American Dad! - Season 4

The fourth year of American Dad! didn't seem as cuttingly clever as the third, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's sort of like Family Guy for people who don't like Family Guy. It has a similar wacky sense of humor in the character interactions, but it doesn't use random cutaways for laughs and it usually takes the time to actually develop the different personalities as a thrust to the plot. They're all still pretty static. Stan is a bad father and husband, Steve is a ween, Hayley is a rebellious liberal, and Roger likes to dress up in elaborate costumes and pretend to be human. Francine is probably actually the most dynamic one, as a dutiful housewife who still manages to come off as a strong woman. Klaus is a German fish!

This is the part where I normally might point out some particularly strong episodes or moments, but this is the kind of show where totally great episodes are rare, but poor ones are too. It's a consistently pretty decent comedy. The second episodes where Roger has to figure out who used his credit card all mystery-movie style was good. The finale where things go horribly wrong when Stan decides to have a guy's night out with some CIA buddies was a lot of fun too, like an abbreviated Very Bad Things if it was funny. I really have no idea which show MacFarlane has more input on, but this one is a bit more respectable at this point. You know what looks terrible though? The Cleveland Show, if the previews so far have been accurate. Like, really bad. Does he really need an hour and a half every week? Not even Matt Groening got that in his prime.