"Treehouse of Horror XXI" is the fourth episode of the twenty-second season of the American animated television series The Simpsons.
This is the 21st Treehouse of Horror episode, and, like the other Treehouse of Horror episodes, consisted of three self-contained segments: In "War and Pieces", Bart and Milhouse discover a real-life board game that they must win to return home; in "Master and Cadaver", Marge and Homer go on a honeymoon on a sailboat, and rescue a mysterious castaway named Roger; and in "Tweenlight", Lisa falls in love with a vampire named Edmund.
The first segment references Jumanji, the second is a loose parody of Dead Calm and the third satirizes the Twilight novel and film series.
In its original airing on the Fox Network during the November sweeps period, the episode had a 3.7 Nielsen rating viewed in approximately 8.2 million homes.
Professor Frink then welcomes the audience and warns them of the content of the show, presenting a TiVo remote control to fast-forward through the scary stuff; he shows an example by fast forwarding through Homer and Bart's fight, but accidentally fast forwards all the way to the end of the special, exposing spoilers.
Lisa reads the instructions, which are in Latin, and says the two must beat all the games to finish Satan's Path and restore everything to normal.
Introducing himself as Roger, the castaway explains that he was a chef on a yacht called the Albatross, and was knocked out after attempting to stop a poisoning on his ship.
Homer and Marge take matters into their own hands as they seemingly kill Roger using a metal pole, and knock his body overboard.
However, finding the Albatross, they realize Roger was telling the truth and that some of the passengers are still alive, as one of the people administered an antidote.
Homer asks Marge what Maggie thinks about while bathing, which she responds, "Just sugar plums and buttercups."
After saving Lisa from a bus, two cars, a bicycle and a Segway PT, Edmund reveals he is a vampire.
[2] Edmund is based on Edward Cullen, the character portrayed by Robert Pattinson in Twilight and its sequels.
[12] In its original airing on the Fox Network during the November sweeps period,[13] the episode had a 3.7 Nielsen rating and 9% share of the audience in the 18-49 demographic, and was viewed in approximately 8.2 million homes.
John Griffiths of Us Weekly gave the episode three stars, writing that "the three oddball tales run from mildly amusing to flat-out inspired.
In one goofy vignette, Homer and a bikini-wearing Marge pluck a scary mystery man from the sea.
However, watching Lisa crush on a brooding vampire in a dead-on poke at Twilight is the hilarious treat here.
The satire on this show remains sharp as none of the games had the same name as their real world counterparts to prevent toy company litigation against Fox.
"[6] Robert Bianco of USA Today was critical of the episode, writing "It is possible [that The Simpsons] has worn out the Treehouse franchise.
But they're not scary, they're not particularly funny, and outside of some tepid Twilight jokes, they're no longer even trying to be real parodies of the original stories.
The idea of Bart and Milhouse playing with a Ouija board ripoff was promising, so to see it descend into gags about Marge getting sucked into Clue was disappointing.
There were fewer good gags [in "Master and Cadaver"] than in the board game segment, but it was balanced out by a fairly solid Hugh Laurie performance.