Family Guy: Back To The Woods
By fred | February 18, 2008
(S06E09) I know! It’s been such a long time since we’ve had a new Family Guy to watch on Sunday, it’s like the season was over already, only it wasn’t. But now that the strike is over, we might get a few more episodes. I was really happy to see the show coming back, since I really like it and obviously I missed those Sunday laughs.
So I was awaiting this episode and, yes, I had expectations for it. Nothing too crazy though, just your regular expectations for a show like this one : I wanted it to be funny, I wanted to laugh my ass off for half an hour or so. I don’t know how you were before sitting in to watch it, but if you were like me, then I feel sorry for you, I really do.
Since quite obviously, now that I watched it, I’m depressed. I am, because this one sucked. It really did, and it’s a real shame that this was the first episode we got back, cause now I think I felt better without Family Guy, at least I wasn’t incredibly disappointed.
Okay so before going any further, I should say that it wasn’t all bad, and yes some of the jokes made me laugh, that’s right. But overall this was a highly disappointing episode, and most of the time I’m afraid to say it wasn’t really funny.
One thing “special” about this episode, one thing it had that usually Family Guy episode don’t have, is a main story stretching over the entire episode. This is not the first they’ve done this, and I’m pretty sure that the results were already not that great in the past, so why do they keep coming back at it ??
No, Family Guy does not have a main story for the entire episode, no Family Guy episodes does not have an embedded message about anything, yes, they’re just a succession of random jokes and pop culture references spread over half an hour, and yes it led to come critics and jokes, starting with the famous South Park episodes about how the show is written by manatees.
But you know what ? There’s nothing wrong with that ! Maybe there’s nothing more than random jokes put all together, but that’s alright because it’s freaking funny ! I don’t want to sit back & watch this show to get any kind of message or to see one story for half an hour, I do because I want to laugh, I do because I want it to be funny for half an hour, and I don’t mind it that it comes with random jokes all put together with meaning or story. I love it even! So bring me back my Family Guy !
Because this episode may have had one single story throughout the entire episode, but it came with a cost. Jokes. That’s what the cost was : they traded jokes for a story, and instead of laughing out loud moments we got boredom.
Now sure a few jokes did work, and yes it was cool to see James Woods himself being an evil-guest on the show, but I would trade all that for a bunch of random meaningless but funny jokes any time. There’s no question there.
Now to stay on a good note, some things did make me laugh, though. But not much. I liked the line “Coming up, important traffic news that can’t help you because you’re someplace where a TV is.” Not laughing out loud shit, but funny nevertheless.
I’ve laughed out loud at the cheap laser eye surgery commercial. Not so much the commercial itself, but the emphasis on how Jewish the doc was : “Fully Licensed, Fully Trained, Fully Jewish! (…) Jewish!! Jewish!!”
Now I said I liked James Woods as a guest. It was nice, yes, but I’ll also say that it wasn’t really funny either. Might be me, but as far as I’m concerned I barely laughed at all during any of his scenes. Things like the last scene and how Peter & Brian trapped him was more stupid than funny. Scratch that, it wasn’t funny at all. I did like, however, the scene with Meg and “Mr Pukky”. Not the scene in itself, long and not funny in my opinion, but as hey say, Meg’s reaction to his “When did Reese Witherspoon get here ?” was priceless!
All that said, the absolute best scene of this episode featured no other than Brian. Seeing him chasing the squirrel like the dog he really is, only to go : “What the Hell!!? This rope was a lot longer and now it’s somehow gotten shorter ! What sort of Black Magic is this ??” had me rolling on the floor laughing !! It was awesome, and the cherry on top of it came a little after with Peter : “What are you doing tied to Meg’s pole !?”
See, it wasn’t all bad. But mostly. I really hope writers of this show will stop trying to have a message or one main story, because they’re not good at that. They are not, and it’s not a problem, there’s no shame to it, not when you can do a show that’s hilarious for half an hour every week. And at that they’re good, so here’s to hoping they’ll stick with what they’re good at!
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Family Guy
I and everyone I know agrees!