Family Guy Season 9: And Then There Were Fewer

This week marks the return of Family Guy to TV for its ninth season.  Tonight, it premiered with "And Then There Were Fewer", a whodunnit type mystery episode featuring several members from Family Guy history, such as Carl the Mini-Mart worker, Seamus the disfigured pirate man with peg arms and legs, and Jillian and Derek, Brian's former lover and her husband.

The party goers examine a trap door.

This episode got the season off to a promising start.  The premise was that each guest received an invitation to a fancy dinner party held in their honor, only to discover James Woods (his fifth appearance on the show) had invited them, in order to apologize for all the troubles he had caused them.  However, one by one, each party member was being killed off.  The episode introduced two new characters; Stephanie, Quagmire's overweight, unattractive date, and Priscilla, James Woods' Christian girlfriend.  These characters didn't bring much to the episode other than to drive the plot, and when they were finally killed I breathed a sigh of relief.

The episode was based off the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None, however, it only borrows the fact that all the guests were invited by an unknown person and start dying off one by one.  I would have liked it to be more accurate to the original story, but that would likely have taken two hours for one episode.  I think it would have worked better to end last season with part 1 and start this season with part 2, following the story more accurately, and be done much like South Park's "Cartman's Mom is (Still) a Dirty Slut", with the first part ending the first season and the second part picking up in season two (although preferably without a Terrance and Philip special).  Only a couple of guests "die" in the episode:  Stephanie, James Woods, Muriel Goldman, Derek, Priscilla, and Diane Simmons, but I'm sure they'll be back in later episodes.

The jokes in this episode were hit-and-miss, much like many of last season (the eighth season) and the seventh season.  There were some good laughs, like Seamus rowing his way to the island with oars for hands and then switching to his normal peg arms, Herbert driving the ice-cream truck he had been inquiring about in "The Perfect Castaway", Stewie wondering if everyone hates him because of the way he dressed (he wore a much more casual outfit because he thought it was a lawn party, hence he has no long pants), Jillian's husband Derek showing Peter the background on his cell phone of him "holding up" the famous Hollywood sign (it was one of those perspective shots, he was much farther away), and Tom Tucker insulting Diane Simmons and saying she was "penis-repellent."

Back when Consuela was funny.

Unfortunately, some of the episode was dry and really kind of a let down.  Once again, Consuela was back in a minor role, which she finds herself in too often.  It was pretty funny at first when she was asking for more lemon Pledge, but now every appearance is just dull and unfunny.  She's become a crutch for the writing staff to use, but it never works anymore.  Peter's reaction to Derek's picture was also drawn out.  It would have been funny if Derek had shown him it and left it at that, but Peter went further by saying he would worship Derek, and then insisting that everyone see this picture.  It started out funny, mainly because Peter was too incompetent to realize the joke, but it got dragged out like so many other jokes in the past season.  The last joke I'm going to complain about is when the group is split up, Derek and Jillian look in the attic, but all they find is a bunch of old stuff and a black cat.  Being the blond she is, Jillian meows at the cat to ask if it's seen Muriel Goldman, but the cat responds in English (voiced by Patrick Stewart), and says it's offensive to talk to him like that, because clearly not all cats talk like that.  He then claims he is a college professor, and that he has papers to correct.  It really wasn't that funny, and I can just see the writing staff cracking up about it.  I suppose if the subject matter was changed, like if they had a normal conversation with the cat (voiced by Patrick Stewart), it would be funny, much like Peter talking to the horse voiced by Gilbert Gottfried in "Boys Do Cry".

Osama bin Laden having fun on the set (PTV).

Again, the episode was funny at many points, but was brought down by poor choices from the writing staff, and some jokes that just fell flat.  The intro, for example, starts off with a nearly three-minute scene of the Griffins just driving to the island, while the credits roll.  It felt like it took forever and was likely some space where the writers could at least have attempted to put some more jokes in.  Watching it with my friends, we all knew then and there that they had nothing to write, so they filled it with this unnecessary driving scene.  It would have worked a lot better if they had done it in a similar way to how they handled the season four episode "PTV".  In it, the writers were short on time (about four minutes I think), so they filled it with Osama bin Laden making an announcement video somewhere in Afghanistan.  The way they made it, however, was hilarious, showing a potential funny side to bin Laden ("He had a note!  He had a note from his doctor, saying 'I can't do a suicide bombing!'  It's a suicide bombing!").  The scene ends with Stewie fighting them much like in "Naked Gun", although I can't remember which one...

This episode left me with an unsatisfied feeling; it was good, but the writers could have done much more.  Maybe instead of just having the lights go out so no one can see the murderer, let's have a very quick Conway Twitty break, or the serious conversation with the Patrick Stewart cat mentioned before.  The best way for it to have been a masterpiece was for all the guests to be murdered, leaving one person still alive who orchestrated the entire event, and then ultimately committing suicide after informing the police, just like the story.  It was a decent episode, but not a strong start to the season.  It wasn't as good as last season's "Road to the Multiverse", and it really should
have been done better.  I give it a 6.5/10 for the jokes and the overall idea, but it really should've been a two-parter.