American Dad! – “Hot Water”
American Dad! is a show that I haven’t really watched regularly in a while. I don’t know why not. Every time I do it’s hilarious. I’d dare say that it’s a better show than Seth McFarlane’s more popular Family Guy. A big part of that is that it’s less reliant on cutaway gags irrelevant to the main narrative. It still goes to some WEIRD fucking places, but all in service to the main storyline. Even a bizarre R & B musical number (which apparently Fox was pushing as a download on iTunes) was germane to the main storyline. Also I need to start singing R & B because apparently that shit gives you awesome abdominals.
The plotline was an extended riff on Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (and more so the Howard Ashman/Alan Menken musical based on it) with Audrey 2’s place being taken by a possessed hot tub. Cee-lo Green is great in the Levi Stubbs role as the hot tub’s voice. He also has several weird live action narration segments. Those didn’t always work for me, except the last one: “Well, there you have it. That’s our story. Stan’s dead. Good Night.” I read that “Hot Water” was actually written when the future of American Dad! was in doubt and that’s why the episode ends with Stan and Francine dying. On another show, that’d be pretty dark (flashbacks of Cougarton Abbey’s suicide ending on Community). Here it’s just funny, especially since next week they’ll probably just completely ignore it… or maybe they will acknowledge it in some way. I never know what this show is going to do and I love that.
Persistence of Vision 
It’s a shame the ratings weren’t higher for this episode so more people could see how fantastic it was. Perhaps people will see it online or on DVD next year. It didn’t pack as much of a punch with the laughs but the concept like “Little Shop of Horrors” as a good one.