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South Park, the best animated show on TV (at least until Archer starts airing) is set to return to Comedy Central this Wednesday.

On the whole I thought that season 13 was a bit of a letdown.  It had it’s moments, but for the most part it was a step backwards from the previous season.  Still, I have every confidence that this season will be great so role on Wednesday so I can see Cartman be a complete asshole again.  God I love that guy.

Title: “Pilot”
Written by: Adam Reed
Air date: 17th Sept 2009

The show follows the exploits of Sterling Archer, a 007 agent type who works for ISIS, and the various other employees at the organisation.  The pilot, like just about every other pilot, sets up the characters and their individual relationships.

I usually have at least an idea about what’s coming on TV with regards to new shows, but it’s especially true for shows I think I’d be interested in.  I had no idea that Archer was going to be on and I had no clue what it was about.  The only reason I found out about Archer is because I was checking the schedule on TheFutonCritic.com and saw that an animated show was premiering on FX.  As with most new animation, I check the voice cast behind it, and in the case of Archer there’s a pretty decent level of talent, including Judy Greer, Chris Parnell and Jessica Walter.  All this combined to make Archer a show I was very interested in seeing.  My instincts proved right on.

Almost immediately I was struck by how perfect this show felt to me. This one episode taster seems very close to Arrested Development in terms of comedy perfection, with gags that push the limits of not only what an animated show can be but also what a regular show can be. It’s not juvenile or gross-out humour like you’d expect in South Park, but something far more tailored for adults.  The jokes come thick and fast with hardly a break between them.  But don’t think there’s an over-reliance on jokes at the expense of story (eg Family Guy/American Dad/The Cleveland Show) as Archer manages to fit in a decent groundwork for what the show is likely to be about.  Namely espionage, family tension, and sexual relationships.

The whole episode was simply brilliant and trying to highlight just a few parts really does it a disservice.  That being said, some of my favourite parts were:

• “Just the tip.”
• Archer threatening his butler with rubbing sand in his eyes and then ordering the butler to go buy sand.
• “That’s how you get ants.”
• Malory (Archer’s mother) masturbating under her desk whilst having phone sex and having Archer walk in on her.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

CONCLUSION
Checking the FX website reveals that Archer isn’t scheduled to hit the airwaves until January 2010.  I guess the pilot was just to whet our appetites.  It worked.  Archer is one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time, and is a great adult orientated animated show.  FX is really building a very strong stable of shows.  Waiting until January for Archer is almost as difficult as waiting for Lost, but after seeing the pilot I’m extemely confident that the show will be worth it.

All the die-hard Arrested Development fans out there take notice, Sit Down, Shut Up returns to the airwaves at 11:59pm Saturday night on Fox.

It’s a shitty timeslot for a show that’s at times hilarious and at other times duller than lead, but at least it’s back even if it is to burn off the remaining episodes.

I know the show’s not as great as everyone had hoped, but until that Arrested Development movie makes an appearance it’s the closest anyone is gonna get to an Arrested Development reunion.

© Fox Broadcasting Company

S01E01
Title: “Pilot”
Written by: Seth MacFarlane
Air date: 27th September, 2009

After Cleveland gets divorced and loses the house, he decides to take Cleveland Jnr to Los Angeles where his old baseball coach (Joe Torre) has organised for him to be a minor league scout for a major league team.  Along the way he stops in his old home town to show his son where he grew up.  He encounters an old flame and tries to hook up with her.

I hate The Family Guy.  I used to be a fan, but ever since I saw the “Cartoon Wars” episode of South Park I’ve been unable to enjoy The Family Guy.  The South Park episode just pointed out the glaring flaw of the show which I’d never even recognised before.  I was hoping that The Cleveland Show would be different than The Family Guy but it’s not.  It’s still full of non-sequitur jokes that have no relation to the story being told.  It has another cast of characters which take the place of Peter, Joe and Quagmire, and there’s another talking animal (this time a husband and wife couple of bears).

There’s nothing wrong with jokes that come from nowhere, but I much prefer comedy that actually comes from the story being told.  There’s just no exceptional level of talent required to insert a joke that has no connection to the situation into a story, and after a while this becomes very grating.

It annoys me that all the Seth MacFarlane shows can keep on going when they’re all the same basic show, whilst Futurama gets screwed around, Sit Down Shut Up can’t get viewers, The Goode Family struggles and South Park is overlooked for Emmy consideration.  I don’t begrudge Seth MacFarlane his success, I’d capitalise on it too if I was him, but I do think that Fox needs to get their act together and get some varied animation on their network.  And to know that they committed to a second season of The Cleveland Show before even one episode has aired is even more of a travesty.  Couldn’t they just combine The Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show together and hope that between the three they have some jokes which fit the story and situation?  That would free up two spots in the schedule for new animated shows and provide some variety in Fox’s animation block.

CONCLUSION
I hated it from start to finish (I didn’t finish watching it).  It’s the same show as MacFarlane’s other two, just with the characters in a different wrapper.  Besides, Quagmire is the best character from the MacFarlane universe.  Hopefully a Quagmire show can be developed and it won’t rely on the same shitty joke structure as his other shows.

FINAL GRADE: F

Here’s a cool new poster for ABC’s new animated show The Goode Family, which has unfortunately just been moved to Fridays.  Hopefully the show will still be able to find an audience and survive.

Click the image for a larger view.

This is apparently playing infront of Up, and despite it showing nothing and being roughly 1 year away, I’m still really excited about it.  Pixar can do no wrong in my eyes.

I’ve never been a big fan of King of the Hill, but I enjoy all of Mike Judge’s films (Office Space, Idiocracy and the upcoming Extract) and am really looking forward to his new animated show The Goode Family which is set to air on ABC starting May 27th.  The Goode Family are an obsessively “green” family who live a politically correct lifestyle, and are always trying to do the good thing.

The show was created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler and David Krinsky, and features the voices of Mike Judge, David Herman, Nancy Carell, Linda Cardellini, and Brian Doyle Murray.