Family Guy - Season 9

As I hinted in the last post, I'm not really feeling this show much these days. It's just different in ways I don't like, and I'd say more different from the show when it came back from the dead than it was then in comparison to its original run. You still have most of the same characters and an unending dedication to remembering pop culture no matter how bad or obscure it is, but the style just isn't right. It feels less like a sitcom and more like... I don't even know what, it's just really weird now. They'll do murder mysteries and reenact scenes from movies and stuff like that, and they're ideas that I would have liked to have seen a few years ago, but the pace now is just so slow, and the focus seems to be more on getting all the story beats and camera moves right rather than entertaining the audience. It's like the fun has been sucked out of the process, a lot of the jokes are the same as ever, but the sense of fun is missing. There will be a scene where two characters are just talking in a car for several minutes, and you'll wonder what the hell they're trying to do with it.

They also try to have emotional moments, and they just don't work. This is Family Guy, a show for which nothing is sacred, a show that will casually toss out racial insults in increasingly non-ironic-seeming fashion, a show with a producer who was one of the idiots making insensitive comments about Japan on twitter after the Tsunami, a show that made an episode about abortion and then didn't air it but still sold it on DVD by itself for $15. So I just can't give a shit about the show pretending Brian might let himself die to give Peter his kidneys for half an episode. The show has no soul, and there's no sense trying to give it one now. It's best when it's firing a million jokes a minute and a few of them manage to land, and what they're doing now just isn't very entertaining. I won't pretend there weren't moments or even entire episodes that I didn't enjoy, but the show just isn't worth dedicating time to it on a regular basis anymore. I won't turn it off if it comes on and I'm bored, but I won't make sure to see every episode.

American Dad! - Season 6

This is the first FOX show I'm talking about since FX finished burning off the four unaired Running Wilde episodes, so I'm going to write a sentence about them. Those episodes were okay.

Anyway, American Dad. It's back as the best Seth MacFarlane-produced show they have. It's hard to say what makes it better than Family Guy, other than just the writing is better. In some ways it's much more of a typical, run-of-the-mill sitcom, at least structurally. The plots of most episodes can be traced back for years or even decades to plenty of other shows that have done similar things. But while Family Guy is screwing around with reenactments and parodies and anti-humor and inserting entire embarrassing music videos into episodes, American Dad just makes sure that the jokes are funny and that the formulaic storylines manage to surprise you at least once. It's a more typical show, but it's also just a much more consistently entertaining one to watch.

There isn't much particular to note about this season, except for what they've done with Haley. There was a story arc (atypical for this show) at the beginning of the season where she married her boyfriend, and it's resulted in her having a diminished role in the series. Not that I generally mind, because Haley and Stan butting heads over social issues was always far from my favorite part of the show. But when practically every episode boils down to Stan pairing off with Francine, Roger, or Steve, it makes me wish for a little more fluidity in those roles sometimes, and the way Haley is usually wasted could have been avoided to help out there. Still, with the formula is pretty rigid, it works, and the show has yet to use up all the potential it has for this family. It's probably the only animated show I'm watching that doesn't premiere on Adult Swim that I look forward to, and I could see it holding steady for a few more years.

Family Guy - Season 8

So Family Guy trundles on through middle age, now having aired double the number of episodes made before the cancellation since they came back. They're doing pretty much everything they can to stave off stagnation, getting increasingly dark and esoteric, seeming to go anywhere to avoid the accusation that they're running out of ideas. And I have to say, it's mostly working for me. I thought this was the best season in a few years as the focus has shifted away from the more spiteful and uncreative pop culture jokes and more towards pure weirdness. They've gone places I'd not have expected, even for a routinely controversial show like this, but haven't quite gone too far yet.

There were a number of notable episodes, including a couple that were double length. The 150th trapped Brian and Stewie in a bank vault, and mostly focused on their unique love/hate relationship. I didn't like all of it, but it was an interesting experiment. The musical stuff was mostly just filling time though, as there was only a single piece I hadn't seen before. They finally aired the sequel to their Star Wars episode from a couple years ago, this time based on The Empire Strikes Back, which was already put out on DVD last fall. While I often don't like it as much when the show just recreates a famous scene wholesale because there's not actually a lot of creative energy behind it, for some reason these remakes of the movies work for me. It's half nostalgia for when Star Wars was fun, and half enjoyment of all the ways they poke fun at the sillier or illogical moments in the series. The yearly road show episode was really good too, this time traveling through a bunch of parallel universes with increasingly wacky differences. I wonder how untouchable this show is at this point. In ten years are we going to be looking at season 18 of Family guy alongside season 31 of The Simpsons? I guess we'll find out in time.

Also, I blogged about American Dad! a while ago because Sons of Tucson took over its time slot, but that show was quickly canceled and Dad was brought back for five more episodes to finish season 5 with 18. I wouldn't have bothered to mention this if they weren't really good, especially "Bully for Steve", which is one of the best in the series. I won't forget Stelio Kontos for a long time.

The Cleveland Show - Season 1

I'm still trying to figure out why this was made. Does it actually appeal to black people? I can't imagine it really does. I haven't seen any numbers on the show's demographic, but I would bet it's about the same as the other Seth MacFarlane-produced shows on Fox. The real problem with the show is that the actual character of Cleveland simply doesn't work well as a protagonist. He's a fun supporting character all the way. So they basically have to completely change his personality to make him having his own show work, in ways that make him overall quite a bit less likable, in addition to transforming his son who hasn't appeared in years from a hyperactive little kid into an incredibly doughy, passive, and irritating young teenager. Not only does taking Cleveland out of Quahog change his character for the worse, it also weakens Family Guy a bit by taking a working part of the formula out of the equation. Wacky hijinks are just less fun with three people than four, and guys like Mort Goldman are inadequate replacements.

And with all these discourtesies, The Cleveland Show doesn't have the decency to be particularly funny. There's usually a couple jokes per episode that will elicit a giggle, but when they're flinging them out at a rate of about one ever five to ten seconds, that's a pretty abysmal success rate. They try to play around with a lot of issues but don't handle any that well, and it's hard to like a show that leans on the "this man is a terrible husband and father constantly" trope so heavily. At least Peter Griffin has the excuse of being an idiot most of the time. And while his show is getting increasingly avant-garde, Cleveland's is hopelessly mired in cliché. There were a couple moments that stood out like a rap battle between Cleveland Jr. and a local rapper played by Kanye West, but not much else. The best thing I can say about the show is that it's not the complete train wreck it looked like in commercials before it started, but that's not enough to make me watch a second season.

American Dad! - Season 5

Apparently American Dad!'s fifth season ended abruptly a few weeks ago without anyone telling me, but it was a solid 13 episode run, I guess. I'd much rather have a full 20+ episodes of this than The Cleveland Show, but what can you do. To be honest, Family Guy has recently retaken the title of my favorite running Seth MacFarlane show with its constantly escalating absurdity and Dad! losing its unique spark a little bit, although it's still got some life left in it. By the way, do you know how many times Seth has actually written a script for one of his shows besides a pilot? Twice, both on Family Guy, and one of them was a single segment of the viewer mail anthology. He's a funny guy, but his primary strengths are definitely his voice and his existence now as a brand. Anyway, there was some fun stuff this season, like the crazy extent of the Vietnam reenactment on a golf course in the premiere and the totally nuts episode where the rapture occurs and Stan and Francine are stuck in a post apocalyptic earth, with an ending that would put the reality of the rest of the series in question if it wasn't for a small detail. To be honest, I'm sort of getting tired of the constant cycle of Stan being the worst husband in the world, learning an important lesson, and then forgetting it by the beginning of the next episode, but it's still entertaining and manages to separate itself from Family Guy enough to be its own show.

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.

Family Guy - Season 7

Family Guy's seventh season was pretty wildly inconsistent, with some pretty terrific episodes but also some awful ones. "I Dream of Jesus" is probably the worst offender. I can understand appreciating the Andy Kaufman-esque nature of the "Surfin' Bird" stuff, but just because it's intentionally unfunny and irritating doesn't make it... not unfunny and irritating. But even ignoring that, the complete whiff on actually doing anything interesting with Jesus Christ as a character is inexcusable. I mean... this is Family Guy! Go wild! But they didn't. After it got better for a while, it stumbled again with stilted, untimely jabs at FOX News and O.J. Simpson, a completely terrible homosexuality episode (How can a show with such an extremely liberal agenda be this unfunny and crude with the subject?), and consecutive episodes featuring Brian flaunting his bleeding heart that pushed the message way too hard without an ounce of subtlety or, again, telling good jokes.

There were some really good episodes though, that make me continue to want to see what else they can do. It's getting to the point where the show is only funny if it's either just ignoring pop culture or diving head first into witty homages that last for the entire running time. When they just try to make a quick gag, they're getting increasingly blunt and decreasingly creative, but stuff like "Road to Germany"'s nod to every adventure movie ever and the pretty solid send up of Stephen King's work in "Three Kings" is entertaining and still true to the show. Also, I was amazed to see them actually let Bonnie have the baby. So many times the show just makes you wonder what the hell's going on in the world, like how she was apparently pregnant for years while her other son died in Iraq in a complete throwaway line (hilarious), and how Peter's gotten out of serious jail time repeatedly for no justifiable reason. They're really pushing the "It's just a cartoon!" button a lot these days, and it's something I've come to accept.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Guillermo del Toro's second stab at the Hellboy series isn't exactly a great film, but it's mostly enjoyable throughout and filled with the same visual inventiveness that was hinted at in smaller doses in Pan's Labyrinth. Whereas the first film felt basically like another super hero movie, albeit a bit of a quirky one, this movie is much more of a straight fantasy. From the background that's explained with stop motion puppets to the incredible makeup (Hellboy himself being among the least impressive) to some larger CG creatures, the movie looks astounding. It's not as technically correct as some bigger films, but just in terms of visual imagination and pulling it off in an interesting way, it's extremely successful and just fun to watch. Besides the special effects, the action scenes are pretty good too. They seem a bit sped up in places, but the villain has a cool style and whenever he's wrecking peoples' shit it's entertaining.

Not everything else about the movie is as good, though. The story actually has quite a few niggling problems. The main cast is solid, especially Ron Perlman as the titular character. He and Selma Blair are okay together, and it's nice that their relationship has advanced in a human way, but the problems they face are a bit too sitcom-esque at first. And Abe's character arc also comes off a bit hokey. Near the beginning Hellboy's existence is revealed to the world, and the negative reaction from the public seems forced and unnecessary to the story. It's really not a very subtle script, but the end result is generally pretty watchable. Doug Jones' dedication to getting into tons of makeup to play multiple parts is admirable as always, though. Seth MacFarlane makes a surprising appearance voicing a new, slightly goofy German character, that ends up being pretty likable. Hellboy II's the kind of movie that's best enjoyed when not taken completely seriously.

Family Guy - Season 6

The sixth season of the now venerable show was fairly brief, but had some pretty solid episodes. Over a hundred episodes later, they're running out of steam a little bit, but things like the hour long Star Wars parody and two part special where Stewie finally tries to kill Lois were pretty interesting. The Star Wars episode might have stuck a little too closely to the movie at times, but it was fun to watch. There weren't really any outstanding episodes during this run, but none of them were bad either. They still squeeze out laughs wherever they can. They have been adding some continuity, which is nice, like an actual arc to Brian's relationship with Jilian.

To continue being honest about the show, I feel like it's running out of steam and would benefit from ending sometime fairly soon. They have to really stretch to find new things to make fun of, and increasingly just completely misfire. I don't see what humorous about, say, Michael J. Fox having Parkinson's disease. But it looks like the end's not in sight, with plans to make episodes for the Star Wars sequels and creator Seth McFarlane recently signing one of the biggest TV deals in history. It's no big deal if the show goes forever though, because even if I stop watching it regularly I can be pretty sure to get a laugh somewhere any time I watch.

American Dad! - Season 3

It sometimes gets a little iffy figuring out seasons for animated shows with the fact that production, televised, and DVD "seasons" can all be different, so this is the third televised "season", from last September's "The Vacation Goo" to late this May's "Spring Breakup".

American Dad first premiered under the shadow of the return of Family Guy, creator Seth McFarlane's other, much more popular show. In the beginning, it didn't seem that great, just a retread with similar characters and some political jokes instead of pop culture tangents. It did grow a bit during the first season, and had some good moments. For whatever reason, I stopped watching and didn't pick it back up until newer ones came on Adult Swim. I completely missed the second season, but that doesn't really matter in a show where continuity is scarce. By now, it's come into its own as a show, only similar to Family Guy in appearance and some similar sensibilities, not in nearly every aspect. Usually the topic of each episode comes from a hot political issue, but the desire to make fun of the government doesn't take over or get in the way of them making an entertaining program.

To be honest, at this point I like American Dad a bit better than Family Guy. It makes me actually laugh more often. It's usually more artistically creative, with unique perspectives or tones that Family Guy would never tackle. A lot of the funnier jokes are pokes at themselves or the sillier contrivances of television, which is fine by me. You can't always pull excellence out of every subject so you get humor where you can find it. There's a point to be made that none of the characters are really that good but the parents and Roger are funny enough and Steve is like the boy version of Meg except he keeps getting screwed over as part of the episode's plot and not just in throwaway gags. Not many secondary characters have really jumped out, but the CIA angle makes more interesting situations a lot. It's a very watchable show.

Family Guy - Season 5

Family Guy was off the air for about three years before it was brought back thanks to Adult Swim and DVD sales, and thanks to the time distortion field that occurs when you grow into adulthood, I was surprised to notice that it's now been back for the same amount of time, about three years. In that time, the show has moved away from what made it funny in the first place, and has driven many old fans away, although it's still always good for some silly laughs. The show now repeats old jokes and minor characters more often and breaks away from the story for some fourth wall-breaking meta-humor, which is often handled a little more clumsily than some better shows, and most of the main characters have changed to the point where they only resemble their original selves in passing.

It's a phenomenon you might have noticed before, called Flanderization (after the next door neighbor from The Simpsons), where some quirk of a character becomes more and more emphasized over time to the point where it pretty much takes over their personality. It's most noticeable in Meg, who went from the slightly boring daughter to someone who gets railed on at every single opportunity. They keep driving the peg into the hole to the point where the interactions become kind of stagnant. Although not quite Flanderization, Stewie has completely changed, from an infant obsessed with world domination to a flamboyant fratboy-type character and a vessel for anything the episode's lazy writer wanted to say about the world. The show's still enjoyable, it's just not as good as it was before the layoff.