Does anybody actually have any respect for Family Guy anymore? The once hilarious animated sitcom that brought Seth MacFarlane into the limelight now stands as the prime example of a show that needs to go off the air as soon as possible. It's not just that the plots are lazy and uninspired, or the jokes (if you can call them that) don't even have proper punchlines; it's more to do with the fact that nobody working on Family Guy seems to care. Episodes come and go with little fanfare, after all, and the writers clearly don't respect their fans. Remember when they killed off Brian Griffin in an attempt to boost ratings? Even more annoyingly, the show frequently riffs on classic movies in the least imaginable way possible - by just having the Family Guy characters in place of the original characters. No jokes; no clever twists - just a shot-for-shot rendering of a famous scene, void of humour. Family Guy is a shambles of the highest order - the TV equivalent of an embarrassing uncle who can't help making things awkward. After 13 seasons (most of which have been lackluster), enough is enough. Even Seth MacFarlane has admitted that his show is well past its prime (he saw the high-point as sometime around season three, and he'd be right). At least Matt Groening seems to genuinely believes that The Simpsons is as good as it ever was.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
