6. Back To The Pilot
Season: 10
Episode: 5
Original Air Date: November 13th, 2011 We certainly do see a lot of wild plots in Family Guy episodes, especially when it comes to Stewie and Brian being able to travel through time and space on several occasions, but in this episode, it was done in a funny, self-deprecating way, which was nice. Brian asks Stewie if they can use Stewie's time machine to travel back and find a tennis ball that Brian buried in the family's backyard. Stewie asks what date the ball was buried, and Brian says January 31st, 1999. Sounds innocent enough, but that is the date the pilot episode of Family Guy first aired on television. They arrive on the date, and they immediately notice how different everything was, giving them ripe opportunity to pretty much rip everything about the pilot episode apart. The family pauses more frequently for random cutaway gags, and then just stand around and wait for the gag to be over. The family is watching TV on a set that clearly isn't even plugged in. Meg's voice is completely different (she was originally voiced by actress Lacey Chabert, before it was switched to Mila Kunis doing the voice, and Stewie mentions that the early version of Meg sounds like "someone who's about to give up a huge opportunity"). The rest of the episode gets weirder and weirder, as Brian and Stewie must find a way to travel back to the present after their transportation device's batteries begin running low, but without altering the past in any way, shape, or form as that could have a drastic effect on the present. If you think that stops it from happening, though, you simply don't know much about the show. Brian tells his 1999 self about the September 11th attacks and how to stop them. 1999 Brian stops the attacks and becomes a hero, but when President George W. Bush loses the 2004 election, he returns to Texas and reforms the confederacy with other southern states, and the country falls into its second Civil War. Brian and Stewie are forced to travel into the future to see what damage has been done, and they find out over 17 million people died in the war, and when they return to the past so that current Brian can stop himself from telling 1999 Brian about the attack, Brian screws up again and ends up plagiarizing the entire Harry Potter book series. It goes on and on with Stewies and Brians from all throughout time continuously showing up to prevent other Stewies and Brians from messing anything up. It ends up being a convoluted storyline, but the writing was sharp, and they were able to keep making fun of themselves, making it all worthwhile.