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| Ironically, the Collector won't have much value himself, pose or not. |
The episode opens up with Kang and Kodos hosting the tenth anniversary show, making jokes that no other alien finds funny.
I Know What You Diddly-Iddly-Did
After rescuing a box of Super Sugar Crisp from vampires one late, foggy night, the Simpson family returns home, with Marge driving. However, she can barely see, and accidentally runs over someone. Turns out, it was Ned Flanders! Homer quickly comes up with a ploy to absolve the family from the death while making sure nobody gives the body an autopsy. The plan works, and after Ned's funeral it seems they'll get off with no penalty. However, upon returning home they see messages written by someone who knows what they did. The family starts to freak out, and soon enough an unknown figure appears with a hook to attack the family. The family tries to escape, but the car runs out of gas. As Homer suggests the family hide in various spooky places, the figure catches up and reveals himself to be Ned Flanders. Ned reveals that on the night of the accident, he had been doing a late night fog walk when he was attacked by a werewolf. Ned himself was turning into one when he got ran over by Marge. However, he didn't die because he was already undead. The family is relieved by this knowledge, but with a full moon now out, Ned turns into a werewolf. Homer doesn't realize the danger until its too late.
Individual Score: +1.2
Desperately Xeeking Xena
One Halloween night, the kids go to the school to check to see if their candy is safe. The candy-checking machine gets clogged, causing it to explode. Radiation shoots out from it, hitting both Bart and Lisa. The rays give them superpowers: Lisa super strength and Bart gets stretching abilities. From then on, the two act as the Superheroes Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl.
In one adventure of the two, titled "Enter the Collector", said Collector (the comic book guy) breaks into a science fiction convention and kidnaps Lucy Lawless, the actress who played Xena at the time. The two Simpson children witness the kidnapping occuring, and head out to help Lucy. Collector wraps Xena into a protective plastic, and is able to defeat the two Simpson kids as they try to rescue her. Setting the two kids up in a death trap where they slowly fall into lucite, the victorious Collector begins preparations to marry Lucy. Lucy is able to seduce Collector into getting close enough to grab his lips. Although still encased in the plastic, Lucy is able to beat up the Collector regardless. Desperate, Collector attempts to fight Lucy with a limited edition Star Wars Episode I dual lightsaber, but when Lucy points out that he removed it from its original packaging, the loss of its collector's value stuns the Collector so badly, he trips and falls into the lucite, eventually killing him. Lucy frees the Simpson kids and flies them home. Though Xena is unable to fly, Lucy Lawless apparently can.
Individual Score: +1.4
Life's a Glitch, Then You Die
As the middle-aged folk may recall, the Y2K bug back in the late 90s was a somewhat paranoia-level scare. In this episode, it seems every computer in the world as become Y2K compliant, except the computers Homer was tasked to fix at the nuclear plant. As the clock strikes zero, the year goes from 1999... to 1900. Mass chaos ensues, as everything even related to a computer goes haywire, creating falling jets and haywire appliances. During a looting spree, the Simpson family sees Krusty the Klown, whose pacemaker leaves him for dead. He's holding an invitation to an "Exodus" project, where the world's brightest will be salvaged and sent on a rocketship to Mars.
However, it turns out Lisa is the only Simpson eligible (as the ship's proofreader), and she is allowed to bring one parent along (Marge, easily), and Marge brings Maggie along with no problem, so the Simpson women are saved. Homer and Bart find another rocket that shoots off, but they quickly realize that its a ship full of celebrities most people find annoying and that the rocket is heading for the sun. Rather than deal with a few more minutes of their antics before a blazing death, Homer and Bart eject from the rocket and enjoy blissful peace out in the vacuum of space.
Individual Score: +0.7
Quick Review
The tenth installment of the Halloween series keeps the tradition going strong. Both the Flanders and Xena storylines had plenty of humorous moments that sustain them throughout and I hardly found any fault with them. The last bit wasn't as strong, and the whole 'annoying celebrity rocketship' thing wasn't much, but it doesn't detract from the entire episode as a whole. Its still worthy to be called a Treehouse of Horror, and its one of Season 11's better episodes.
Final Score: 8.5
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