A not entirely bad episode, really, and the cameos were pretty funny.
King of the Hill: B+
This show is still pretty damned good, I liked the way that the three storylines converged at the end there, and Officer Brown might be my new favorite minor supporting character.
Family Guy: D
When did this show stop being funny? Jesus. I'm having a hard time remembering half of the jokes, and Chris's voice is too annoying for him to work as a major character.
American Dad: WD
I fell asleep halfway through this, sorry, but I didn't feel like starting three threads. What I saw was pretty good, though, which is pretty consistent with the show as a whole. I would very much like to think that Seth MacFarlane makes Family Guy as mediocre as possible just so that he can make his other shows actually good. That's my unsubstantiated crackpot theory, at least.
A not entirely bad episode, really, and the cameos were pretty funny.
So in your grading system a B means "bad" and B- means "not entirely bad?" Because when you grade something a B it usually means it's good. The Simpsons this week was a pretty decent episode with some good jokes. A B-, "good minus", is a fairly apt grade for it. But it's just SO HARD for people to say The Simpsons is good these days. It either sucks or didn't suck as much as it usually does, but it still sucks.
The AQUARIUM STOPS SELLING ALCOHOL picture of Homer fighting the octopus is one of the funniest sight gags of Homer fighting an animal. That cracked me up. It's right up there with my favorite, the pic of a kangaroo punching Homer.
Family Guy was not bad and it was great relative to most of the rest of this season.
With the car-chase / looting scene, they were clearly trying to re-create the gold they produced with the first Chicken Fight - an over-the-top, extremely long and drawn-out moment that will be remembered for years to come as a quintessential Family Guy moment. They were close. They were just missing that one key piece that would have put it truly over-the-top, as “chicken...gave me...bad coupon” did with the Chicken Fight.
The bullfrog scene, however, was fantastic and is definitely in one of the top tiers of Family Guy moments.
Gotta agree with Mr Shh, this was a *lot* better FG than last week, and most of the season. The bullfrog was awesome, as was Brian at the vet's at the end of the episode. I was surprised there was no appearance from Seamus, though.
"As you may have read in Robert Parker's Wine Newsletter, 'Donaghy Estates tastes like the urine of Satan, after a hefty portion of asparagus.'" Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
I suppose I've just grown tired of the overly long gag showing up in every episode, then, because when that happened it was just, "Oh, they're doing one of these again."
At least it wasn't Stewie giving Brian shit over his novel for five minutes.
I was disappointed that in AD when Roger was on the toilet that somehow the golden gem-studded turd didn't make a reappearance.
Otherwise I was entertained for the 45 or so minutes it took to watch the two shows. And really that's all I ask for. I guess I grade tv on a pass/fail system.
Originally posted by AlexI suppose I've just grown tired of the overly long gag showing up in every episode, then, because when that happened it was just, "Oh, they're doing one of these again."
At least it wasn't Stewie giving Brian shit over his novel for five minutes.
While I agree with your point about FG overusing the drawn-out gags, that novel bit was one of the funniest gags ever. "And the protagonist will learn something, be a better person, hmmmm?"
“How is it that I am a good actor? What I do is I... pretend to be the person I’m portraying. You’re confused. Case in point: in Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson comes to me and says ‘I would like you to be Gandalf the Wizard,’ and I said ‘You are aware that I am not really a wizard?’ and Peter Jackson said ‘I would like you to use your acting skills to portray a wizard for the duration of the show.’ So I said ‘Okay’ and then I said to myself ‘Mmm.. How do I do that?’ And this is what I did: I imagined that I was a wizard, and then I pretended, and acted, in that way on the stage. How did I know what to say? The words were written down for me in a script. How did I know where to stand? People told me where to stand." -- Sir Ian McKellen, Extras
I spent my productive day at work researching my theory and it was ultimately wrong. Apparently one of the comics that go along with show featured the elder Petrilli in Vietnam is some documents about Project Longwolf.