[TV] The Cleveland Show S02E16

While this week's episode definitely started on a good note, with that movie trailer style of intro (which MacFarlane started doing with both Family Guy and American Dad a while ago), after that, it seemed to run out of steam way too fast for my taste.
The whole idea of generating conflict withe Cleveland's parents selling all his childhood stuff felt a little forced to me, and while this lead to some very funny moments after Rallo found a microphone and a radio among the stuff being sold, which he used to pretend being a standup comedian, a news reporter and a sports announcer, this got old pretty quick as well.

I did enjoy a bit seeing Cleveland getting back at his dad for all the abuse he had to endure at his hands while growing up, but this also made me question the continuity of the show a little bit. I mean, old "Freight Train" Brown rarely ever tolerated any disrespect from his son, but now he was all tame like a little puppy, and while in the end we discover this is because he was covering up for his wife's mistake, that fact alone was even more out of character: ever since when has Cleveland's dad truly cared about his own wife? It wasn't that long ago that he even had sex with a transvestite (granted, he didn't know that at the time) in a room upstairs, while his wife and everyone else were having thanksgiving dinner in the first floor. What happened to his character traits? Did he really change that much out of nowhere? i know these may be stupid questions when it comes to a comedy show, but i happen to be someone who does actually care about plot development, and therefore, this type of situations throw me off a a little bit.. oh well…

In the end, we come to what normally is a very poor attempt at making audiences laugh which has been made since the dawn of time: transgenderism. I mean, really? Did we really had to see Cleveland, his dad (both still wearing their mustaches, no less), Tim the Bear and the rest of the gang, all wearing wigs and women's clothes… just to catch a con artist, which ends up conning them anyway? Seriously, is that all that there is? You have run out of ideas to make us laugh, that you resource to a trick that has been done from old Bugs Bunny cartoons to Saturday Night Live sketches and beyond? While i could understand the humor of it, i still felt very disappointed in what this show is becoming lately.

To sum things up, this was absolutely NOT a memorable episode in the series, and if things keep up this pace, i see the possibility of future seasons of The Cleveland Show as very unlikely. I sincerely hope that Seth Macfarlane and his team can prove me seriously wrong. Rather, i'm counting on it  :)

Tags: (TV) Cartoons