Review: American Dad “Funnyish Games”

Stanvengers: Age of Staantron

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

With rumblings of home invasions around them, Francine opts for a new security system. Unfortunately, Stan disapproves of it, even fake invading to prove it’s insufficient. So, he puts together his own security system with its own mind…which soon begins to even see HIM as a threat. Francine manages to escape it, proving to Stan that the family can defend itself.

Also, Steve ends up in the same college class as Hayley but finds she’s acing it easier than him without any studying. When her chill subconscious way of taking in knowledge doesn’t work for him, he cheats off her final, only to be saved by Hayley when the teacher notices how similar they are.

OUR TAKE

When are people going to learn that Artificial Intelligence security systems ALWAYS turn bad?! At least, when you write them kinda lazily like this one. I mean it’s not like this episode doesn’t dabble in that, giving STAAN some attraction to the oven before he’s gotten rid of, but I just think it would be neat to have an episode involving a murderous computer end with them getting happy-ish ending. Like some sort of reaching of the singularity or learning from a misunderstanding that almost killed someone. Here, STAAN is kind of an afterthought about the main issue of the episode: Stan’s insecurity about being able to protect Francine and Francine’s lack of certainty about whether she’s really safe.

This is a dynamic between the two that’s been explored plenty of times before this, most notably in that not-crossover involving hurricanes with Family Guy and the Cleveland Show. If you don’t remember that, Stan tries over planning for an incoming hurricane and begins grievously injuring the family while he tries to fix each new mistake he makes while trying to fix THOSE mistakes. At the end of the episode, Francine tries suggesting that he try getting out of the way so other people can come up with plans, but he tells her they both know he won’t do that. This episode seems to show that rings true, as the security system she picks out probably would work just fine against home invaders. While it is possible that people of Stan’s caliber would try breaking in, it seems like a rarity for where they are. So, you can kind of see both sides of this, but it’s good that this episode ended with Stan allowing Francine to help him humiliate that Office Depot guy who mocked him.

And while this is probably a minor point we’ll likely never see get fully explored, I did find it interesting that Steve got to go to college. Given the fixed time of shows like this, aging Steve up to go to college is probably never going to happen until POSSIBLY the final episode, but it would be neat to see some progression again. They’ve done it before with the whole Jeff-Reginald-Hayley plot from years ago and now they’re married, but I get not wanting to mess up a proven formula that they shouldn’t risk screwing up. I guess I just want something to spice up this show after watching fifteen straight seasons of it.