family guy: back from the dead...like that zombie that's slow moving yet needs a bullet directly to the head

So I'm back in the South for the following festivities:

1) Livia's graduation
2) Mother's Day
3) My sister's Graduation

Three divas, three days of reckoning - err, celebration. No survivors! Except Harlowe/Moran, naturally.

Point being, due to some technical difficulties, I can't watch DH right now from the Tivo. So I'm taking a gander at the Family Guy/American Dad tape I recorded, because I was curious about the resurrected show.

What was I thinking? Okay, yes, maybe my standards were different because I was so depressed I'd watch anything on TV and Adult Swim airs very late, so my brain is usually off at that point. But my affection for FG is gone, baby, gone.

It's one thing to make pop culture references or parody things. It's quite another to rely on nothing else for humor. Plus, the references seem to be so all over the place that the odds are slim-to-none that everyone will "get" the references. While I don't think writers should worry about such things excessively, it seems like FG just makes the joke so that hipsters can pat themselves on the back for saying "oh, I got that!"

Then there are things like the opening Law and Order "parody." Just a complete rip-off of the opening credits of L&O, done exactly the same. That's not clever or satire or parody, that's just copying something and thinking its funny by itself. Oh my god, look, it's just like the L&O credits...isn't that hilarious? Or maybe it's simply just the credits and we're supposed to think it's funny because oh, gee, the FG credits are done like L&O.

My main problem is the non-sequitor cutaways. You know the set-up, someone makes a comment like "this was worse thn so-and-so" and we cutaway to that, with it being weird or unexpected or whatever. But the problem is that when this is done 12 times an episode, the unexpected quality of it disappears and the non-sequitor becomes, well, a sequitor.

FG is now predictable in its unpredictability, which is bad because the show really relies on little else for humor.

Oh, I'll still watch, but the original love has vanished. Plus, the sad thing is that you know that the show isn't going to "improve" or try to come up with new types of jokes because they've been resurrected by a fanatic fanbase. I hate to throw stones at my own young male demographic, but come on guys, it has its moments, but snarking on Affleck or "Good Will Hunting" is about as far from fresh as one gets.