 "Photo: Image courtesy of Fox Entertainment")
“The Cleveland Show” is now the third show created and developed by Seth MacFarlane to go on Fox, along with “Family Guy” and “American Dad.” The series is a spinoff with “Family Guy’s” Cleveland Brown losing his house to his ex-wife Loretta, but gaining custody of his son Cleveland Jr. who is now fatter and calmer than his previous appearances on MacFarlane’s original show.
Cleveland gets sick of Quahog and decides to leave and travel to California with his son Cleveland Jr. to become a professional minor league baseball coach. The “Family Guy” cast gives him a proper with random shenanigans, and Lois and Bonnie kissing at Cleveland’s request. Cleveland and his son leave and stop in Cleveland’s old hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia where his old high school crush, Donna, lets him stay for a few days. This brings Cleveland to remember his past and try to win Donna’s heart, even though she has two children of her own from her no-good husband, Robert.
As predictable as MacFarlane’s other shows have become, the first episode shows Cleveland winning her heart too easily to set the stage for the series' run, which will be Cleveland’s adjustment to his old hometown, dealing with his new wife and two stepchildren, and having to figure out key things like getting a job along the way.
The show has been put on rocky water so far with so many changes to characters and having Cleveland to fill the role of being the main character instead of being “second fiddle” to Peter. It has its quirks and has started to copy “Family Guy” in different ways from its random flashbacks that cut between the action and its cast of characters that resembles a past cast that he used to hangout with. For example, if you count Cleveland, Donna, her daughter Roberta, Cleveland Jr., and Rallo, the show contains a similar family dynamic as “Family Guy.”
Some of the new characters include a redneck named Lester that resembles Quagmire in a way, a hipster wannabe named Holt, and an anthropomorphic bear named Tim, which is similar to Brian. Cleveland has a big task ahead of him to become a main character of this show and for it to be entertaining.
It seems off to a good start but I am not convinced that it will become a smashing hit overnight. I hope that the characters will stay solid unlike “Family Guy,” where almost everything changed in the fourth and fifth season. Along with the characters, Cleveland will have to make his cast exciting enough to watch.
I do think that the show is off to a great start and that it will have to continue at this pace to become something that is fully worth watching. I think that it is worth checking out at this point and I think that it can get better soon with more development into the story and more comedy mixed in, to break up the drama going on.
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He did that live action that tanked.