal since, as the above list proves, the content of so-called Prestige TV shows varies widely. As such, The Simpsons picking the wrong network to mock is an unusual misstep for the series.