Family Guy is back, and I’m glad to see it return.

Don’t misunderstand — I’m not saying that I’m a rabid fan of Family Guy. In fact, I’m not a fan of the show at all. I mean, I’ve caught an episode or two, and they’ve amused me, but it never quite struck a chord with me the way it seems to have done for some of my friends.

So, why do I care if it’s back?

Family Guy and Firefly both fell victim to the executives at Fox. Both were, in my opinion, poorly marketed. I’m not entirely certain about Family Guy‘s being delayed or left unaired due to scheduling conflicts with various other Fox events, but I know that Firefly fell prey to that, and it’d certainly be par for the Fox course to have done it to Family Guy.

Firefly, of course, went on to have fairly successful DVD sales, and there’s a related movie coming out in September, Serenity, which I might’ve mentioned before. Now, Family Guy is back, as well.

I see both of these things as victories for television viewers. Of course, if it were my choice, it would’ve worked the other way around (I’d rather have the 22 or so episodes in a television season than a two hour movie, even if the movie does have a bigger scope), but I’m certainly not complaining about the upcoming movie… unless, of course, it sucks.

Since the success of Survivor, television networks have gone overboard with the reality shows. I don’t really begrudge some viewers for their enjoyment of those shows, but as I tend to watch television to escape reality, I’d rather have fun, intelligent, scripted shows. To see that these two franchises have found some degree of success even after being cancelled by (in my opinion) short-sighted television executives is quite encouraging.