I haven’t been catching most episodes of The Simpsons this year, but I’ll be taping tonight’s while I’m at work. I’m a big Gervais fan (he’s the creator and star of the original British version of The Office) and word is that he did a fantastic job on tonight’s episode. Matt Groenig said he was so good that he should be a recurring character or even have his own series.
So will it live up to the hype or be just another Worst Episode Ever?
Oh, and also, the opening credits are reportedly going to be replaced by the live-action version that’s been making the rounds on the internet for the last month or so, because Matt Groening liked it so much. We’ll see.
Very much looking forward to it. Anything that Gervais touches is gold to me (since I’ve discovered him).
Thanks for the notice. I don’t watch the Simpsons since they started sucking, but I’ll give this one a look.
Maggie has always sucked. 
But, as a general question, if you quit watching a show the moment it starts sucking, how will you know whether it goes on sucking or whether it’s just a momentary dip in quality?
Heh. I still watch the show from time to time, but I don’t make a point of it like I used to do in their golden years.
This is going to be bad, really really bad.
Gervais’s “humor” is the classic “see it coming 10 light years away” British crap. Expect every single “joke” to be a) predictable, b) already done by the usual hacks (Benny Hill, Two Ronnies, etc.).
In particular I predict the following “joke”:
Person A to Person B: “Person C is <various bad things>.”
Person C of course walks in just in time to hear this.
I watch The Simpsons because is it the opposite type of show.
Woh… ftg, you are clearly not familiar with Ricky Gervais’s oeuvre. While I’m quite prepared to concede that not everyone finds his stuff funny, the comparison of his work to Benny Hill is beyond risible. Benny Hill is shit, was shit, and always will be shit, and is largely despised over here. The Two Ronnies, while much beloved of British people, is also stuck in the seventies humour vibe, which might just be shoehorned into your criticism. Gervais, with the Office, has actually created a new genre of television humour - that of the situationally mundane - that has never been seen before. If you’re judging him on the American version, well, I’ll just say we get it over here and it has been rather simplified.
I’d be most interested to hear an example of this happening in anything Gervais has written. If indeed there is an example, I’d appreciate a demonstration of this occurrence where the situation itself was the point of the humour, as you appear to imply.
That’s what the AP story I read in the newspaper said, so it must be true! 
Wow. That’s like equating Trailer Park Boys with Wayne and Shuster, or Curb Your Enthusiasm with Carol Burnett and Friends.
I love Gervais and will be tuning in but actually this is a lot of the plots in his show “Extras” - and I found it hilarious 
Sweet they did that live action intro that’s been floating around the net. I thought that was done by fans or something.
I had not heard of the live action intro. i wasn’t paying attention when the music first came on. My jaw dropped open, I’m so happy I have a DVR so I could rewind and see what I think I was seeing.
Wow.
Oh man, this is great :D. Of course, you have to have some background in “The Office” (British style)
“I get to run the Christmas Party” LOL!
And the joke was pure “The Office”.
Crap! I missed the intro.
Is this what they ran? http://www.metacafe.com/watch/82356/the_real_simpsons/
Ok, we are thirty minutes into the show, so… where’s the funny? I was promised funny.
Hmm, the only good part of this weeks episode was the live action opening, everything else rated a resounding “Meh!”
not the Worst…Episode…Ever!, but pretty darn close…
The opening was trippy. As for the show itself, meh. Nothing spectular, nothing horrible.
“I’m going to vote no on 38 so you can’t adopt!”
That was totally David Brent. I think you sort of have to have seen the original version of The Office to have really gotten it.
I liked seeing Lenny’s apartment, and I enjoyed having “David Brent” on the show even though the reality show A-plot was boring, and Marge was horribly annoying as usual. Normally I don’t even bother to watch anymore, but the lure of Ricky Gervais brought me back. In the end – better than most recent episodes, but not as good as it could have been with him writing.