"The Simpsons" is an American animated sitcom which premiered on Fox on December 17, 1989. Having finished its 35th and 36th season in 2024, critical commentary on the show has changed significantly over its run. "The Simpsons"' golden era is widely considered to be among the most influential media ever produced. Discussion of the show following the supposed "end of the golden era" has been related to the decline in quality, the causes of that change, and possible solutions.
Some of the show's creators and critics have denied this decline, and defended episodes and trends, while others have acknowledged that while the show is not as good as it used to be, having such a high bar for comparison is unfair and blinds the viewer to the quality of the more recent episodes. A silver or bronze age of the show, where it returned to its roots with content reminiscent of the 1990s episodes, has been identified as lasting from the either the 2007 film "The Simpsons Movie" or the 20th season in 2008–2009 through to at least the 24th season in 2012–2013. The relevance of discussions about the quality of the show is debated. 
History.
"The Simpsons"' golden era.
Critics' reviews of early "Simpsons" episodes praised the show for its wit, realism, and intelligence. A writer for Indiewire said that throughout "The Simpsons"' golden era, it was "a show largely seen as one of the freshest, insightful and widely accessible pop culture achievement". Jim Schembri of "The Sydney Morning Herald" called the show "a cultural touchstone for at least two—possibly three—generations of couch potatoes". During the show's first season, Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" said, in response to a Fox press release saying the show "represent the American family at its wildest!", that ""The Simpsons" are the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons. It's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three big networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on "The Simpsons"".
During the show's fourth season, he said "in its constant acknowledgment of history, current events, and forms of art and entertainment other than television, The Simpsons is probably the most realistically surreal cartoon series ever; the show is always striving not only to be funnier but also tighter, more precise in its sarcasm, and (in its own brusquely unsentimental way) more moving." During the show's eighth season, he said "There is a constant sense of surprise — a wily exuberance — about [the show] that still hasn't abated after eight seasons: This is one of the sharpest, most purely pleasurable television series ever. What began [as filler sketches] has become one of [animation's] most dependable entertainments, a cartoon that transcended cartoonishness a long time ago. In the world of "The Simpsons", everyone has a purpose; everything exists to make a point. In that sense, this cartoon is the most humanistic show on television.
Darren Franich of "PopWatch" explains that "The [19]90s-era Simpsons weren't funny because of the references — they were funny because the writing was snappy, the characters were fully-realized, and the individual episode plots were structured so well. There was wordplay, and farce, and topical satire. (There was also just outright silliness — see Sideshow Bob getting hit by all those rakes.) The references were the icing, not the cake." Matt Zoller Seitz of "Vulture" says, "Together with "Seinfeld" and "It's Garry Shandling's Show", "The Simpsons" refined a new TV template, the meta-sitcom — a half-hour comedy spiked with satire, pop-culture references, and postmodern riffs worthy of Ernie Kovacs and Monty Python."
"Simpsons" writer and producer Conan O'Brien commented on the quality of the writing during the show's golden era: ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;"You write an outline, then you revisit every single joke in front of everybody, and then you do a first draft, then you do a second draft, then you do another draft, and then there's a read with the actors, but then it goes off, then it comes back, and there's an animatic, but there's still time to fix the jokes and revisit them. By the time an episode came out, you had maybe heard the script read through like 20 times, and if for some reason the joke wasn't getting a laugh on the 21st time, you had to rework it. Obviously it's clearly a strength of "The Simpsons" that by the time you see it, things have been road-tested and thought about and so much work has gone into it." John Swartzwelder, who wrote for the show until 2003, expressed a similar sentiment:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;"This is the way we did it when I was there. A writer is assigned a story, often a story he originally came up with himself, though not always. Two days are spent in the writers’ room, with everyone helping flesh out the story, adding jokes, and so on. Then the writer writes an outline. Then everybody gets back in the room and pitches more changes, additions, and jokes. The writer writes the first draft, and then it’s back to the room for more rewriting. The script is rewritten again after the read-through and after the screening of the animatic, with additional possible rewrites at the recording session itself and after the finished animation comes back from Korea. There might be other rewrites I’ve forgotten. If a joke survives all that, it’s probably pretty good."
Author L.B. Gale explained five ways "The Simpsons" utilised language for both humour and philosophical musings during the "golden years of the show (pretty much the entire 90s run)": advertising comedy, interrogating language, high falutin vocabulary usage, neologisms, and random moments of stream of consciousness hilarity.
End of the golden era.
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 The consensus is that the show has been on a downhill slide for years. How many? That depends. No one would bat an eye at 10 years. Twelve? Ever since that episode when Principal Skinner turned out not to be the real Principal Skinner? For the record, "The Principal And The Pauper" aired all the way back in 1997, a low point in the otherwise solid ninth season.
Kyle Ryan, "Summarize The Simpsons in 10 episodes? That's unpossible! (But we try anyway)", The A.V. Club
There are many definitions over when the "golden era" of "The Simpsons" actually ended. This is seen as "the trap that ensnares every discussion of "The Simpsons", where ostensible fans end up debating when the show 'started to suck'". The end of the golden era (a noticeable decline in quality) is not the same as when the show stopped being enjoyable to watch. The general consensus is that by season 10 or 11, "The Simpsons" had definitely started to "suffer", "lose its mojo and become less consistent from week-to-week". Some critics point to season 7, as the point at which a noticeable decline in quality is observed, while others name season 9, season 10, and still others say "The Simpsons" golden era lasted from season 1 to season 10. Others exclude season 1 or both season 1 and season 2, as they argue "The Simpsons" had not yet found its unique style and was therefore a mixed bag. "Vulture" described the first two seasons as "wobbly overall, and surprisingly slow and quiet compared to most other seasons", and "practically "King of the Hill" compared with later seasons" respectively.
Viewpoints during the golden era episodes' original run were generally harsher and identified a dip in quality much earlier that what contemporary critics assign. Of season 9's "The Principal and the Pauper", "The A.V. Club" said, "For years, "The Simpsons" had enjoyed an enviable hit-to-miss ratio [but the episode] heralded an era of more misses and established a precedent for dramatically changing characters' storylines". "Vulture.com" said, "most viewers consider [the first 14 seasons of "The Simpsons"] the essential canon". In its ranking of these seasons, it listed 11–14 as the worst and 3–8 as the best. Its reviews for seasons 11–14 included: "heavy on very broad sight gags and light on memorable character bits", "pretty hit-and-miss...growing increasingly shameless, doing anything for a laugh", "the show's eventual descent into random weirdness isn't quite complete, but it's getting there", and "[it] produc[ed] one good to great episode for every couple of so-so ones". "WhatCulture" said "for some [the decline in quality] is from season 17 onwards".
"The Simpsons" "greatest episode" lists by both fans and staff always tend to heavily favour the earlier seasons, often having little to no post-golden-era episodes listed at all. The latest season to be represented is usually seven, eight, nine, ten, or eleven. In an "11 Best Simpsons Episodes of the 2000s" list, the author notes, "pretty much every single episode that's in the discussion for 'Best Simpsons Ever' happened last decade". He added that "The list is...VERY early-2000s heavy... the most recent episode is one from 2006 and most come from 2000-2003". The Guardian article "The Simpsons at 500: your top 10 episodes" found it "interesting" and "surprising" that their list based on an opinion poll from their readership resulted in episodes from the first decade, and "only a handful [of the votes] given to...21st century [episodes]". When compiling a list, ranking the 11 Simpsons Christmas episodes from worst to best, author Sam Greenspan pointed out, "YES, I notice too that these basically go from newest episodes to oldest episodes. Just kinda happened that way". When ranking the first 20 seasons of The Simpsons, Chris Morgan of Splitsider filled the top ten slots with the first ten seasons (though not in chronological order).
David Bennun of "The Guardian" wrote, "The running joke about how [the show is] not as good as it used to be [is] true...The show has now been substandard for nearly as long as it was impossibly great" (approximately 10 years). He added that this sentiment is mirrored in complaints by "Simpsons" fans. Todd Leopold of CNN, in a 2009 article looking at its perceived decline, stated "for many fans [...] the glory days are long past."
In an article entitled "In Search of The Last Classic Simpsons Episode", author Brandon said season 10's "Homer to the Max" and "They Saved Lisa's Brain", season 12's "Trilogy of Error", season 13's "I Am Furious (Yellow)", and season 14's "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" were contenders for the latest episode that made him feel like he was "watching "The Simpsons" in their heyday".
"The Simpsons" vs. "Zombie Simpsons".
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The whole question of whether "The Simpsons" should go off the air doesn't excite me, because it's moot. "The Simpsons", which is to say the classic, worldview-defining show that provided me a memorable quote for pretty much every occasion in life, already went off the air. It had a great run–eight or ten years, depending who's counting, which is far, far longer than even most great TV shows maintain their greatness. It was replaced by a second Simpsons, which began around the late '90s, give or take. This was not as great a show, it was less focused on the Simpsons as a family unit, and in some ways wasn't even really a sitcom, so much as an institution, like Saturday Night Live, which became known for its famous guest cameos and its parodies and takes on topical issues. It was a lesser show, but that was fine; the world also needs comedies that are just often pretty funny, and to me its existence took nothing away from the preceding seasons.
James Poniewozik, "TV Weekend: The Simpsons At 500", Time Entertainment
Golden-era "Simpsons" and post-golden-era "Simpsons" are sometimes counted as two different series. This is because many believe that the two series are nominally the same program, but significantly distinct qualitatively. David Bennun of "The Guardian" was relieved after watching the show's opening sequence that debuted in 2009, as it was "a long overdue acknowledgment that "The Simpsons" is not the show it was". He argues that despite the characters and setting remaining the same, "the decline in quality [is] painfully evident".
In consequence, the term "Zombie Simpsons" has been used by some fans of the show and media commentators alike to refer to the latter period, regarded as mediocre, meandering and has-been. Two other similar terms, "Jerkass Homer" and "Flanderization" (coined by fan-run online encyclopedia TV Tropes), have also appeared to refer to the perceived aggravation of Homer Simpson