User Reviews

Not a big Simpsons fan, and the episode is quite typical Simpsons humor, for the most part of it apart from Rickys own dialog which I have to say is hilarious.

So if you are a Simpsons fan you might not find this episode brilliant, but if you are a Ricky Gervais fan it is very good....

The dialog itself is very funny and the punchlines are very well conveyed in the animation.

Since all his dialog is very much typical Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant humor I thought it would be hard to capture the awkward silences in animation but it is very well done.

Ricky Gervais is best at the following things - awkward silences, cringe-inducing scenarios and subtle humour. While these may work well on Channel 4, they just don't work in a cartoon, especially one like the Simpsons. Though Ricky does try to give this episode his own humorous signature, it just doesn't work. He should really have tried to cook up an ingenious and original plot and some imaginative new humour that would make this truly special and give a new face to the Simpsons' brand of humour, but this was abandoned in favour of improving his own public image. The plot was cheap, cheerful and cr*p (in the form of a wife swap), and it is evident that this was merely a publicity vehicle for himself in the sense that he and Marge hogged all the screen time and we saw sod-all of Homer and his new wife. Not surprising that all had to be resolved very quickly and badly at the end, so much time was wasted. Though it is good that Ricky has tried to combine the Simpsons' style of humour with his own brand of comedy, this really was over-rated and over-publicised and just didn't feel like the Simpsons we've known these past two decades. One word sums this up - FLAT. 3/10

I don't know why everybody hated this episode, I thought it was fantastic. I've been a huge Simpsons fan all my life, I used to watch about 10 episodes a day, and, whilst I wasn't a huge fan of 'The Office' (it was good, just not for me), I did love 'Extras'. I never saw the ads for this Ricky Gervais episode, first I knew of it was when I saw it on TV. The plot follows the familiar Simpsons structure of seeming to have one story line, but then, a little under halfway through the episode, the story takes an entirely new direction. The humour is excellent, very distinctly Gervais, but very much The Simpsons too. Gervais' character and Marge do take up most of the screen time, but it works. The Simpsons has been declining somewhat in recent years, after seeing this episode, I wonder if Gervais was approached as a full time writer!

I find Ricky Gervais hilarious in most things. However, this really was the worst Simpsons episode ever. It was a bit like watching that thing with the queer bloke and skinny ginger woman.....summat and summat. The name escapes me. It's putrid though. Anyway, i watched this after the hype alluded to by mandolin and was flabbergasted at the total (and i MEAN total) lack of entertainment. No laughs, no touching moments....absolutely nothing. I fear The Simpsons really has lost it. In the early days, and certainly up to about series 8/9/10, there were lovely, funny, touching, meaningful moments, hilarious incidentals, superb fun! This was utterly devoid of all of those things. I can only think that Gervais was so overawed by The Simpsons, he forgot how to be funny.

So, while agreeing that IT wasn't funny, i still find Gervais CAN be funny. Can't quite forgive him for seemingly giving my all-time favourite programme its coup-de-grace.

Regrardless of the criticism, this episode is quite the catch to watch. Ricky Garvais both wrote and played in this episode. Conclusively, this episode is rather unorthodox yet unique at the same time.

In the words of Comic Book Guy - "WORST EPISODE EVER!"

I don't see why Ricky Gervais was even asked to write an episode; his feeble attempts at comedy ( The Office and Extras) are about as funny as watching paint dry. Matt Groening made a serious mistake letting this dirge be made! This was plugged to the hilt by SKY, claiming it would be the funniest show that The Simpsons creators had released in a very long time, even giving it pride of place in their monthly free magazine. I know most people don't get British humour, but Ricky Gervais doesn't even class as British funny, he's more like something that comes out of the old Eastern Bloc regions of Europe when it comes to comedy...i.e. NOT!

Ricky Gervais does not know how to write a Simpsons episode ... wait, scratch that: Ricky Gervais does not know how to write for comedy shows in general, especially for American shows. Most of his "brilliant writing" just consists of awkward and cringe scenes, which DOES NOT work with a show like The Simpsons even though some may find it appealing in the UK. Ricky Gervais of all people should not write for The Simpsons, the show was already on the decline at this point but this episode made me lose all hope that it would return back to it's glory days (seasons 1-8). This show needs to bring back the OG writers or the current writers need to start watching the older episodes again, because it seems that they've lost the whole style of the show.