Inside the Tube: "Family Guy" Edition - "Tom Tucker: The Man and His Dream" - (Season 10, Episode 13)

Though I am absolutely 1,000% positive that Seth MacFarlane and the team that produces Family Guy would hate me for saying so (and probably torch my arse in retaliation), I fear that I must: Family Guy has become the Mitt Romney of Television Animation.

It has every reason to succeed: the backing of a major television studio (owned by Rupert Murdoch, no less), legions of viewers who have followed it closely in the past and thereby making it a highly known quantity, and above all, the brilliantly talented cast whose dialogue delivery leaves nothing to be desired.

And yet they just can't seem to close the deal this season. Yet another case in point: after a fairly strong episode a couple of weeks ago where Lois intervenes to save a dying child from his religious zealot parents who shun medical care in favor of prayer, the show made the same mistake in Sunday night's episode that it has been making since the start of the season. It took a relatively minor character (Tom Tucker) and made him the modus operandi of the episode.

I realize that there are only so many romantic disasters Meg can endure. There are also only so many gross teen jokes about Chris's body odor and masturbation habits the writers can create. And last I heard, Rush Limbaugh is no longer interested in voicing himself on the show (Amen!).

But the show has shown now consistently for months that the spark is gone and that the comic brilliance that was once its hallmark in seasons past is now only an intermittent accident when it actually does happen. As MacFarlane hinted not too long ago, it may be time for the show to wrap up . . . at least before it descends into a Simpsons-esque void of irrelevance. The shark has not only been jumped, it's been vaulted, catapulted, and shot-putted.

Kudos to the episode, though, for trying to make its B-storyline somewhat interesting: seeing Chris date the younger doppelganger of his mother was pretty funny, especially given the fact that Lois didn't seem to notice the physical resemblance at first when everyone else did at first glance. Too bad the show decided to make this the B storyline instead of the A storyline. Peter frittering off to Hollywood to reignite Tom Tucker's career as a movie star was just so . . . "eh".

I'm not saying the show should close shop altogether. Maybe they just need to make periodic specials when the writers can pull together a really fantastic storyline. I'm sure Stewie wouldn't mind, though that squirrel flipping the bird just might have something to say about it.

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