I have been very outspoken when it comes to recent Family Guy episodes. Personally I believe the show is taking steps in the wrong direction.
I want to say that the best seasons of Family Guy were 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. These seasons contain the best and most remembered episodes such as Family Gay, Petarded, PTV, Fat Guy Strangler, Peterotica, Petergeist, Stewie Loves Lois, Barely Legal, Airport '07, Stewie Kills Lois / Lois Kills Stewie, 420, and Road to Germany.
The past two seasons, however, have been lacking. Something has changed. Here are some things that I've noticed from the past two seasons that need to be changed or better this season:
They just aren't funny.
For some reason the humor just isn't there. Episodes just aren't as funny anymore. The show is very dependent on their cut-away skits for their humor and they have been awful lately.
Quagmire vs. Brian.
This is something that is just stupid. I have no idea why they wanted to do this. In "Jerome is the New Black," Peter tells Brian that Quagmire hates him and Brian tries his hardest to get Quagmire to like him. At the end of the episode, the pair of them are at dinner and Brian pushes Quagmire to tell him why he hates him. Quagmire then goes on a two minute (or so) rant on why he hates him and you think that this would be funny, but actually it's quite painful to watch and not funny at all. From that point on, they're always making stupid digs at each other and arguing and it's always uncomfortable to watch.
Bring back characters.
Particularly Cleveland. Because The Cleveland Show sucks (and yes, I have seen it so I can say that). When Cleveland first left the show is when I started to notice the show going downhill. Cleveland was never a favorite character of mine, but when he's gone you kind of miss him.
In the one-hour season premiere of the 9th season, they did a clever and fun (you'd think) Who Dunnit episode where many of the characters come to a mansion and they begin to be killed off. It's a decent episode, but they kill off a lot of people. James Woods, Muriel Goldman, Diane Simmons, Jillian's husband Derek, and a couple of other characters were killed off. After seeing the episode, you wonder whether they would actually remain dead. They do. But why? You're running out of characters and with this Quagmire/Brian debacle you are limiting your character resources.
Gore is getting out of hand.
The show prides itself on its violence and blood and puke. And that's fine. But recent episodes have been taking it too far. In the season 4 episode "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter," Peter buys ipecac so that he, Chris, Brian, and Stewie can have a throwing up contest. It's gross, but extremely funny. "WHO WANTS CHOWDER?!" That's funny. But recent episodes focus on the gore. For example, in "The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair," Stewie creates an evil clone of himself that gets loose. Within two minutes, he shoves a battery in each of Brian's nostrils then gags him, violently attacks Stewie, cuts off Brian's tail and shoves it down Stewie's throat, and literally slices a woman in half vertically with a machete while stealing her car revealing her insides (video below). It's actually painful to watch.
Focus on comedy and not animation.
There was one other point (besides when Cleveland left) when I noticed the show was going down hill… When they switched to HD. When they switched over, it seemed like they were focusing more on the quality of the animation over the quality of the comedy. Sure everything looks nice and crisp now, but I'd rather the animation quality be like it was in the 90s if it meant the comedy was better.
Fix these things and we'll be heading in the right direction. The new season premieres this Sunday on FOX. We'll see how it goes. Seth MacFarlane… this is all on you.
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