Fox is Still Animating, But is it Still Dominating?

Cleveland Show is very... eh.

Fox's "Animation Domination" block doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. The Simpsons won't die, and as long as Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane can keep pulling ideas out of his ass brain, Sunday nights on Fox shall remain drawn.

We've seen the season premieres of three of the four shows (all except American Dad), and the biggest change in the line-up is the addition of Family Guy- spinoff The Cleveland Show. It's what all of you have come here to read about, so let's get started.

The Cleveland Show

The Cleveland Show gets off to a shaky start before the titles roll, all bright and colorful and accompanied by a cutesy song. Then the show starts again, and things go downhill.

Of all the major networks, Fox seems to make the fewest stupid decisions, so it's perplexing that The Cleveland Show has been blessed with a two-season order before it's even aired. And if Fox made that decision based on the strength of the pilot, then may God have mercy on its soul. Cleveland may be a spinoff of Family Guy, it may look like Family Guy, but it is no Family Guy.

Here's the premise of The Cleveland Show: Cleveland's wife finalizes a divorce and takes the house, leaving Cleveland with custody of his teenage son. He decides to pack up and seek a new life in California, but visits his hometown on the way out and falls for his high-school crush.

The pilot episode was leaked and reviewed on the Internet months ago, and if you're the sort that scours the Internet for that type of information, you know the response was overwhelmingly negative. Conventional wisdom says don't trust anything you read on the Internets -- but in this case, the early reviews pretty much nailed it.

Family Guy will never be considered one of television's great comedies, but when it comes to providing sitting-on-the-couch-after-a-long-day laughs, it gets the job done. The Cleveland Show's tries, but it doesn't provide the laughs. It misses the mark so badly at times, it's uncomfortable.

The show's two follow-up episodes improve greatly on the disappointing pilot, but fans of Family Guy will see it simply as a lesser Family Guy with a different complexion. To put it in perspective for you TV fans out there, Family Guy is The Office to The Cleveland Show's Parks and Recreation.

The Simpsons

In The Simpsons' millionth season opener, Comic Book Guy draws his own comic, which eventually becomes Hollywood's next big movie adaptation. Homer lands the role of the heroic lead, but the studio's market research forces Homer to work with a personal trainer (voiced by Seth Rogen). The result is another Homer-has-to-lose-weight episode, which is pretty on par with the quality of the last few seasons.

Family Guy

Stewie and his co-stars take a bite out of Fringe's story in the season opener, with Stewie and Brian heading off to a Christianity-free parallel universe. And it just gets better from there. Family Guy has always overdone the whole cutaway thing, but in the season premiere, the writers have found a clever way to bring all of their attention-deficit humor together: by sending Brian and Stewie warping around to different universes (the Disney universe is particularly awesome). It's one of the better Family Guy episodes to date, and it's just what the show needs.