Kinder To Cancel? The Case Against Family Guy

family-guy-family-guy-32854281-1920-1080 One thing we all understand is that a lot of the time, network TV executives really don't know what they're doing. There have been more shows cancelled that should have been renewed than I can count, and frankly, some of the shows they've greenlighted for successive seasons should have been drowned at birth. But there is always the last gasp, the final possiblity, the one-plan-so-crazy-it-might-just-work that can pull a show back from the dead. It can be a concerted fan appeal or campaign, or a sudden renewed interest in the topic, or favourable video sales. Or maybe their dark overlord just commands it. But there have been shows that have come back from the brink, back from the grave, and that's just great. Isn't it? Well, sure... everyone deserves a second chance. Don't they? Well, it does trouble me that I have seen more than one instance of a show being cancelled, then renewed whereupon it just goes completely off the rails. Maybe it's a sense of overconfidence on the part of the writers/producers - we're untouchable now; they wouldn't dare cancel us again - maybe they realise that the network are now committed to keeping the show on the air. Maybe they think well the fans love us so much, we can write anything and they'll still watch. Or maybe they just get lazy. Whatever the reason, it has certainly been the case that some shows, having come "back from the dead," sadly fail to live (back) up to the promise of their original run and make us wish sometimes that they had stayed cancelled. In this occasional series I'll be looking at some of these shows, asking why they were cancelled, why they came back and most importantly, what went wrong after that? And finally, does this provide the argument that they should now be put out of their misery, completely cancelled, a stake driven through the heart to make sure they never come back? In other words, having had their chance and blew it, do they deserve to be back on our TV screens? The first example I want to look at is a somewhat polarising show, you may have heard of it, little thing called Family Guy. When this show began I was initially wary. Adult animated humour was pretty much cornered off by the giants, the Simpsons and South Park, and the much-mooted Simpsons spinoff, Futurama, was just around the corner. Did we need another animated show? And at least South Park and the Simpsons were wildly different: Family Guy looked suspiciously familiar. Family unit, stupid dad, mom the brains of the family, cute baby, A son who looked to be an amalgam of Homer and Bart and a daughter. Yeah, on the very surface, a lot like the Simpsons. Of course, as it turned out the Griffins were nothing at all like the Simpsons. You could certainly draw similarities between Homer and Peter, even Marge and Lois, but really that was about it. It was in fact quite groundbreaking in its own way. The baby was an evil genius, and we were never sure if anyone other than Brian could hear his speeches. Brian was a dog, but unlike Santa's Little Helper he actually spoke. Indeed, he walked upright and behaved mostly like a human, and everyone could clearly hear what he said. Chris and Meg were, and remained, pretty much filler, almost what we call in the gaming world NPCs (Non Player Characters, for the less geekish among you) - generally they were there to be talked at or about, often abused and added little or nothing to most storylines. The plots invariably revolved around Peter and then, increasingly, Stewie the baby and Brian the dog, who slowly began to become identified with each other, as something of a team. But you know the way the show went, and in 1999 it hit our screens having a lot to prove, but slowly found its feet and after surviving the inevitable comparisons made its own way in the world. Then, just as it was getting good, Fox cancelled it. Boo. Click "next" to continue reading...
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Born and raised in Dublin Ireland, I worked for almost 30 years in the freight industry but took voluntary redundancy in 2009 to look after my sister, and discovered I had suddenly more free time on my hands. That's when I started contributing to online blogs such as Music Banter, and recently joined WhatCulture. A big sci-fi geek, I love Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Dr Who and many others as well as Red Dwarf, Buffy/Angel and so on. Love to write and express my views, and I always feel a but of humour never goes amiss. Big animal lover with three cats, and finally came into the 21st century by buying a HD TV! Yay!