This season of The Simpsons has definitely had some impressive guest stars, but none have felt as under utilized as Danica Patrick and Rachel Weisz were this week.

The two of these lovely ladies were each only given a couple lines and the racing vixen only appeared in a tangential dream, while the Academy Award winning actress was stuck in a short role filling shoes of the deceased Dr. Marvin Monroe.

We'll forgive Weisz's character if she can hook us up with a prescription for Oxycontin candy.  Those looked delicious.

As far as the rest of "How Munched is That Birdie in the Window," it certainly had its funny jokes and visual gags that make The Simpsons entertaining week in and week out, but it just seemed to fizzle out in the third act.

I know that complaining about a cartoon's plot, especially one in its twenty second season seems silly, but I hold The Simpsons to a higher standard than its other Sunday night brethren.   This is a show that gave us "Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life" just two weeks ago. 

They could have ended this week's installment with something more meaningful than Bart killing an ostrich for survival and suddenly understanding why Santa's Little Helper killed his pigeon off instinct. 

Even the cliched route of Helper saving Bart would have been better.  Or maybe just a more clever final act in general would have left us with a better taste in our mouth.

Our rambling is over and we'll leave you with our favorite Simpsons quotes from the half hour:

Moe: Pretty much if it moves, you can bet on it.
Homer: What about the Detroit Lions?
Moe: Hey, lay off Detroit. Them people is livin' in Mad Max times. | permalink

Pigeon Owner: He's a homing pigeon. He comes home. Unless you wanna spring for a limo. | permalink

Danica Patrick: I'm contractually obligated by my sponsors to appear in random fans' fantasies. | permalink

Nelson: My mom ran off with my birthday clown! | permalink

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.