3. The Jokes Have Become Stale
As well as the lazy cut-aways becoming stale and tiresome, so too have the characters that inhabit Quahog. Peter's idiocy and border-line retardation is simply no longer amusing, I no longer laugh when Meg gets abused and yet again fails to stand up for herself, Chris has become almost invisible and Stewie has been reduced to little more than a running gay joke. Then there are the 'supporting characters', like Quagmire - "oh, what controversial/sexist/obscene thing is he going to do next?" and the resident paedophile Herbert, whose regular preying on Spooner St's children has gone from tongue-in-cheek to flat out creepy (seriously, why hasn't he been arrested yet?). A lot of the jokes that used to bring these characters to life simply no longer stick.