Review: The Simpsons “Lisa The Veterinarian”

While at an indoor water park, Lisa saves a raccoon from drowning. Thanks to the media coverage, Lisa is given the responsibility of caring for her class’s pet hamster during spring break. Giddy with all of her new-found attention, she volunteers at the local veterinarian clinic. While she mostly feeds the animals and cleans the cages, she occasionally gets to help Dr. Budgie do some actual vet work. Unfortunately, this turns Lisa into some sort of animal know-it-all. She saves a goat at a birthday party petting zoo and wouldn’t allow Mr. Burns to keep his dog. Yet she neglects Nibbles, the class hamster, who inevitably dies.

Marge also has a date with death. Except she is cleaning up after it. She gets stuck in traffic because the police are waiting for the crime scene cleaners to clean up an accident. Chief Wiggum convinces Marge to clean up the accident then hires her do clean up other crime scenes. However, the gore starts to get to Marge, turning her into a bit of a zombie. It isn’t until Lisa desperately calls her parents after the death of Nibbles that Marge comes back to herself.

Lisa isn’t usually this full of herself. It was easy to see her save the raccoon but to hear her preaching about animal care, even though Bart keeps reminding her that she isn’t an actual vet, is rare. However, there was so little plot here that this episode felt like a short story instead of a half hour episode. The two plots were interesting, there just wasn’t enough meat to the story.