The Simpsons
Them, Robot
TV Flash files “Them, Robot” as hour 503 of 802 in the TV Flash guide — The Simpsons (1989–present) on Fox, season 23, episode 17, aired 2012-03-18, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S23E17: listed hour 503 of 802 in the The Simpsons guide, hour 17 of 22 in season 23. It aired 2012-03-18 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “How I Wet Your Mother” (S23E16). Next is “Beware My Cheating Bart” (S23E18). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Mr. Burns replaces all of Springfield Power Plant's employees with robots but decides to keep Homer as the sole human worker. With unemployment at an all-time high and mechanical arms operating the workplace, Springfield becomes a dismal and humorless place. But when Homer's machine-programmed peers start to turn on the community and his former real-life employees come to the rescue, they all realize that robots can't replace human friends.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Them, Robot sit in the The Simpsons guide?
S23E17 is listed hour 503 of 802 — hour 17 of 22 in season 23, season 23 episode 17.
When did The Simpsons S23E17 air?
Them, Robot aired 2012-03-18 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start if I am not watching all 800 episodes?
Start with the 1989 Christmas premiere, then a handful of golden-age hours from seasons four through eight. Treat the rest as a library, not a novel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as a living joke encyclopedia, not a series you owe from pilot to present. The early years still teach how American satire learned to reset weekly; the later catalog is optional weather. You already speak Springfield. This is how the grammar got written.
The first image is a couch, and then it is not. The Simpsons treats the opening gag as a weekly contract: we will reset the living room, and we will still find a new joke about the country that owns it. Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989 after the Tracey Ullman shorts, and the half-hour that followed did not merely popularize adult animation. It installed a shared vocabulary. People who stopped watching still speak Springfield.
Filed against
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