The summer's over and we finally get the answer that's been keeping Simpsons fans up all night since last season's finale: did Nedna stay together!?

Yeah, you forgot about that too? It definitely seems like The Simpsons writers did, or that maybe the popularity failed, because the gimmick only got the intro, ending and a brief cameo during the episode.

Clearly they decided to try their fellow FOX star Kiefer Sutherland's guest voice role episode, "The Falcon and the D'Ohman," instead, and merely hack in some Nedna. Do I really care? No, but it just made the whole Nedna voting of the May finale feel cheap instead of the creative opportunity it could have been.

As far as this week's premiere goes, Sutherland was, of course, a natural fit as a highly trained government employee on the run shoved into the role of a disgruntled security guard. His character didn't feel too Jack Bauer-ish and actually came across like pretty natural part of the story. Unfortunately for Sutherland, despite having some of the best lines of the show, he just doesn't have the comedic delivery to keep up with some of his voice acting cohorts.

The episode, luckily, still had plenty of laughs thanks to the ridiculous cast of characters that is The Simpsons.  You can check our Simpsons quotes archives for some of our favorites.

But did anyone else notice this episode seemed to have more cutaways than usual, mostly in the form of flashbacks?  Heck, the show even seemed to be making fun of it in the form of a flash forward. 

Again, it's not nearly as distracting as when Family Guy overdoes it, but it just felt a little less Simpsons. But without them, we never would have had that Kim Jong musical. And that would have been a tragedy.

Eric Hochberger is the programmer of TV Fanatic, so please forgive his mediocre writing. His programming is far better. Follow him on Twitter and/or email him. Just don't request threaded comments. They're coming.