‘Family Guy: Season Thirteen’ DVD Review
Stars: Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis | Created by Seth MacFarlane
Family Guy reaches new heights of hilarity in this outrageous collection of 22 episodes, including fan-favourite Into Fat Air, where the Griffins rock Mount Everest, plus the comedy jackpot Roads to Vegas and the milestone 200th episode Yug Ylimaf, in which Brian and Stewie develop a curious case of reverse aging thanks to a time machine foul-up. It’s a complete season of laughs with celebrity guest voices Johnny Depp, Jon Hamm, Sofia Vergara and more!
The thirteenth season of Family Guy – well I say say season 13 but if you’re familiar with the DVD situation here in the UK (some of the earlier seasons, which ran over 13 episodes, were split into two “seasons” by Fox UK), this isn’t actually the thirteenth but actually season 11 – is very much a hit and miss season, there are a lot of really great episodes but there are also some less than stellar ones too. It’s certainly not up to the same standards as the previous season (released here in the UK as season 12).
Of the good episodes in this DVD boxset, it’s Yug Ylimaf which is the highlight – this particular episode sees Brian use Stewie’s time machine to impress women he meets at bars but doing so also accidentally causes time to run in reverse and Brian and Stewiw must work together to set things right before Stewie is “unborn.” This season also features the hilarious episode Bigfat (pictured above), which sess Peter get lost in the woods for two months, only to be found as a feral creature with no ability to communicate intelligently; and the way in which Peter returns to his “normal” self is a real laugh out loud moment. Which this season is a rarity.
Thankfully season thirteen does have one good thing going for it: Chris Griffin. Yes, after numerous episodes with Chris on the back-burner, this season sees his character come to the fore in not one, but two fantastic episodes that really highlight Seth Green’s performance as the put upon teenager. Of the two, Space Cadet and Chris Cross, it’s the former – which sees the Griffins accidentally launched into outer space when picking Chris up from space camp, leaving it up to Chris to land the family safely back on earth – that gives the character the best lines and the biggest laughs.
Special Features on this DVD release include an audio commentary on selected episodes, 200th episode table read, scene animatic from “Into Fat Air” with side-by-side-commentary, deleted scenes, full episode animatic from “Space Cadet”, Comic-Con panel, and scene animatic from “Total Recall” with side-by-side-commentary.
Family Guy: Season Thirteen is released on DVD from Twentieth Century Fox on June 9th.