Release and Reception
In its original American broadcast on February 10, 2002, "Half-Decent Proposal" received an 7.1 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 7.5 million viewers. The episode finished in 36th place in the ratings for the week of February 4–10, 2002, beating such shows as Malcolm in the Middle, Philly and Will & Grace. On August 24, 2010, the episode was released part of The Simpsons: The Complete Thirteenth Season DVD and Blu-ray set. Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Matt Selman, Tim Long, Dan Castellaneta, Lauren MacMullan, Matt Warburton and James Lipton participated in the audio commentary of the episode.
Six years after the episode's original broadcast, Robert Canning of IGN gave the episode a 9/10, describing it as "amazing." He especially liked Lovitz' performance Artie Ziff, calling it "pitch-perfect" and that one of his favourite lines "stands out" because of Lovitz's "great delivery." Canning also enjoyed the prom scene as well as Lenny and Carl's implied intimate relationship, which he described as "a completely unexpected treat." He summarized the episode as "top-notch" and wrote "The writing was smart and tight, and instead of a B storyline, the half-hour was filled out with a number of great throwaway gags It's true we may have never expected to see Artie Ziff again, but "Half-Decent Proposal" was a welcome and very funny return." In January 2010, following the conclusion of The Simpsons's twentieth season, IGN chose "Half-Decent Proposal" as the best episode from the thirteenth season, and following the thirteenth season's home video release, reviewer R.L. Shaffer called it one of the season's "gems with good reason." Both Michael Hikcerson of Slice of SciFi and Rosie Fletcher of Total Film considered "Half-Decent Proposal" to be one of the season's best episodes, with Fletcher calling it a "stand-out." Casey Broadwater of Blu-ray.com gave it a positive review as well, describing it as a "strong character-centric episode."
People will critique. They'll say: "Oh, you know, you're parodying a movie that's 9 years old." But to me that's actually more interesting than parodying... like doing say an Avatar parody now because everybody's gonna be doing it. Why don't you do something, you know, that's a more interesting story that people may not be familiar with.
Al Jean, in response to criticism of "Half-Decent Proposal".On the other hand, giving the episode a mixed review, Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide called it "mediocre." Although he praised Lovitz' return as Ziff, and though he did not consider it to be one of the season's worst episodes, Jacobson criticized it for not "hav a lot of zing." Ron Martin of 411Mania wrote a negative review, calling it a "yearly episode just with different tempters each time." Adam Rayner of Obsessed with Film criticized the episode's references to Indecent Proposal, calling it a "rip-off" of the film. Furthermore, he wrote that the episode "manages to be worse that that dire movie ." Nate Boss of Project-Blu also criticized the episode's similarity to Indecent Proposal, calling it "late to the party." He wrote: "Like South Park imitating the WWE in its 13th year, about 12 years past when it hit its prime, The Simpsons makes an Indecent Proposal themed episode." Boss also described the episode as "played out," and criticized it for having "unfunny characters (Artie Ziff), who appear far more often than they should." In the DVD commentary for the episode, Jean defended The Simpsons' writers' choice to base the episode's story on Indecent Proposal, eight years after the movie was released. He argued that rather than lampooning a current film that will get parodied on other television shows anyways, it is more "interesting" to make an episode based on a story that "people may not be familiar with."
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