Created by:
Seth MacFarlane
Starring:
Seth MacFarlane …. Peter Griffin/Brian Griffin/Stewie Griffin/Glen Quagmire/Tom Tucker/Additional Voices
Alex Borstein …. Lois Griffin/Loretta Brown/Tricia Takanawa/Additional Voices
Mila Kunis …. Meg Griffin
Seth Green …. Chris Griffin/Neil Goldman/Additional Voices
Studio: 20th Century Fox.
Release Date: November 14, 2006.
Number of Discs: 3.
Number of Episodes: 14.
Running Time: 315 minutes.
MSRP: $39.98.
Available at Amazon.com
Ah Family Guy, we meet again.
After my review of volume three last year I was looking forward to what MacFarlane and company had in store with the series. They had a slightly bumpy start to the resurrection of the show, but that would be expected when having to revive a series that hadn’t been on the air for close to three years. However by this point (volume four) the show is bordering on unwatchable. The crew and writing staff are no longer writing shows with a purpose, they’re instead focused on finding out just how many 80’s references they can jam pack in to a show and then string them in to a some what coherent plot.
From the advance airing of the first episode after Super Bowl XXXIII, people were taking notice of Family Guy. The show was written in a way that was unflinching and didn’t hold back a single punch. It was certainly a breath of fresh air when The Simpsons were in some of their hardest to watch seasons. Simply put, it was new, original, politically incorrect, entertaining and more importantly, intelligent. It had that sense of humor that if you got what they were saying or were insinuating towards would have you running out of breath from laughter.
But then things spiraled out of control when it came back. It wasn’t being written for the fans of the show, instead it felt like the fans were writing it themselves. Untalented and unfunny fans at that, the kind of people who think making a Louie Anderson reference is something that would make people laugh. Yeah, those kinds of people. So with the show feeling like it had been taken over by talentless hacks – who clearly have ADD and can’t write five minutes worth of material without having three cut aways – the show lost the magic that could be found in that first episode.
Now I know what your thinking, “but John shows evolve, they always move on and find a formula that works down the road and then stick to that.” And you’d be right, shows do take time to find what works best for them. But that’s not what we get from Family Guy. It’s almost as if MacFarlane was angry at fans for making it return to broadcast cable, and was making them pay by putting out some of the most unfunny things he could imagine. And since the show was brought back due to unparalleled fan support (you heard that right Firefly fans), no matter how bad the show gets Fox is almost terrified to ever pull the plug again.
The show still focuses on the Griffin family from small town Quohog, Rhode Island, and they’re still as dysfunctional as ever. While I’m sure a description is unnecessary for a show like Family Guy, which has become such a high profile cartoon, it’s your standard set-up. A bafoon of a father, a hot wife, who for some reason married the rotund oaf, an also somewhat bafoon of a son, a shy awkward daughter, an infant wanting to take over the world and a dog who loves himself a dry martini. Well, I guess it’s an average set-up if you exclude the last two.
There are a few episodes that harken back to the shows glory days. Episodes like “The Father, The Sun and The Holy Fonz,” “You May Now Kiss the… uh… Guy Who Receives,” “The Griffin Family History” (the first time in a long time where their flashbacks actually matter to the central plot) and “The Courtship of Stewie’s Father.” All of which hold many of the values and laurels that anchored the show during its first run on the air. Where Peter did absurd things that he believed to be sound ideas, Stewie only cared about world domination, and the demise of Louise and Brian was always the voice of reason. These all got lost when the show returned, instead Peter became a bafoon even dumber than he was before, Brian started acting like Peter, and Stewie became effeminate incarnate.
There is just too much working against this set of episodes, from unfunny musical numbers that feel out of place to obscure pop culture references that are hardly ever worth the pay off – and are at times so obscure even kids from the 80’s will be looking names, shows, and products up on Google. But the biggest problem with this season has to do with writers stretching jokes to a point where viewers are either rolling their eyes or are just baffled that anyone could actually write such unfunny material. Combine all that with a complete lack of care for central plotlines in favor of cut aways that cause for an uneven episode and you’ll get what was once the future of late night animation and turn it in to yet another show that fizzles away due to its own belief that pandering to its audience is the best move to make.
In an old interview MacFarlane said that the cancellation was the best thing to happen to the show, because then it let the audience find it at their own pace, and once the fan base was there they could carry on with what they were doing without the constant fear of cancellation. But I guess what he was really saying was that he wanted a fan base that would eat up every single word he wrote down and never have to be creative again. Essentially, he wanted to get paid for doing something where it didn’t matter if it was good or bad because there was already people lapping up every last word.
The flaws of Family Guy really begin to show when watching episodes one after another; it’s almost as if the writers love referencing old formulaic sitcoms, so much that they themselves wanted to fall into a painfully obvious formula as some kind of inside joke. Even Matt Stone and Trey Parker enjoyed pointing out the shows clearly present faults during their two part “Cartoon Wars” episode in which we discover that manatees wrote the show. Family Guy just doesn’t aim to be different any more; they aren’t trying to be controversial or attempting to produce smart jokes, and they certainly aren’t worried about being cancelled again. They’re literally coasting by on their former success. Rarely do they ever seem to be putting the same amount of effort they did back when they were fighting with the FCC, Fox and everyone else who held any power over whether or not the show would continue. It was then that they were at their prime, coming up with ingenious ways to get by censors, still trying to find new ways to pull in viewers and working for their laughs rather than going for the cheap ones.
An annoying bit of information I discovered while researching this title revealed that yet again the release strategy by Fox has managed to once more leave the set incomplete. As many people know, the Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story DVD was a three episode arc, which was later aired as part of the season four finale. And yet this set, which was suppose to be the remaining episodes from season four, manages to end on the episode that aired the week before those final ones. Meaning that when volume five comes out it will surely follow this same marketing strategy to milk as much money from consumers and fans of the series as possible.
Here is a list of all the episodes available in the set*:
PTV, Brian Goes Back to College, The Courtship of Stewie’s Father, The Fat Guy Strangler, The Father, the Son and the Holy Fonz, Brian Sings and Swings, Patriot Games, I Take Thee Quagmire, Sibling Rivalry, Deep Throats, Peterotica, You May Now Kiss the…uh…Guy Who Receives, Petergeist, The Griffin Family History.
*Titles in bold include an alternate uncensored audio track.
Video:
(Presented in 1.33:1 Fullframe)
The series doesn’t use much in terms of complicated animation. Sure, there is the occasional digital effect, but for the most part all you see are basic drawings with pastel colors. The DVD reproduces this style choice quite nicely. However, there is a problem with black lines where they become jagged and distracting from the viewing experience, which tends to happen with almost all animated shows on DVD.
Audio:
(English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround)
If there’s one thing you can’t fault Family Guy on, it’s the musical scores that are recorded for each show. There’s something about these simple musical cues that add an entirely new layer to the show, and they’re presented though all five speakers giving off a very nice surround sound. The voices actors are always clearly audible through the front speakers, as well.
Extras:
14 Episode Length Commentaries – Here we get series creator Seth MacFarlane, Producers, Directors, Writers, and on occasion members of the cast to sit down and talk about each episode. These are certainly better than the last batch of commentary tracks from volume three. We find out little bits of information sprinkled throughout all fourteen tracks; like how the elongated jokes aren’t meant for laughter, simply to make the shows required run time because the animatics ran short. It’s a shame they couldn’t get Robert Downey Jr. to sit in for his episode like they did with James Woods last time.
Multi-angle Scenes are available on “PTV,” “Brian Goes Back to College,” “Patriot Games” and “Sibling Rivalry.” These basically compare the final version with its animatic counterpart. This will surely please those who like this type of special feature, but for everyone else they’ll probably push the menu button after a minute or so.
Deleted Scenes (14:38) – With over 40 deleted scenes being promoted on the back of the DVD packaging, you’d probably be expecting a whole pile of material to sit through, but no. This section of the DVD goes by very quickly. Half of them are clearly throwaways, but some are very funny. Included are a few dropped subplots, riffs on old commercials (Folgers Coffee) and some digs at long forgotten celebrities (the 1980’s cast of SNL).
A Director’s Life: Debunking the Myth (13:51) – It’s nice to see them talk about the multiple stages of putting together a single episode, and how long it takes to go from conceptions to a final version. But it’s too bad all of the information is rushed to under fifteen minutes. We see the shows go from script form, on to starboards, the animatic stage, timing the frames, sending the information off the Korea to animate the show, and eventually all the way down to getting the final product. What you get here is most of the basic knowledge that people already knew and a small amount of new insight, but with a feature like this they could have really expanded on. Still, what is here will make you appreciate all the things that go in to making a single animated show.
Peter Shin Draws Stewie (4:47) – The title of this one is a clear indicator of what goes on here.
Behind the Scenes: A Glimpse into the ‘Family Guy’ Office (7:14) – This piece features Adam West, and that alone makes it the most important thing in the entire box set. Mr. West and Mike Henry (voices of Cleveland, Herbert and Greased-Up Deaf Guy) tour the Family Guy Offices and take a look at just about every stage of direction that was talked about in the previous feature. But strangely enough, not a single director is around.
