Family Guy 7 x 11 - Not All Dogs Go To Heaven.

[Marc]

Dull predictable episode and ending. An man Brian was a fucking douche in this episode. Granted I'm not big cheerleader of religion, but come on Meg found something that made her feel accepted and loved, they could have dodged the easy shots about book burning and bashing on religion and just ended with Meg being religious and that's that. Taking shots at religion is easy, too easy and unoriginal.

They weren't taking a shot at religion, they were taking a shot at ORGANIZED religion, and more specifically pushy Evangelical Christianity. There is a difference between "I believe in God" and "I'm a Baptist/Catholic/Lutheran/Methodist/etc." I thought that was made pretty clear when Lois seemed aghast that Brian didn't have any spirituality, although she had no problem with his lack of affiliation with a religious denomination or lack of church attendance.

And it was specifically targeting pushy Evangelism, as personified by Kirk Cameron. Read the real life story behind Kirk Cameron and his "conversion" to Evangelical Christianity. After his "conversion", he became a pushy asshole who demanded that everyone else conform to HIS newfound religious beliefs. He even had the audacity to use his star power to demand script changes to make the show more "Christian." And we see that by adopting the "Kirk Cameron" Evangelical form of Christianity, Meg becomes a pushy asshole as well who insists that her family conform to her religious beliefs.

It wasn't a slam on all religion, or even all organized religion, but more specifically on one form of religion which is personified by ignorance and intolerance.

And FYI, Brian the atheist is also portrayed on the show as an alcoholic, so it's not like they are really holding the atheist character out to be superior to the religious characters.

Don't forget that Peter Griffin is Catholic and the family does occasionally got to church.

Oh and there was the issue of Peter's father objecting to Lois because she wasn't Catholic.

 

[species5618]

^thats what I'm saying, it's one thing to cross the line on silly stuff, but then you get the REALLY depraved stuff like the treatment of Meg post cancelation, and the whole Quagmire/Simpsons "Joke"

Why is everybody shocked when FG does a completely tasteless, inappropriate joke? This is, after all, the show that did the "You've Got AIDS" barbershop quartet bit. FG is depraved, tasteless, and degenerate--but I think that's sort of the point.

I've noticed as of late around here it's become very fashionable to bash FG--which is fine, but the show has been on for a number of years and it's 'style' or lack thereof should be pretty self-evident to even the semi-regular viewer.

Despite this, people here continue to watch the episodes, keep up with developments, and post threads about it (and not just this last TNG episode), all the while complaining about the lack of plot or poor writing--which to me indicates that there are either a lot of masochists on this board or that some people still do enjoy FG.

 

[Sephiroth]

^thats what I'm saying, it's one thing to cross the line on silly stuff, but then you get the REALLY depraved stuff like the treatment of Meg post cancelation, and the whole Quagmire/Simpsons "Joke"

Why is everybody shocked when FG does a completely tasteless, inappropriate joke? This is, after all, the show that did the "You've Got AIDS" barbershop quartet bit. FG is depraved, tasteless, and degenerate--but I think that's sort of the point.

I've noticed as of late around here it's become very fashionable to bash FG--which is fine, but the show has been on for a number of years and it's 'style' or lack thereof should be pretty self-evident to even the semi-regular viewer.

Despite this, people here continue to watch the episodes, keep up with developments, and post threads about it (and not just this last TNG episode), all the while complaining about the lack of plot or poor writing--which to me indicates that there are either a lot of masochists on this board or that some people still do enjoy FG.

we TRY to enjoy FG, but it's getting harder and harder

 

[species5618]

^^^Fair enough...I've never had very high expectations for the show, so I'm rarely disappointed--if they do or say something completely offensive and I get a laugh out of it, then I'm happy. It's not particularly well-written, but I still enjoy it enough to watch a new episode if I'm home when it's on.

As for the shift from 'megalomaniac Stewie' to 'gay Stewie' that some people weren't happy with upthread, I think it's funny--more specifically his unrequited (and somewhat disturbing) love for Brian.

 

[Servo]

thats what i was doing, you took it out of context and started flaming me for it, I dont react well to things like that

Stop trying to deflect. You made an idiotic comment, that you are now trying to pass off as a joke because you've been pulled on it by other members.

Funny how you are bashing FG for one tasteless joke, but you think it's perfectly fine for you to make one about shooting McFarlane. Hypocrite.

 

[Gojirob]

The job (in their creators' minds) of both South Park and FG are to do such (sometimes literally) outrageous things that even their most hardcore supporters will, on occasion, go 'WTF did they just do?' and not be laughing. Or at least that's how I see it. Thing is, they're supposed to amuse us enough in-between nose-tweaks to make the LOL moments massively outweight the WTF ones. I knew Parker&Stone were right-leaning, and didn't care until 'anti-enviromentalist episode Nteenth' came on. FG does go overboard, even allowing for Meg's place, but this is harder to moan about when the eps are just that good. Once, maybe. But not of late. More and more, Poochie is driving right past the fireworks factory.

 

[Thor Damar]

The job (in their creators' minds) of both South Park and FG are to do such (sometimes literally) outrageous things that even their most hardcore supporters will, on occasion, go 'WTF did they just do?' and not be laughing. Or at least that's how I see it. Thing is, they're supposed to amuse us enough in-between nose-tweaks to make the LOL moments massively outweight the WTF ones. I knew Parker&Stone were right-leaning, and didn't care until 'anti-enviromentalist episode Nteenth' came on. FG does go overboard, even allowing for Meg's place, but this is harder to moan about when the eps are just that good. Once, maybe. But not of late. More and more, Poochie is driving right past the fireworks factory.

Well put sir!
That's the problem I have with this episode, there simply was not enough actually funny moments to make this one work. The bits with the TNG was amusing but the rest of it consisted of Meg and Brian trying to out smug each other, the townspeople acting like reactionary morons and lazy stereotyping.
Where was the absurdest sense of humor? the song and dance at that we all loved (the FCC song anyone?) and the odd tangents that actually worked? FG can work it just needs to stop the preaching and leave it to the self righteous lot at South Park and concentrate on the funny.
(they should really drop the Meg abuse, in my opinion it's gone too far)

I'm looking forward to next weeks episode where the whole town goes to pot

 

[Kryton]

I didn't see it but it sounds like this episode could've used a Giant Chicken/Peter fight for about 12 minutes.

 

[Thor Damar]

I didn't see it but it sounds like this episode could've used a Giant Chicken/Peter fight for about 12 minutes.

QFAT!

 

[LitmusDragon]

The Stewie as possible homosexual jokes go a long way back, I believe the first time this was referenced was during the episode where they parodied "The Real World" which was in either the first or second season.

 

[Praetor]

The Stewie as possible homosexual jokes go a long way back, I believe the first time this was referenced was during the episode where they parodied "The Real World" which was in either the first or second season.

Yes, but the change in the characterization really didn't come into full play until around season four. (Still, after season one he wasn't quite the same undistilled psychopath of the first few episodes.)

 

[Brent]

i like family guy, but this episode sucked

 

[Cky]

I still liked it, I think most people seem to be focusing on the fact that the TNG cast were underused. Sure that was the case but the episode, but when I see past the fact that the TNG cast are on this I still enjoy it.

 

[Bishbot]

I still liked it, I think most people seem to be focusing on the fact that the TNG cast were underused. Sure that was the case but the episode, but when I see past the fact that the TNG cast are on this I still enjoy it.

I have to admit, that did hurt it for me, but I still think it would have been a mediocre episode without the TNG cast at all. It's really backing yourself to do the "here's the clicker, no-one would blame you" joke. You need some great material to make that come off, and they really didn't have it.

 

[Candlelight]

I liked it. I missed most of last season and the new season hasn't started here yet.

 

[LutherSloan]

It was decent, but I was really shocked and disappointed that the TNG actors were only on the show for maybe 5 minutes. To compare, when Futurama did the episode with the entire living TOS cast (except Doohan, who was alive but in poor health at the time), the entire episode was focused on them and Star Trek in general.

It's disappointing coming from a known Star Trek fan like McFarlane (he was on two episodes of 'Enterprise', in fact) that they only spent maybe a quarter of the episode with the TNG cast.