Review: Family Guy “The Dating Game”

Go ahead and swipe right on this episode.

 

Spoilers Below

This week’s new Family Guy episode, “The Dating Game”, was a mixed bag of sorts. I really enjoy Family Guy when it’s at its funniest. Some episodes are still total wins, even at this many seasons in. However, this week’s episode feels kind of disjointed, as some episodes do, sometimes– and I’m not sure why.

“The Dating Game” starts off with Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland and Joe at the Drunken Clam (as many great episodes begin). The guys discover that the Medieval Castle is being auctioned off, and decide they want to buy it. The guys lose the auction to Mayor West and his friends, so they storm the castle and burn it down (accidentally).

Later, back at the Clam, the guys find out Mort has a date from Tinder. Quagmire has never heard of Tinder, and the guys convince him to try it. It is pretty funny how they show him to use it- he doesn’t know what emojis are- it’s pretty hilarious. Of course, Quagmire takes it too far, and he becomes obsessed with Tinder hookups.

Meanwhile, Lois and Brian find out Stewie has scoliosis, and he’s worried he will be made fun of. However, the opposite happens. Stewie gets respect due to the brace he has to wear. When Stewie’s scoliosis is healed, he keeps wearing the brace and it weakens his neck so it won’t hold up his head. This story is just kind of weak… I didn’t think much of it at all.

Needless to say, this was a really strange episode. The cutaways were mostly fails– the first was racist, the second was gay-related and kind of strange – a LITTLE funny, but not much. The other ones weren’t great, either.

I don’t know why this episode wasn’t great- there were funny spots. There were even a couple jokes that seemed straight out of season 1 – classic Family Guy (miniature Quagmire) But not many. Most of it was just super weird. There was a song that was kind of uninspired– sometimes I think Family Guy does the South Park (and sometimes The Simpsons) thing where they latch onto some new technology or fad and just lampoon it, unsuccessfully.

But every season of every show should be allowed a dud or two. Here’s to hoping next week’s episode is better.