Family Guy: Volume 9

Having given up on watching Family Guy regularly long ago, I hadn't seen an episode of the show in over two years prior to this thirteen-episode DVD volume. When I last checked in with an opinion, I focused negatively on two very separate issues. One has only gotten worse, but the much more important one has actually shown signs of improvement in an interesting way. So let's cut to the chase.

The time gap between when episodes originally aired and when they get released on DVD has only gotten worse. In my last post, I was a bit annoyed that a DVD released in the summer of 2010 didn't contain any episodes from 2010 on it. Now, in the summer of 2012, I just watched a DVD set that began right where that previous one ended: with an episode that aired in 2009. This ninth volume, like all Family Guy DVD volumes since the show's rebirth, contained thirteen episodes. So I was able just now to catch up on every episode through the third one in the 2010-2011 TV season. Consider that there have now been two full seasons that have aired, minus those three episodes included on this DVD. That's something like 40 episodes, which is three "volumes" worth of Family Guy, stored up in some kind of strange buffer vault. For whatever reason, the show is only releasing thirteen episodes on DVD every year even though they're airing more than 20. I know the idea of TV shows on DVD is a dying concept, fading fast to the likes of streaming, Netflix, and On Demand, but I can't understand why there's such a delay at this point between air dates and DVD dates. The gap will only continue to grow unless they increase either the number of episodes per volume or the frequency of volume release dates. A minor issue, I know, but a strangely frustrating one all the same.

Now, more importantly, credit where credit is due. I've long been a critic (like so many others) of the level of effort put forth by the Family Guy writers ever since the show's return from cancellation. It seems like the quality of the once hilarious show has diminished slowly year after year while the show has grown more and more reliant on irreverent cutaway gags, shock humor revolving around edgy issues, and lazy political, sexual, and racial jokes. I mean, yes, I've grown up a bit in the past ten years, and personal tastes change over time, but there's been a clear and undeniable downward slope. But among these thirteen episodes, I saw some indications that the show is freshening up its act a bit. There were genuine signs of creativity and a willingness to explore uncharted waters. One memorable episode focused exclusively on Brian and Stewie locked in a bank vault for forty-eight hours. It didn't use a single cutaway gag and it never shifted its focus to anything happening anywhere outside the vault. It was as if Seth MacFarlane decided to respond directly to critics of the over-use of cutaways by, you know, showing he could make a decent episode of Family Guy without a single one. Another episode had Chris dating a girl with Downs Syndrome. I was worried right off the bat that about how hard and how frequently the show would take stabs at that low, low, low-hanging fruit, and I was pleasantly surprised when they avoided those easy "retard jokes" almost entirely, fleshing out the character with a bit of dignity instead. Another episode - the one that lends the DVD set its cover image, seen above - was an hour-long murder mystery with absolutely impeccable production value and a legitimately genre-appropriate background score. This episode also saw the deaths of several minor characters from the Family Guy universe, which can at least be taken as a sign that the show is willing to shake things up and move toward new territory.

Overall, I was impressed by this ninth volume of the show. There were still plenty of cringe-inducing nonsensical gags and plenty of jokes that felt far more insensitive than funny, but the ratio of "times I hated that I was watching Family Guy" to "times I was interested in what Family Guy was doing" was at the lowest point it's been in years. Plus, as much as I pounce on the show's dick-and-fart-joke humor, there are times when it really works just fine. I guess I'm looking forward to where the show goes next with this seemingly new-found willingness to do new things. Or more accurately, I guess I'm looking forward to seeing where the show went in the fall of 2010. If anyone out there has seen any episodes in the past two years, weigh in on this. Were they any good? Is my optimism justified? Or is the show as stale, rotten, and unfunny as its ever been?