After watching the preview for the fifth episode in Family Guy’s tenth season, I was pretty skeptical.  The “road to” episodes are usually (in my opinion) hit or miss and I was afraid Back to the Pilot would be a bit “miss”.  I love the dialogue between Brian and Stewie, but some of the jokes and scenes in a few have been obvious filler.  Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by Back to the Pilot.

The plot of the episode was Stewie and Brian traveling back in time…  Again…  The journey was prompted by a missing tennis ball, and I was prepared to be disappointed.  Previous Brian and Stewie adventures started with missing items, so I began waiting for the same old gags as previous episodes.  However, Family Guy was able to salvage the episode by making fun of itself and the show’s habit of beating a dead horse to death.

Long-time fans of the series probably caught most of the references and jokes about previous events in the series.  I personally loved the pains taken to maintain series continuity.  So many television shows (animated or otherwise) do not seem to worry about breaks in storyline, character changes, or anything else that might bother a hardcore fan.  However, Family Guy commented on Meg’s “voice change”, the change in aspect ratio, and animation style changes.  It was hard not to stop laughing as Brian and Stewie pointed out how much Family Guy has changed, and stayed the same, throughout the past years.

Even though “road to” episodes are still not among my favorites, Back to the Pilot is a good episode that was obviously made with fans in mind.