Family Guy-Season 5 (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Menu Animation Deleted Scenes Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	301:16 (Case: 330)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Various
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Seth MacFarlane Alex Borstein Mila Kunis Seth Green
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Ron Jones Walter Murphy

    Though not technically the fifth season at all, but rather the second half of the fourth season, the relaunched version of Seth MacFarlane’s ode to the middle American dysfunctional family and all-round general farce on popular culture is definitely a credit to its creator. While this show was far from the height of its creative team’s talents on first release (perhaps a result of too much production interference?), once MacFarlane got the green light from the producers to do a new season after its third series' cancellation it seems perfectly clear that MacFarlane was only going to do it if he could do things his way. As a result, the restrictions placed on the creative team have been lifted, and the result is truly awe-inspiring comedy that will make you choke on your own laughter.

    For those not familiar with The Family Guy, the show is about a dysfunctional middle American family (a topic for many comedy series) with a number of problems mostly related to the antics of the family’s borderline intellectually disabled father – think Homer Simpson with a propensity for more adult humour and grotesquery. A brief dramatis personae follows:

• Peter Griffin (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), your average suburban brain-dead couch potato father with an obesity issue that makes Homer Simpson look slim and a propensity for getting himself into far more trouble;
• Lois Griffin (voiced by Alex Borstein), Peter’s beautiful if suburbanite wife with a nasal drawl that will make your ears bleed;
• Stewie Griffin (also voiced by Seth MacFarlane), the family infant, complete with dreams of world domination;
• Chris Griffin (voiced by Seth Green), Peter’s obese teenage son, following in his father’s footsteps;
• Meg Griffin (voiced by Mila Kunis), Peter’s nerdy and introverted daughter; and
• Brian (another voice provided by Seth MacFarlane), the family pet, a talking dog with more capacity for responsibility and humanity than the rest of the family put together, plus a penchant for liquor.

    The last 14 episodes of the fourth season, re-badged for Fox Australia as Season 5, are spread across these 3 discs. I do not intend to give you a full run down of each episode, mostly because I don’t want to spoil things for you. You can get complete summaries at TV.com amongst other places:

Disc 1

• 1. PTV (21:41)
• 2. Brian Goes Back to College (20:57)
• 3. The Courtship of Stewie's Father (20:43)
• 4. Fat Guy Strangler (22:22)
• 5. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Fonz (20:57)

Disc 2

• 6. Brian Sings and Swings (20:42)
• 7. Patriot Games (20:57)
• 8. I Take Thee Quagmire (21:18)
• 9. Sibling Rivalry (22:09)
• 10. Deep Throats (22:26)

Disc 3

• 11. Peterotica (21:19)
• 12. You May Now Kiss The...Uh...Guy Who Receives (20:57)
• 13. Petergeist (22:25)
• 14. The Griffin Family History (22:22)

    While perhaps not as strong as the first half of the season, the opening sequence to PTV alone is worth the price of entry here. Referred to by MacFarlane as “The longest scene in Family Guy history”, it is a brilliant example of why this show should never have been taken off the air – although, in all fairness, had it not had that shake-up who is to know whether the creative team would have been able to perform as well as this.

    If you like to laugh until you think you’re going to wet your pants, grab yourself a copy of this – it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but those of you who have a twisted sense of humour are going to love it.

Video

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, this is the original broadcast aspect ratio of the series.

    I felt that this season was slightly smoother than last season, though this might have something to do with the difference in technology I am using for the review – say what you want about the PS3, it does a very nice job of scaling SD-DVD to 1080p.

    Colour is garishly cartoonish, but exactly how it should look. The image is smooth and without film-to-video artefacts or any MPEG defects aside from some minor aliasing that tends to affect all animated TV programs.

    There is no dirt on the transfer.

    Subtitles are available in English for the Hearing Impaired. They are white with a black/grey border and quite accurate.

    All three discs are dual layered. Despite there being 5 episodes on the first two discs, I still didn’t spot any dual layer pauses. I assume they are placed between the episodes.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround encoded at 448Kb/s. It’s a very good, dialogue-driven soundtrack with some good surrounds and an unusual amount of bass.

    Dialogue is very well rendered and I could always make out the jokes.

    The surrounds were present, but really piped up in the various musical numbers or with the theme song.

    Subwoofer was surprisingly lively and used to good effect in some instances – the rancour fight scene was particularly effective ... no, I’m not going to explain that, you’ll just have to watch it. And I didn’t realise Greenberg was a Jedi name either.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, static and silent.

Audio Commentaries

    Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, all episodes have commentaries by the cast and crew. These guys are quite amusing, as you would expect, so you can generally get a chuckle or two just out of listening to these commentaries.

Disc 3

Deleted Scenes (13:42)

    All scenes are presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, with Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround sound. Some of these were a scream, but also extremely cruel and potentially defamatory, so you can see why they were pulled from general release.

    I do not have a Region 1 copy for an exact comparison, but from what I can tell the content is the same. The difference is only in the NTSC picture format, the region coding and the title. Buy whichever is cheapest.

    Family Guy is the smartest of MacFarlane’s sitcoms, and if you like that kind of left field non-sequitur humour you will lose your voice laughing.

    The DVD set is excellent, even if it is only the second half of Season 4.

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