Everyone Has A Story, But Not A Good One

Family Guy, S11E12

The show did a parody of the movie Valentine's Day, and showed different stories about each of the characters on this holiday.  Lois and Peter spent the day in bed, Quagmire got turned into a woman, Meg went out with a boy she met online, Stewie went back in time to the Summer of Love, Stewie gathered together all of Brian's ex girlfriends to find out what Brian's problem was, Herbert helped his grand-niece talk to Chris, and Mayor West found out Carol was seeing another mayor.

I enjoyed the beginning of this episode that was made to be like a trailer of the movie they were spoofing.  It's nothing new, but I still like this setup each time I see in a show (usually, anyway).  One of my favorite parts of that was when it said "Comes more evidence of Family Guy's decline."  I tend to like their ironic jokes like that.

There were a lot of stories packed into one episode, but none of them were particularly great.  The top ones for me were Stewie's story, Brian's story, and Meg's story.  If I had to pick the most interesting of those three, it would be Meg's simply because it was a good story for her when you consider how most of Meg's romantic endeavors go.

Meg's date seemed to be going well at the beginning, which could only mean that something bad had to happen.  However, Meg turned lemons into lemonade when she didn't want to end her date just because she was down a kidney and bleeding everywhere.  Talk about low standards/desperation.  I was happy, though, to see that Meg had a pretty great day with Toby.  They had lunch, went ice skating, got caricatures done (Meg was drawn as a pile of poo, but I could let that slide), she got her kidney back as a present, and she got a kiss.  Toby is a criminal, for sure, but at least he's sort of a gentleman (though he is kinda gross using a dead, shriveled conjoined twin as a bookmark--eww).  Sadly, Meg couldn't do much better than him, but at least he seemed genuinely into her.  I liked seeing Meg have a relatively happy end for once, instead of her looking like a pathetic psycho.

Stewie's story where he kissed his own mother as a baby wasn't surprising (as I figured it might be her), but it does speak to the idea that Stewie has a lot of mother issues.  He already has this desire to dispose of her (though not so much lately), and now he has to deal with the fact he's a little attracted to her.  It just makes me wonder how messed up Stewie is going to be when he finally gets to puberty.

I thought that Brian's story, while grabbing my attention more than others, was a waste of time.  I don't know why Stewie would think he needed to gather all of Brian's exes to know what the problem with Brian is.  It's basically everything with Brian is wrong.  Stewie's been there through all of his failures, most of them fizzling out because Brian's ego got in the way or his mountain of lies finally collapsed.  I couldn't imagine any of them saying something redeeming about Brian because he's always been the worst lover/boyfriend.  Hopefully Stewie was really just gathering them for his own amusement to make fun of Brian's many shortcomings.   Or perhaps he knew that the riot of exes he sent after Brian would help him end up in bed with a bunch of different girls.  I surely didn't expect that.  That was the biggest surprise out of all the stories.  More random to me than Quagmire turning into a woman.  Don't know why anyone in their right mind would sleep with an asshole like Brian.

This episode was only okay because I thought it was going to be good since I enjoy spoofs.  The stories weren't terrible, but they definitely could have been funnier.  I appreciate that they didn't do a single Valentine's story and tried to do several.  It just would have been a bonus if most of the stories were really memorable and a little less uneventful.

Stranded On The Treadmill

The Simpsons, S23E18

Homer got obsessed with a Lost-parody show called "Stranded" that he started watching on his treadmill.  Marge, after putting up with his obsession for long enough, ruined the show for him by explaining all the mysteries he had yet to figure out.  She apologized for it later by decorating their room in an deserted island-like fashion.  Bart had to watch over Jimbo's girlfriend and found himself cheating with her behind his bully's back.  He had to pay the price for that with Jimbo, but his girlfriend did take Bart's advice that she could do better than Jimbo.

I guess that Springfield is supposed to be in Oregon, according to the opening credits.  Is anyone still even worrying about that insignificant matter nowadays?  I always thought it was nice that they just denied that Springfield was anywhere by referring to impossible geographical details throughout the show.  It was a long-running joke that I enjoyed.  I don't like too much that they felt it was necessary to point that out (if they were being serious, anyway).  Any fan could easily look up where the creator grew up and figure out the state that inspired Springfield.  I feel like this is another ploy to get viewers (I'm sure that didn't work if it was).

It's funny that Homer was using his treadmill so much, but only to watch streaming videos.  I could totally see me doing that if I could afford a fancy treadmill like that with internet capabilities and a HD screen.  What was even funnier was that he set up a lawn chair on the sides so that he could just sit and watch (is it impossible to watch the screen without the belt moving?).  It's too bad he's creative with his laziness because with a TV on a piece of exercise equipment that might have been the best way to get Homer to exercise for more than a few seconds.

I also liked how they made fun of Lost.  I could identify with Homer's determination to figure out what it was all about and how ridiculously mysterious the show was (and not being too wowed by the final answers).  I wouldn't have gone as far to have a discussion group or a notebook of clues, but I also didn't watch the show until a few years after it had been completed, so I had to fight to remain ignorant of any spoilers others could provide me.  It would have been nice to have the air horn Homer had used on his friends.

I thought Bart's story wasn't much to talk about except the part where he freaked out after seeing Shanna's boobs.  I liked that his first comment was that they looked exactly like Homer's.  That's disgusting in such a humorous way.  Then at dinner, everything kept reminding him of breasts, which was a nice touch.  I thought that would keep him away from the girl permanently, but Bart kept seeing her until Jimbo found out.  Sometimes it's hard to remember that Bart is only 10 years old.  Since he does so many terrible things, I would just assume that not much could shock him.  Then again, Bart has shown several times that he has no idea how sex actually works (except in that one episode).  Still, it's easy to forget, which makes those kind of jokes with Bart work.

The ending, where Bart was finally caught by Jimbo, didn't have the consequences that I would have thought.  Jimbo was seen holding Bart upside down, but it really seemed like he got off pretty lightly.  I didn't think that Lisa or Shanna explained well enough to get Bart off the hook, so I don't know why Bart wasn't more brutally punished for his betrayal.  But then again, I wasn't that interested in the story to begin with, so I didn't really care what happened to Bart by then.

I actually liked Homer's story well enough that I liked the episode overall.  It's nice to see that as technology evolves to make it easier for people to exercise, Homer evolves his laziness just as well.  And I'm sure there are many people who might even pretend to go to the gym to work out, but spend more time watching movies on the machines more than anything else.  Mostly, I liked that they made fun of Lost in a way that I'm sure many fans of that show could relate to.  I'm always up for a good parody.