Fall TV: Family Guy Season Premier Review

Family Guy follows the life of Peter Griffin, an average New Englander, along with the lives of his family and friends as they get into humorous situations which rarely come to resolutions. Most of the laughs from the show come from its random references to current and not-so current pop culture, along with its totally "out-there" jokes which come at the most unexpected times. Due to this, it came no surprise to fans of the show when the premier of the new season was said to be an hour long tribute to the movie Star Wars with all of the Family Guy characters thrown in. The end result was a hilarious combination of the random jokes the series has become so well known for and an actual, slightly accurate portrayl of the movie.

The episode starts with the family sitting, watching television, when suddenly the power goes out, and Peter is forced to tell a story. This commences with a classic Star Wars opening: filled with yellow, scrolling paragraphs flying through space. The rest of the episode actually does a very good job sticking to the story of Star Wars, and accurately depicts everything which made the movie so great, including classic camera angles any fan of the movie would remember and the exact sound track and classical score used in the movie (which would end up being used in one of their jokes). Family Guy also did a great job following the exact sequence of events which took place in the movie, although some of course had to be cut to fill the one-hour time frame. Any fan of the movie surely won't be let down as the episode did it justice.

To fulfill the vast amount of characters the original movie had, almost every character from the Family Guy series had to be employed. You'll often find yourself seeing a character in a Star Wars role, then continue to ponder on which episode you last saw him/her in. The main characters of the show were of course the main characters seen throughout the film (with the exception being Meg, who's hilarious role I won't give away), while the lesser-known, "one-time" characters played lesser-known roles.

The show successfully stuck to it's random sense of humor throughout the episode, with random references to other comedy and sci-fi roles from other feature-length films. Some of the best parts of the episode came from, or at least were in thanks to these spontainious jokes and gags.

Family Guy's unique season premier certainly started with a bang, continuing a sense of humor which hopefully will be carried out throughout the season. If you're a fan of the series you should definitely check this one out, as it'll be one you'll watch over and over again.