'Family Guy' Season 11, Episode 1 - 'Into Fat Air' Recap

Well, that was kinda weird, wasn't it?

Generally, "Family Guy" doesn't displace its characters (with the exception of Brian and Stewie, who do quite a lot of traveling) for the sake of forcing a story, but it's season 11, so... well, sometimes you need an idea. Enter Mt. Everest.

This season premiere episode starts with the family having dinner with Lois' ex Ross Fischman and his family, who are generally more accomplished, wealthier, more refined and better behaved. In fact, they're about to climb Mt. Everest together. So naturally, to compete, Peter says that they're going to do the same thing.

Lois steps out of character a bit and actually agrees to climb the most dangerous peak in the world in order to show the Fischmans who's number one. It's all pretty silly, especially when you consider how much preparation and training has to go into climbing Everest, and just how many people die while attempting to climb it. But then again, this is a cartoon.

The Griffins actually achieve their goal of reaching the peak, but find that the Fischmans beat them there by about an hour. Dejected (and apparently not in appreciation of the huge feat they just accomplished), they turn to go back down the mountain, but the plot thickens when a huge storm hits.

The Griffins happen upon young Ben Fischman, who got separated from his parents and froze to death. The Griffins eat him to survive. Somehow, this is all a comedy in the meantime.

The family passes the Fischmans on the way down, who are looking for their son. Lois decides that what makes the Griffins the better family is their heart or something, so everyone goes back up to save the Fischmans. They succeed, and the couple is sent home with only a very quick admission from Peter that he ate their son.

If anything, this was a good way to deliver one of the better Brian jokes of late, as he reveals that among dogs, "the highest pee wins." That explains why they're marking everywhere. And we get a pretty good cut-away out of it too.

Not the best "Family Guy" episode yet, as it felt like it was just trying to be epic for the sake of epicness. The mundane is really where the best humor on this show comes from; so much so that sometimes it's just the inflection of a character's voice that makes us go "yeah, I've heard that before!" and get a good laugh out of it.

Cut-Aways of the Week:

-- Turning a double play: B. Just a fun in-joke here, as the voice change is mostly only funny since we know Seth does them both.

-- God naming Nepal: B. God is a surprisingly funny character on this show. The nipple thing wasn't too great, but the "shocker, God gets it right" was perfectly in line with this character's quirks.

-- Graduating from chiropractor school: B+. Probably not funny to any chiropractors out there, but the "anyone" thing got me. Maybe I watch too much "Futurama" and I've gotten all angry skeptic.

-- Dog sniffing Brian's Everest pee: A-. Solid reaction. "F*ck, no way!"

-- Jewish God makes you feel guilty: C. Way too many Jewish jokes on this show as it is. They need to get less lazy to start being funny again. This one was lazy.