TVSquad

This is the third week of the new FOX Sunday night, so it's time to check in and see how the lineup is shaping up. I wanted to give The Cleveland Show a few weeks to settle down and start to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. The pilot wasn't the strongest, but there was so much set-up involved, you couldn't tell anything about what future episodes would be like.

With Seth MacFarlane now providing a full hour-and-a-half of FOX's Sunday programming, we decided to take a look at all of his shows in a single post each week. At first, I wasn't sure if I was even going to like The Cleveland Show enough to do this, but it's already grown on me. And that's much faster than American Dad, which took more than a year of sampling here and there before I tuned in regularly.

The Cleveland Show
This week, we got a much better feel for the Crinklesacks; the rednecks across the street. They apparently live a little like the families spotlighted on A&E's Hoarders, and have farm animals living in the house.

I was glad to see Cleveland, Jr. find a friend. There are no friends for Chris or Meg on Family Guy, and none of the neighbors had kids the right age. It looks like MacFarlane is taking a page from the success of Steve's friends on American Dad, and fleshing out a younger cast here as well.

The storyline with Child Protective Services taking Ernie out of the house at a run mere seconds after going in was pretty funny. Even was Lester and his posse of rednecks ... and Cleveland ... going to the foster home to "rescue" Ernie. There it's revealed that the foster parents take these kids for the money, leading to a brutal gunfight. I loved the foster kids coming up from the basement to devour one of the rednecks.

• Cleveland asked a guy in the park if he wanted to play with Cleveland, Jr. "He's a little chubby, but he's always up for a good time. A lot of other kids have jerked him around but I can tell you're the kind of guy who'll treat him right. Don't get me wrong. He's a handful, but a nice handful. Look, I'll be honest with you. I'm tired of playing with him. You wanna see? Come over by the car and I'll let you have a look."
• The entire bathroom scene with Ernie's possum and ultimately a fire on Cleveland's crotch. Pure slapstick nonsense, but it worked.
• One of the rednecks had a "Michael Richards" t-shirt
• "I don't know what was in that aspirin those Arab guys gave me, but it was the best freakin' aspirin I ever had!" --Tim to Holt outside the club Hot can't get into

Family Guy
Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase showed up as real-life spies, so decreed because Reagan loved Spies Like Us. It was so awesome that my favorite character, Mayor West, was a KGB-Sleeper Agent. But I was worried that this was Adam West's way of quitting the show. It wouldn't be the same show without him.

The Russian adventure with Stewie and Brian joining the actors was as silly as expected. The best bit was the fuselage of the nuclear missile West launched crashing into Cleveland's new house. From there we got not only the classic "No! No! No!" gag of Cleveland sliding out of the house in his bathtub, but Tim the Bear walking into the scene: "I don't get it."

Peter, Quagmire and Joe's improv comedy troupe went exactly nowhere. I like how Quagmire is emerging as the most rational of the three. "Happy Thanksgiving, Pilgrim."

• Bathroom maitre d': "Lois Griffin: Poop for one"
• "Can we be spikes like them?" --Stewie regarding Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy.
• The sleeper agent phrase had to be something no one would ever actually say: "Gosh, that Italian family at the next table sure is quiet."
• "There's a pedophile up the street that nobody seems to be doing anything about." --Stewie
• James Lipton: "Improv!" Twice!
• I loved the Russian cutaway gag: a porcupine and a loaf of bread and ... yeah.
• "Shut up, 2476" --Even her KGB handler hates Meg.

American Dad
Francine, Hayley and Roger spent the entire episode trapped on a plane, alternately because of a military drone plane flying by and Roger switching costumes. Stan was supposed to be with them, but he left to get a Grisham novel, and got tased trying to reboard.

Steve blew his parents' trust by commandeering a drone via what he thought was a flight simulator. If you follow that logically, you are inevitably led to a dramatic face-off with the Chinese mafia on a parade float where the drone has been turned into a Chinese dragon. Wow, these shows have weird plots.

• "Puppies can't fly. At least mine couldn't." --Barry
• The drone killed Brooks' bird from The Shawshank Redemption.
• "Last summer, my uncle hit a deer ... It was a hooker; my uncle told me to say it was a deer. But she was okay ... She died." --Snot
• "Toshi, I can't understand what you're saying. I don't know why I call you." --Steve (Toshi only speaks Japanese)