Brian: Portrait of a Dog

Great episode one of my favorites. The first episode with Brian going against Peter's wishes.

The first episode of Family Guy to feature Brian as a standout character, before he was purely a voice of reason who set Peter in the right direction but from this episode onwards he's given his own personality and worldview as we see things from his perspective more often. Brian episodes always tend to be more grounded than other characters and they are usually some of my favorites and this one sets a good precedent for Brian as a character which the next few seasons would continue to develop.

The seventh and final episode of the very short Family Guy: Season One is a funny and sometimes moving episode. This episode puts the spotlight not on the Griffin Family this time around, but more on their dog, Brian. For the first time, Brian becomes more centralized and we see what kind of a dog he is and why he differs from the other dogs. This episode features some funny jokes, and of course some hilarious pop culture references.

This episode, "Brian: The Portrait of a Dog" is perhaps the strongest episode mainly because Brian is my favorite character. Essentially, this episode is about how Brian gets in trouble with the law and how close it was that Brian left the family for good.

Overall, this is a really funny episode that is a good conclusion for the first season. I think it was appropriate for an episode to be all about Brian. I rate this episode 9/10.

If you're a big Brian Griffin fan, there's no doubt that you consider this among your favorite episodes. We get a lot of character development in this episode for Brian, learning about his feelings, his strengths and weaknesses, and the vital presence he brings to the Griffin table.

Oh god. I'm not going to do this am I? There are 400+ episodes of "Family Guy" I can't be planning them all, can I? Let's find out. I rewatched season one anyway. My relationship with "Family Guy" is that I watched these, all the way back in 1999 and then bought the DVD so I have seen these particular episodes a number of times. I've drifted away from religiously watching the show though, so they'll be quite a few of the 400 I've not seen.

In Quahog, Rhode Island, the dysfunctional Griffin Family live a wacky life. Peter (Seth MacFarlane) works at a Toy Factory, but his interests are more centered on having beers with his friends. His wife, Lois (Alex Borstein) is focused on the family. His daughter Meg (Lacey Chabert) grapples with esteem issues, eldest son Chris (Seth Green) struggles academically, and with sports, but loves to draw, youngest son Stewie (MacFarlane) plans world domination from his crib and dog Brian (MacFarlane) is the most erudite member of the family.

So, it's hard with these early ones not to just compare them with what's going to come in later seasons. The biggest and most striking difference in this series to the rest of them is that Meg is voiced by Lacey Chabert, rather than Mila Kunis, and they definitely don't have the defining joke about her (that everyone hates her) down yet. That is perhaps true for several of the characters, Quagmire isn't yet a sex criminal, Cleveland is not yet his placid self and Joe Swanson only arrives in one of the episodes of this run. Visually it's a little lacking too, the character models and style is there, but occasionally the movement is lacking. I'm not sure whether that's an issue with the originals, or with the digital transfer to Disney Plus, we'll see if it continues.

Tonally though it seems pretty much there from the off, very near the knuckle from the beginning the cutaway non-sequitur styles gags are already present. It's not hilariously funny, but I did find these first seven to be reasonably amusing and that was with certain lines and gags that I remembered pretty well.

I don't know if I'm going to do all 400 episodes, but I'll certainly continue on.