On Nov. 24, “Family Guy” made the fatal decision to kill off one if its most popular and worldly characters, eight year-old dog Brian Griffin, on episode 6 of season 12, “Life of Brian.” No, this is not a spoiler anymore. It’s been all over the internet. Die-hard “Family Guy” fans are furious, and they should be.
According to “Rolling Stone,” executive producer Steve Callaghan admitted that Brian’s death would be a “fun way to shake things up.” Due to the decreasing viewer rate of 21%, the writers of “Family Guy” decided that it would be a great idea to replace Brian with Vinnie, voiced by “Sopranos” actor Tony Sirico, in order to increase said ratings.
Screwing the pooch was a bad idea, and here’s why.
Out of all 12 seasons, Brian probably consisted of 50% of the show’s comedic material. Brian had a different hilarious relationship with each individual family member. Without Brian, Stewie is nothing. Their back and forth made up entire episodes, and their adventures together became some of “Family Guy”’s most memorable moments: time travel, multiverse travel, traveling to the North Pole, saving Meg from prostitution in France and beating up one another. The list goes on for eons, and Brian and Stewie’s relationship was the strongest on the show. “Family Guy” should have at least killed off Chris or enrolled him in an exchange program.
So, with half of “Family Guy”’s comedic value down the drain, aren’t viewer ratings going to decrease even more so? Or, perhaps, will viewings increase due to their curiosity over what is to come?
In further issues, Brian’s death was rather quick and insulting. For a fully-developed primary character of 14 years, Brian simply got hit by a car. Over the span of 22 minutes, Brian was dead, and his last words were “I love you all.” The nature of his death served more to anger “Family Guy” fans than it did to regain their TV-time. He went like a dog, but he wasn’t just any dog. A more honorable, sensible way to kill him off would have just been to, over the course of a dual-episode special, have him die of old age since he was eight.
Only in “Life of Brian” did reckless behavior truly seem to have a consequence. It’s as if the show did a complete 180 and suddenly changed its priorities. Never in the history of “Family Guy” has any major character ever experience drastic consequences due to the actions of himself or others. Brian survived getting torched, beat upside the head, shot and choked, but he couldn’t survive getting hit by a car. To the very in-tune fans, that didn’t make sense. It’s not “Family Guy” logic.
In tonight’s episode, Vinnie will make another return. But chances are, Brian-fans will probably change the channel. In fact, many fans suggests that the death of Brian Griffin is a hoax and that he’ll be resurrected in the Christmas episode. While that may be very poor writing, fans are still hopelessly optimistic that Brian will return.
By Morgan Loxley
