Family Guy: Stewie Kills Lois (Part 1)

(S06E04) During last Festivus I mentioned the secret constitution that the networks have to regulate their industry. This is the document that says the Regis Philbin robot must have a full check-out every six months and that one network or another must produce a musical-based drama every twenty years or so that will fail right off the bat. I'm hoping that, after watching this week's 100th episode of Family Guy, the networks add a new amendment to their constitution: clip shows will no longer air before special episodes or series finales.

Call it the Seinfeld Amendment for simplification. Before the series finale of Seinfeld NBC aired a one-hour retrospective featuring classic scenes from previous seasons. This got the viewing audience all hyped up to see an exciting and entertaining finale. Then, as we all know, that last episode was a huge suckfest that disappointed millions. If they had not aired the retrospective before the last show perhaps the anger surrounding the episode may have been lessened.

I wasted two paragraphs on this because, apparently, producers and creators still haven't learned their lessons from Seinfeld. Take Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy. Before the 100th episode aired, a fairly entertaining retrospective premiered featuring clips from the last 99 episodes. Of course, fans got all hyped up to see an exciting and entertaining show. I mean, Stewie finally killing Lois is pretty momentous. Then, the show aired, and...

Well, "suckfest" is too strong of a description to describe the episode. Hugely disappointing would probably be a better way to describe what went on.

Perhaps it was the time change, but I just didn't find this episode to be very funny at all. I actually found it to be very disjointed with too many switches to fantasy scenes and flashbacks and very little story. The whole plot with Stewie killing Lois (which must be some type of dream Stewie is having) just did absolutely nothing for me.

Two reasons for that. One, Stewie killing Lois is like Wile E. Coyote capturing the Road Runner and finally devouring him. Once it happens it is very anticlimactic. The entertainment is in the hunt, not the capture. By finally killing Lois (in a pretty graphic scene that was one of the better this episode) there's not much more for Stewie to do but sing 'Road' songs with Brian. Yes, Lois comes back alive at the end of the episode, but you get my point.

Second, for me, Evil Stewie has run his course. It was funny in the first few seasons, but eventually got tiresome. I actually like how the character grew over the seasons and gained a love-hate relationship with Brian instead of Lois. Sure, he has had his moments since the show returned to FOX, but the more entertaining and sophisticated aspects of Stewie is the one that people find interesting, in my opinion.

If the episode as a whole was better, maybe the whole 'Stewie kills Lois' thing would have panned out. But, since the plot was pretty flimsy to start out with, nothing happened. Really, it seemed like every line was proceeded by an interruption of a flashback or fantasy sequence and were only mildly amusing. Geez, even Scrubs, which certainly has its share of fantasy and flashback sequences, tries to keep those to a minimum. They just made the episode feel off-kilter until the very end.

Hopefully, the second half of this episode ('Lois Kills Stewie') will show a bit more of what Family Guy does right. And Seth, if you're reading this...NO MORE CLIP SHOWS!