Emmy-Winning Episode
| "Emmy-Winning Episode" | |
|---|---|
| Family Guy episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 16 Episode 1 |
| Directed by | James Purdum Dominic Bianchi Peter Shin James R. Bagdonas (live-action sequence) |
| Written by | Aaron Lee |
| Production code | FACX06 |
| Original air date | October 1, 2017 |
| Guest appearances | |
| |
"Emmy-Winning Episode" is the first episode of the sixteenth season of the animated sitcom Family Guy, and the 290th episode overall. It aired on Fox in the United States on October 1, 2017, and is written by Aaron Lee and directed by James Purdum, Dominic Bianchi, and Peter Shin with James R. Bagdonas directing the live-action chicken fight. Guest voices include Louis C.K., Jonathan Kite, Bill Maher, Miriam Margoyles, Christina Pickles, and three of Modern Family's regular cast: Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, and Sofia Vergara.[1]
Plot
As the Griffin family is watching Vedder Call Saul, Peter is displeased that Family Guy hasn't won a single Emmys since it debuted in 1999, and the crossover with The Simpsons didn't help. Lois even mentions that they shouldn't do another episode with The Simpsons because it only helped the other show (or made Family Guy look bad when fans condemned The Simpsons for agreeing to the crossover at all). He then embarks on his own For Your Consideration campaign by spoofing other shows who won the award.
Peter first aims at wining an Emmy for Best Comedy, which includes Modern Family, Girls, and Transparent and other comedy traits (with two being Sofía Vergara taking Lois' role, Lois portraying a delivery person, Chris acting like Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, a pass-by from Tracy Morgan, and Peter playing transgender). He even encounters Louis C.K. outside The Drunken Clam, where the comedian says he's glad his career has cooled off just enough that Peter was able to get him to make a cameo on the show. When Peter goes into the bar, everyone says Peter's name in the style of Cheers. After that, Peter is sent to the hospital where Dr. Hartman came in to change his sex. Peter insists that it was just a gag, and Hartman continued on anyway. His final narration on that have him stating "And that's how I became your Mom."
The comedy submission didn't work, as the Emmy producers disliked it and said that Family Guy now OWED them an Emmy. Brian insists on moving to Best Drama as spoofs of Breaking Bad, The Wire, Homeland, The Sopranos, Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, and Game of Thrones follow. The sketch ends with the Night King about to attack Peter with an undead dragon. It is watched by two people and a dragon who is happy to be told by a female viewer that the show got his dragon traits right.
The drama submission also didn't work because a message from the Emmy board tells Peter to stop and he continues trying to make more Emmy spoofs including stunts, documentaries, reality shows and castings in comedy series enough for Peter to do some interaction with a live-action Asa Akira. After doing a spoof of The Daily Show, he is called aside by Bill Maher who promises that Peter will never win an Emmy due to the fact that the same shows other than Family Guy win the award every year. He also asks Peter who the "Asian chick" is and Peter says he knows that Maher is very familiar with Asa Akira's work. Taking Bill Maher's tip-off, Peter goes to the library where he sees a lot of names and shows that won Emmys, while doing the same "Who was that Asian girl?/You know who that was" exchange with the elderly librarian.
Peter returns home to tell Lois about it where she states that they have a selection of Emmy winners visiting them consisting of Alec Baldwin, Julie Bowen, C.K., Tina Fey, Kelsey Grammer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Shonda Rhimes, and Aaron Sorkin, who pick at the show's faults such as plagiarizing other TV shows and movies, the contrived episode wrap-ups mentioned and that many characters of color are voiced by white actors.
Peter finally gives up trying to win an Emmy and is happy to have his family as his award. An E-Mail that Peter reads from a chemotherapy patient mistakes the show for The Simpsons when the fact that the fan mentioned how he liked the episode where Homer stays home from church. Peter ends the episode with a live-action sequence of Ty Burrell fighting and strangling a rubber chicken. The hand of an unidentified person presents him with an Emmy Award, but Ty tells the person that he doesn't have any more room in his house for it.
Reception
The episode had an audience of 2.80 million viewers.[2] Jesse Schedeen of IGN gave the episode a 7.6/10. He noted "Like The Simpsons, Family Guy kicked off its new season with a themed episode tonight. Surprisingly, of the two it was Family Guy that emerged the clear winner. This series tends to have a solid track record whenever it gets unusually meta, and 'Emmy-Winning Episode' was no exception". Jesse praised the first and second acts; however, he criticized the third act.[3]
Green Lynx of Bubbleblabber gave the episode a 5/10. He went on to say: "They say the first step to solving a problem is identifying you have one, and this episode definitely demonstrates they are aware of their problems. It also tells us that they clearly have no intent on fixing it. I mean, this is the sixteenth season. One. Six. Clearly, they are doing enough to keep themselves from being canned and they don’t plan on doing anything more than the bare minimum. And nothing says that more where the episode can basically be summed up as 'we don’t have an Emmy, here’s a bunch of shows that do, good night.' I’d go into what ways they could have made this actually about something, but that would be doing more work than they did. Though I guess it was worth it to see one of Adam West’s final performances. So we’ll call that a highlight."[4]
References
- ^ "'Emmy-Winning Episode'". The Futon Critic. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
- ^ Porter, Rick (October 1, 2017). "'NCIS: LA' and '60 Minutes' adjust up, 'Wisdom of the Crowd' and 'Ten Days in the Valley' down: Sunday final ratings". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ^ Schedeen, Jesse (October 2, 2017). "Family Guy: "Emmy-Winning Episode" Review". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ^ Lynx, Green (October 1, 2017). "Review: Family Guy "Emmy Winning Episode"". Bubbleblabber.
