It's the topic of much heated debate, both here and elsewhere, and since I've been studying the show a lot lately (both pre-cancellation and post-renewal), I think it's time for me to collect my thoughts in one thread.
First of all, nobody can deny that "Family Guy" in 2005 was a different show compared to "Family Guy" in 2002. The writing style became decidedly different after the revival, focusing less on plot and character and more on longer sequences and cutaways that were tangential to the main story at best. It became a hodge-podge sort of show, where people are bound to remember individual parts more than they remember the whole. The plots themselves held less weight after the revival, with very little regard for characterization. If the script calls for it, characters can become much more harsh and severely different, only to revert to their usual selves moments later. This development has led to many fans becoming disenchanted with the show, and I know that I watched the early Season 4 episodes wondering why I was expected to remain interested in each episode for 30 minutes if the plot wasn't going to be resolved and the characters weren't going to be used to the best of their ability.
For an example, let's use 4ACX19 "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", an episode that I actually have a personal attachment to - I own the first draft of its script, personally autographed by Seth MacFarlane himself. And it should be noted that the episode's second act changed significantly between first draft and air time. Originally, the bonding between Peter and Stewie was much more natural; there was a scene where the two of them exact revenge on a bullying child's father at the playground by smashing the father's car together, something they both enjoyed. In the final episode, however, the two grow closer by pulling pranks on Lois, which range from throwing a jar of pickles at her head to spraying her with the garden hose while she's on the toilet to locking her in the trunk of the car and dumping the car in a lake. Now, it's perfectly understandable to me that Stewie would enjoy these things, since it's within his character - he's been trying to kill Lois since the very first episode, so why shouldn't he enjoy seeing her suffer? But there's really no reason for Peter to get a kick out of any of this. After all, this is his wife we're talking about. Peter has been known to be inconsiderate, but never to this extreme. Certainly, the writers thought it would be unexpected by the audience and therefore funny, but instead, it just comes across as cruel and out of character for Peter, and it makes the plot feel forced and contrived.
Then there's the problem of long, drawn-out scenes that wear out their welcome. These exist both as cutaways and as regular scenes, and one can usually suspect that they exist to pad out the story when there isn't enough content to fill the 22-minute requirement, but they generally become the scenes that people remember the most from any given episode, for better or for worse. Again, I can use 4ACX19 as an example, comparing it against the first draft - the extended sequence where Brian does the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dance does not appear in the original script. Given its complete lack of significance to the plot and the extended length of it, it is perhaps a good assumption that it was added to lengthen the show. Admittedly, this is not the worst offender in this field, as numerous other scenes from the post-renewal episodes are even longer. Observe the reprise of the Peter vs. Chicken fight from 4ACX04 "Blind Ambition", the "You Have AIDS" song from 4ACX08 "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire", Stewie's two "You gonna finish your novel?" runs from 4ACX10 "Brian the Bachelor", the ipecac sequence from 4ACX11 "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", Stewie punching Will Ferrell from 4ACX16 "Jungle Love", and - perhaps most notorious - the three-minute Osama Bin Laden/Naked Gun filler opening from 4ACX17 "PTV", which MacFarlane openly admits exists only because the episode ran short. If the shows are coming in three to four minutes under length, someone in the writers' room isn't doing their job.
That sums up the plotting problems, but what about the characters? Most of them have become pale imitations of their pre-cancellation selves. Peter originally existed as a father who didn't have a clue but still wanted to do the right thing, as evidenced by his actions in episodes like 1ACX04 "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" and 2ACX04 "Let's Go To the Hop". Now, he has become a one-dimensional fool who cares only for himself and never learns a lesson from his behavior. Stewie was once an evil genius who would stop at nothing to enact his plans, and held a strong matricidal vendetta against Lois. Now, except for a few isolated incidents, these malicious tendencies have all but been eradicated, as Stewie mostly exists for thinly-veiled gay jokes. And indeed, the matricidal part of Stewie's personality seems to have been eliminated completely in the aftermath of 5ACX17 "Stewie Kills Lois"/5ACX18 "Lois Kills Stewie". And of course, we cannot forget Meg, the family's eternal punching bag, who exists in this manner purely because the writers don't know how to write for teenage girls. There was once a time when at least Lois would stand up for her and offer her the respect she asks for, as seen in 3ACX05 "A Fish Out Of Water" or 2ACX22 "And The Wiener Is...", but now she's just as openly hateful towards her daughter as Peter has become. This running gag has surpassed the point of dark humor and now just reads as pointless cruelty aimed at a character who doesn't deserve it. If anything, the characters on this show are puppets, who are made to do anything that the writers darn well please, even if it doesn't match who the writers have already established that they are.
So in the wake of all this show's problems, what good can be said about it? Well, the voice acting is certainly among the finest on TV today. Seth MacFarlane, regardless of his writing abilities, is an absolutely brilliant voice actor with a greatly impressive range - a casual fan might not even know that he fills the roles of both Peter, Brian, Stewie, and Quagmire, and let's not forget that the man can really sing. Alex Borstein's voice for Lois comes off as annoying at first, but her range of emotions are impressive - it's too bad that the scripts generally require her to remain at the "outraged" level. Seth Green brings a certain likable dopiness to Chris, while Mila Kunis accurately portrays the levels of stress and exasperation that play such a large role in Meg's life (if anything positive can be said about this aspect of the writing, that is). On a technical level, the animation on the show has improved significantly since the renewal, as little digital and CGI touches show up in every episode that at least make the show fun to look at, even if it's not entertaining to watch (if that makes sense). It's a great improvement over the lower-quality animation of the first three seasons, wherein the line quality would occasionally become rough and digitized during still moments.
It's an uneven balance, to be sure. The vocal and animation talents on the show perhaps deserve to be put to better use on more solid scripts that make us care about the characters and their situations. I've only scratched the surface here - there are underlying issues to the show that lead to even deeper discussion. What are your thoughts?
First of all, nobody can deny that "Family Guy" in 2005 was a different show compared to "Family Guy" in 2002. The writing style became decidedly different after the revival, focusing less on plot and character and more on longer sequences and cutaways that were tangential to the main story at best. It became a hodge-podge sort of show, where people are bound to remember individual parts more than they remember the whole. The plots themselves held less weight after the revival, with very little regard for characterization. If the script calls for it, characters can become much more harsh and severely different, only to revert to their usual selves moments later. This development has led to many fans becoming disenchanted with the show, and I know that I watched the early Season 4 episodes wondering why I was expected to remain interested in each episode for 30 minutes if the plot wasn't going to be resolved and the characters weren't going to be used to the best of their ability.
For an example, let's use 4ACX19 "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", an episode that I actually have a personal attachment to - I own the first draft of its script, personally autographed by Seth MacFarlane himself. And it should be noted that the episode's second act changed significantly between first draft and air time. Originally, the bonding between Peter and Stewie was much more natural; there was a scene where the two of them exact revenge on a bullying child's father at the playground by smashing the father's car together, something they both enjoyed. In the final episode, however, the two grow closer by pulling pranks on Lois, which range from throwing a jar of pickles at her head to spraying her with the garden hose while she's on the toilet to locking her in the trunk of the car and dumping the car in a lake. Now, it's perfectly understandable to me that Stewie would enjoy these things, since it's within his character - he's been trying to kill Lois since the very first episode, so why shouldn't he enjoy seeing her suffer? But there's really no reason for Peter to get a kick out of any of this. After all, this is his wife we're talking about. Peter has been known to be inconsiderate, but never to this extreme. Certainly, the writers thought it would be unexpected by the audience and therefore funny, but instead, it just comes across as cruel and out of character for Peter, and it makes the plot feel forced and contrived.
Then there's the problem of long, drawn-out scenes that wear out their welcome. These exist both as cutaways and as regular scenes, and one can usually suspect that they exist to pad out the story when there isn't enough content to fill the 22-minute requirement, but they generally become the scenes that people remember the most from any given episode, for better or for worse. Again, I can use 4ACX19 as an example, comparing it against the first draft - the extended sequence where Brian does the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dance does not appear in the original script. Given its complete lack of significance to the plot and the extended length of it, it is perhaps a good assumption that it was added to lengthen the show. Admittedly, this is not the worst offender in this field, as numerous other scenes from the post-renewal episodes are even longer. Observe the reprise of the Peter vs. Chicken fight from 4ACX04 "Blind Ambition", the "You Have AIDS" song from 4ACX08 "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire", Stewie's two "You gonna finish your novel?" runs from 4ACX10 "Brian the Bachelor", the ipecac sequence from 4ACX11 "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", Stewie punching Will Ferrell from 4ACX16 "Jungle Love", and - perhaps most notorious - the three-minute Osama Bin Laden/Naked Gun filler opening from 4ACX17 "PTV", which MacFarlane openly admits exists only because the episode ran short. If the shows are coming in three to four minutes under length, someone in the writers' room isn't doing their job.
That sums up the plotting problems, but what about the characters? Most of them have become pale imitations of their pre-cancellation selves. Peter originally existed as a father who didn't have a clue but still wanted to do the right thing, as evidenced by his actions in episodes like 1ACX04 "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" and 2ACX04 "Let's Go To the Hop". Now, he has become a one-dimensional fool who cares only for himself and never learns a lesson from his behavior. Stewie was once an evil genius who would stop at nothing to enact his plans, and held a strong matricidal vendetta against Lois. Now, except for a few isolated incidents, these malicious tendencies have all but been eradicated, as Stewie mostly exists for thinly-veiled gay jokes. And indeed, the matricidal part of Stewie's personality seems to have been eliminated completely in the aftermath of 5ACX17 "Stewie Kills Lois"/5ACX18 "Lois Kills Stewie". And of course, we cannot forget Meg, the family's eternal punching bag, who exists in this manner purely because the writers don't know how to write for teenage girls. There was once a time when at least Lois would stand up for her and offer her the respect she asks for, as seen in 3ACX05 "A Fish Out Of Water" or 2ACX22 "And The Wiener Is...", but now she's just as openly hateful towards her daughter as Peter has become. This running gag has surpassed the point of dark humor and now just reads as pointless cruelty aimed at a character who doesn't deserve it. If anything, the characters on this show are puppets, who are made to do anything that the writers darn well please, even if it doesn't match who the writers have already established that they are.
So in the wake of all this show's problems, what good can be said about it? Well, the voice acting is certainly among the finest on TV today. Seth MacFarlane, regardless of his writing abilities, is an absolutely brilliant voice actor with a greatly impressive range - a casual fan might not even know that he fills the roles of both Peter, Brian, Stewie, and Quagmire, and let's not forget that the man can really sing. Alex Borstein's voice for Lois comes off as annoying at first, but her range of emotions are impressive - it's too bad that the scripts generally require her to remain at the "outraged" level. Seth Green brings a certain likable dopiness to Chris, while Mila Kunis accurately portrays the levels of stress and exasperation that play such a large role in Meg's life (if anything positive can be said about this aspect of the writing, that is). On a technical level, the animation on the show has improved significantly since the renewal, as little digital and CGI touches show up in every episode that at least make the show fun to look at, even if it's not entertaining to watch (if that makes sense). It's a great improvement over the lower-quality animation of the first three seasons, wherein the line quality would occasionally become rough and digitized during still moments.
It's an uneven balance, to be sure. The vocal and animation talents on the show perhaps deserve to be put to better use on more solid scripts that make us care about the characters and their situations. I've only scratched the surface here - there are underlying issues to the show that lead to even deeper discussion. What are your thoughts?