Seth McFarlane writes some of the episodes and voices Peter, the
low-paid middle-class worker at a toy factory who gets into trouble for saying the wrong thing
in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that doesn't particularly bother him
and one of the show's strengths is the individual flashbacks to the scenes in
question.
Alex Borstein voices his wife Lois, the homemakers and Rhode Island
heiress from a very well-to-do family so it's a wonder what she ever saw in
Peter, but love is blind it seems. Their son Chris (Seth Green, who
plays the son of Dr Evil in the
Austin Powers
films) is having
difficulty coming to terms with teenage life at the age of 13. He can be a fine
artist, but like most young boys finds solace watching episodes of Baywatch.
Meg (Lacey Chabert, who was replaced by Mila Kunis after this
series) is the daughter of the family and, at 16, gets frustrated
because life never goes the way it should when you want to get in with the "in
crowd" and are easily embarrassed by your father.
This leaves baby Stewie (also voiced by Seth McFarlane), who's only one
year old but has homicidal tendancies towards his mother because she had the
gall to give birth to him which he expunges in an evil-voiced Noel Coward-a-like
tone. I do wonder, though, how much of his hatred is actually picked up on by
the family.
As to the question of what the subtitles in the opening credits say, baby
Stewie used to say - and was captioned as saying - "effin' cry". This was
later redubbed and recaptioned as "laugh and cry".
Finally, there's the only intellectual in the family, Brian the Dog
(also Seth McFarlane), who has a fine line in sarcastic put-downs and
is most responsible for holding the family together.
Brian the Dog's had better days...
Although
EpGuides.com
lists series one as having only 7 episodes and series two as having 21,
this "Season One" contains the first 14 episodes: Death Has a Shadow,
I Never Met the Dead Man, Mind Over Murder, Chitty Chitty Death Bang, A Hero
Sits Next Door, The Son Also Draws, Brian: Portrait of a Dog, Peter Peter
Caviar Eater, Running Mates, Holy Crap, If I'm Dyin' I'm Lyin', Love Thy
Trophy, Death is a Bitch and The King is Dead.
Highlights from the series include:
Death Has a Shadow: A brilliant opening episode as we're introduced
to all the elements of the family unit, but not a great start for Peter who gets
fired from his job after turning up while hungover after getting drunk at his
friend's bachelor party. On the plus side though, he's just signed on the dole
and has mistakenly been sent a cheque for $150,000!
The Son Also Draws: A completely hatstand episode that sees the
family going to New York to get Chris reinstated back into the scouts, but
while they're there Lois becomes addicted to video poker and loses the family
car and Peter has to go on a vision quest to prove himself and that he has
Native American blood. Of course, by being told about his quest from a vision
of The Fonz, he could just be hallucinating.
Peter Peter Caviar Eater: After Lois' rich aunt snuffs it, the
family inherits her mansion but aren't keen to move. Peter, on the other hand,
wants to attempt to live the high life and bids $100 million for a work of art
at the Historical Society, thus getting into a lot of trouble when he comes
to pay for it.
Holy Crap: Peter wants to get closer to his father after the man
gets fired from his job at the mill for being too old and invites him to stay
with the family for a while, but when he takes him along to his workplace
for some father-son bonding his boss is so impressed with Peter's father's
strict work ethic that he hires him as the new foreman. Peter soon has a change
of heart and it'll take a kidnapping of the Pope to turn things around.
A father-son bonding moment in the woods.
The programme has always been made and presented in 4:3 fullscreen and for
such a recent show you expect it to look perfect - and it does. So crisp, clear
and colourful. And you can watch them uncut without a stupid "Sky One" logo
or their irritating "Sky Active" red dot.
The back cover states this series is in Dolby Digital 5.1, the same remix
treatment given to season one of the Simpsons, but upon playing the disc there's
no such option. It's standard Dolby Surround, which is effective at times and
always clean (apart from the language) but it makes you wonder whether a DD5.1
soundtrack really exists, although the closing credits show only the "Dolby
Surround" logo.
There must be some extras around somewhere, but they aren't on here. The menu
is silent but subtley animated with the family watching TV, there are subtitles
in English for the deaf and hard of hearing and four chapters to each episode,
making 70 in all, although the menu for each episode appears to allow a chapter
selection of four apiece, but these are for chapters 2 to 5 in each case.
Selecting the episode title will start the episode from the beginning.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
