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Description
Note: The last 9 episodes of this season are in widescreen, but I sized them as 4:3 in this scorecard as to not mess with the formatting. S6 and onward will have the episode images in widescreen.

This is what I'm talking about. We've now entered peak American Dad, when the show is putting out consistently great outings. All my issues with season 4 seem to be gone with this season, as this one has much more creative premises and that sense of weird AD humor is much more present here than ever before. I especially noticed a boost in the amount of laughs per episode once the HD episodes arrived. This is also the season with the legendary "Rapture's Delight," which, while not quite my favorite of the show, does deserve the hype and is an absolute thrill ride from start to finish.

Really, my only gripes with this season are the two duds that just so happened to come next to each other. "Shallow Vows" is easily my least favorite of the FOX era, being possibly the most mean-spirited episode up to this point with no sense of likability in either Stan or Francine, with the episode essentially saying that their marriage is based solely on looks (Francine) and the ability to provide (Stan) when their marriage was presented as more than that in numerous other episodes. Combine that with a Roger subplot which completely misunderstands his character and has him stabbing Steve for barely any reason and you get a pretty hard episode to watch. The other dud is "My Morning Straitjacket" which felt more like a 22 minute advertisement for My Morning Jacket than an actual episode, with jokes that are more unfunny than the standard of the season, not to mention Stan is poorly characterized in this episode. I guess I should also mention "An Incident at Owl Creek," which, while an okay episode, had a dream twist that was so stupid and tarnished an otherwise fine episode.

That's all I have to say. This season was a ton of fun to watch and where I think American Dad started to really impress me. Let's see if season 6 can keep up this momentum.

Description
Note: The last 9 episodes of this season are in widescreen, but I sized them as 4:3 in this scorecard as to not mess with the formatting. S6 and onward will have the episode images in widescreen.

This is what I'm talking about. We've now entered peak American Dad, when the show is putting out consistently great outings. All my issues with season 4 seem to be gone with this season, as this one has much more creative premises and that sense of weird AD humor is much more present here than ever before. I especially noticed a boost in the amount of laughs per episode once the HD episodes arrived. This is also the season with the legendary "Rapture's Delight," which, while not quite my favorite of the show, does deserve the hype and is an absolute thrill ride from start to finish.

Really, my only gripes with this season are the two duds that just so happened to come next to each other. "Shallow Vows" is easily my least favorite of the FOX era, being possibly the most mean-spirited episode up to this point with no sense of likability in either Stan or Francine, with the episode essentially saying that their marriage is based solely on looks (Francine) and the ability to provide (Stan) when their marriage was presented as more than that in numerous other episodes. Combine that with a Roger subplot which completely misunderstands his character and has him stabbing Steve for barely any reason and you get a pretty hard episode to watch. The other dud is "My Morning Straitjacket" which felt more like a 22 minute advertisement for My Morning Jacket than an actual episode, with jokes that are more unfunny than the standard of the season, not to mention Stan is poorly characterized in this episode. I guess I should also mention "An Incident at Owl Creek," which, while an okay episode, had a dream twist that was so stupid and tarnished an otherwise fine episode.

That's all I have to say. This season was a ton of fun to watch and where I think American Dad started to really impress me. Let's see if season 6 can keep up this momentum.