Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife (S17, E15-371)

It takes a very strong and/or naive woman to not get creeped out by a guy like Charles.

Plot Summary
Homer is invited to Lenny's party, where Lenny reveals his new plasma HD TV.  Homer falls in love with it so much he spends several days in a row in Lenny's house watching it until Lenny finally kicks him out.  Seeing how envious Homer remains over Lenny's TV, Marge tells Homer that she entered a contest where first prize is an HD TV.  A few weeks later, though, it turns out Homer has won the third prize: a trip to FOX studios.  While there, Homer learns that he can earn just enough money to buy an HD TV if he enters a reality TV show where families swap mothers.  Homer quickly agrees to do so, and Marge reluctantly goes along with it.

Soon, the Simpsons are met by the Heathbars.  Marge goes over to Charles and his son, while Verity goes over to Homer and kids.  Homer quickly learns that Verity is not only far stricter than Marge, but she also despises Charles and is using the show as an opportunity to embarrass him further.  Meanwhile, Charles takes a liking to Marge, as she isn't verbally abusive like Verity, in fact Marge's compliments strike a chord within Charles and he soon falls in love with her.

Charles decides to make his move on Marge, but she promptly turns him down as they both agree that Homer is somehow irresistible.  Still, Marge has given Charles new life, and he decides he's going to break up with Verity.  With the show's taping at an end, Marge goes back home with Charles where they learn in shock that Verity is going to break up with Charles first!  It seems Verity has hooked up with Patty, the two bonding over their shared hatred of Homer.  Still, Charles is a free man and Homer has his new precious HD TV.

Quick Review
I begin this by saying I'm not a fan of Ricky Gervais (the voice of Charles in this episode), and I was worried that my bias against him could hurt this episode's score.  However, I found this episode rather enjoyable, and that Gervais enhanced the episode's quality with a few humorous situations involving Charles.

Final Score: 7.6

Helter Shelter (S14, E05-296)

I'm not sure, but I don't think that contraption actually existed ever.

Plot Summary
Homer gets injured at work, so Mr. Burns works quickly to ensure Homer doesn't sue by giving Homer and his family skybox tickets, though the family is bummed to find out that its for a hockey game.  Even so, the family takes full advantage of their first class suites, and end up ignoring the game anyway.  All except for Lisa, who is disgusted with the family and goes down the ice level to watch the game.  There, she helps a Russian player score a goal and, in thanks, the player gives Lisa his stick.  It gets mounted to Lisa's wall when the family goes home, but overnight termites spring from the stick and quickly munch their way through the house.

A pest control man is brought in to handle the termites, but the fumigation will take six months and the Simpsons are left looking for a place to stay.  When Homer tries to have the family stay at Moe's, Barney suggests they try a new reality show which has people live in a Victorian house and live as though its 1895.  The Simpsons decide to try it out, and win the auditions after producers see how dysfunctional they can be.

At first the family has trouble getting adjusted to their new lives without technology or, well, most other things, which makes for great TV.  Homer rallies the family, though, and together they start getting accustomed to their new setting to the point where they're a relaxed, happy family.  This makes for bad TV.  The producers try a quick fix by shoving in a 70s star, but that doesn't help.  The producers instead lift up the house overnight into a river, which eventually crashes ashore.  The producers call it a wrap, and leave the Simpsons to whittle away while they get lunch.  Wandering about, the family comes across an old group of Survivor members who were abandoned after being voted off.  The two team up to take out the producers and go back home.  Six months have passed, apparently, and the Simpsons decide they're done with reality TV, though scripted TV is hardly any better.

Quick Review
This was the final episode to be done with traditional cel animation, with the series now permanently switching to digital animation.  Sure is a crappy way to say goodbye to it.  From its shaky beginning to its clumsy end, there was hardly anything to laugh about regarding this episode.  The overall plot doesn't leave much room for comedy (the Simpsons are going to live like its 1895!  Y-yeah!), and sure enough, there isn't anything really funny that happens throughout the episode.

(On a personal note, though the series had jumped for me back in Season 11, the joke that they and the rest of town find hockey so appalling was a head-shaker too, if I had any hope left for the series up to that point, it would've been lost then.)

Final Score: 5.0