The Contest - Reception

Reception

"The Contest" is considered to be one of the best Seinfeld episodes, winning several awards and positive reviews from the critics. David won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Comedy Series for the episode. He also won a Writers Guild of America Award for his work on the episode. Director Tom Cherones won a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series for this episode. He was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing. TV Guide ranked the episode #1 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time".

"The Contest" received a Nielsen rating of 13/19, meaning that the episode was watched by an average of 13% of households and 19% of all televisions were tuned to the episode when it was broadcast. Approximately 18.5 million people watched the episode then. The first repeat of the episode gave Seinfeld its highest ratings up till that point, with a 20.1/30 Nielsen Rating. It also received only 31 complaints from viewers, despite the subject matter. There were worries from advertisers who did not want to advertise during the episode due to the topics that were being discussed. However, most regular advertisers did not broadcast adverts during the show because the series did not have good ratings at the time.

The episode is considered by most reviewers as a success for being able to cover a controversial subject in an inoffensive manner. Jonathan Boudreaux for tvdvdreviews.com said, "The Emmy-winning script by Larry David introduced the brilliant euphemism 'master of my domain' to our lexicon and helped the series to truly become must-see TV. We know what the episode is about, but the script never explicitly says it. 'The Contest' effortlessly takes a potentially incendiary subject and renders it utterly inoffensive yet hilarious." He also said that "The Contest" episode was "one of the series' most infamous". Donna Dorsett from audaud.com commented on the refusal to use the word "masturbation", saying, "If the word had been used, even once, the show would not have been nearly as hilarious. The episode was totally inoffensive."

James Plath from DVD Town said, "Estelle Harris, as George's mother, is hilarious." John F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to have had no problem with appearing as a character in the episode, although he himself did not appear in the show, his role being played by an actor who is not named in the credits.