this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (2 children)

American Dad is a fantastically funny show, but season 1 is basically unwatchable. Season 2 is a mixed bag. I'd recommend people just start watching from season 3 onward and only check out the earlier episodes as a curiosity.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

American Dad is so underrated. Seth McFarlane is very funny, but you can tell that Fox saw Family Guy taking off and basically took it away from him, and he knew there was no sense in fighting it. But he started American Dad, and that's where you can really see his comedy come through.

So many great episodes. In Country... Club is probably my all-time-favorite. So many others though, Irregarding Steve, The Abusive Terrestrial, The Vacation Goo, Spring Breakup, and Shallow Vows. And really anything with Roger

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

'In Country... Club' is the example episode I use to get people to try the show. It is so good and commits to hard to the premise.

We were kids, man!

[–] chocrates@piefed.world 7 points 1 day ago

I thought McFarlane had very little to do worth American dad, other than the voice, after the first few seasons?

Regardless it's amazing. It turned from a critique of Republicans to some surrealist nonsense, it's great.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I remember watching American Dad's premiere and being excited for the concept but disappointed by the execution. You can tell there's aspiration to be a good parody of the contemporary political climate in the first episode, but iirc it's undermined by its crassness.

The Orville also struggled to get its footing in the early episodes; maybe Seth MacFarlane just does better once his series gets established?

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

I think they struggled early on for different reasons.

American Dad was too laser focused on being a political satire show and I just don't think the writers were equipped to write a good political show. It just comes off as angry and with unlikable characters. Once it loosened up a little bit, having that political satire premise as a foundation gives the characters a baseline to work from and they all feel distinct because of it.

The Orville feels like Seth didn't want to make a comedy. It feels to me like he just wanted to make Star Trek, but because he's "a comedy guy" a lot of the humor, especially early on felt like it was put in to meet some expectation of Fox that a Seth show be a comedy.