1. No One Will Take Future Deaths Seriously Anymore
Deaths in television - particularly in animation - are rapidly losing their effect because of shows like Family Guy. When once a dramatic death spelt the end of a character arc, and left fans in mourning, now, viewers half expect them to be getting up to their usual antics again two weeks later. What's going to happen the next time Seth MacFarlane wants to kill off a character for real? He's done it before, with newsreader Diane Simmons and Mort Goldman's wife Muriel - neither of whom have been seen again since biting the bullet - except now, nobody's going to take it seriously "because Brian came back, and so can they". MacFarlane has destroyed all possibility for the ultimate penalty in Family Guy, and from this point on, no character can ever be killed off again with any degree of seriousness attached. Maybe Brian should have survived the car accident and rallied at the veterinary surgery, maybe it shouldn't have happened at all. Perhaps MacFarlane could even have embraced the canine's demise and taken Family Guy in a new direction. In the end, neither happened, and Bringing Brian Back From The Dead Was A Mistake.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
