Surro-Gate

"Surro-Gate"
American Dad! episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 7
Directed by	Tim Parsons
Written by	Erik Durbin
Featured music	"Jet Song" by Leonard Bernstein
Production code	3AJN07
Original air date	December 2, 2007 (2007-12-02)
Guest appearances
Jane Lynch as Al Leisha Hailey as Lily Mary Jo Catlett as Guest #1

"Surro-Gate" is the seventh episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series American Dad!. The 49th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on the Fox Network in the United States on December 2, 2007. The episode was written by Erik Durbin and directed by Tim Parsons. Guest stars in the episode include Jane Lynch, Leisha Hailey, and Mary Jo Catlett, as well as several recurring guest voice actors and actresses for the series.

The episode is one of the first to focus heavily on the Smith's gay neighbors, Greg and Terry. In the episode, Stan hears the news that Greg and Terry are planning on starting a family through IVF. Stan at first takes this as a joke, and tries to convince them to remain childless. When Greg and Terry have trouble finding a donor, Francine offers to be the surrogate mother for the couple's baby. Stan is enraged when he finds out that his wife is the surrogate for Greg and Terry's baby, and he later vows to take the infant to Nebraska to put her up for adoption. Meanwhile, Roger and Steve play a trick on Klaus, only for him to seek revenge on the two.

The idea for "Surro-Gate" was inspired from executive producer Kenny Schwartz, who had a child through IVF during the episode's production. The episode received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized the episode's humor as "severely unfunny".

Plot

Stan and Francine Smith are informed by Greg and Terry, a gay couple who live next-door, that the couple plans on having a baby through in vitro fertilization. Francine is happy for them, but Stan having recently come to some level of acceptance of their homosexuality is against the idea of bringing children into a non-traditional family, believing it will make them dysfunctional (among other things, such as boys will play with dolls, girls will play with trucks and a nonsensical theory that it could lead to horses eating each other). The pair soon come into a problem, however, as they cannot find a surrogate mother they can agree on (Greg does not approve of anybody that Terry suggests). Francine volunteers to help them, and secretly becomes pregnant with their child without telling Stan out of fear of his reaction (filled with the thought of Stan attacking her with a broken bottle, changing to a chainsaw, changing it again to a live jaguar, finally changing it to a jaguar armed with a chainsaw). She does not tell Stan, even though she promised the unborn child she would eventually. Stan soon thinks that Greg and Terry have returned to their normal lives and Francine has become fat.

Stan eventually finds out (six months into the pregnancy), and while he is at first furious, Hayley, taking advantage of his pro-life values, reminds him that the baby is there and all he can do is do what is best for the baby instead of thinking of himself. Soon Francine goes into labor, and she, Stan, Greg and Terry rush to the hospital, where she delivers a baby girl. Stan, however, soon kidnaps the baby, and goes on a cross-country drive to Nebraska, where gay couples do not have parental rights, so that the baby (whom he names "Liberty Belle") can have a normal family (i.e., at an orphanage). Stan and Liberty soon find themselves fleeing from gay-rights activists trying to stop them from reaching the state border, only finding support in the local bystanders he comes across. They are rescued by a woman on a quad bike named Lily (played by Leisha Hailey), who takes them to her home. Stan is impressed by Lily's two polite, well-behaved children (Jason and Mary), until he meets Lily's wife (played by Jane Lynch) Al—short for "Allison." The pair explain they are a lesbian couple who decided to bring him to their home to show him that a gay family can be stable and hopefully convince him to return baby Liberty to her parents. Stan, however, simply abducts their two children and steals their truck. After realizing the error of his ways, Stan tries to apologize, but Greg and Terry punch him and put a restraining order on him as punishment for kidnapping their new baby, while allowing Francine and the others to play with the baby in the park, though they let Stan come (on the condition that he stay far enough away, of course); his methods of cooing her from afar proving obviously ineffective.

Meanwhile, Steve and Roger play a joke on Klaus by throwing him in his bowl down a water slide, and Klaus swears horrible, excruciatingly painful revenge on them. As a result, they grow paranoid and live in the attic for the nine months in which the episode takes place, starving, wearing diapers and not letting any can of food out of their sight for a second.

Production

Mike Barker

"Surro-Gate" lampoons in vitro fertilisation and homophobia, with the latter being done mainly through Stan. In the DVD commentary for the episode, Nahnatchka Khan notes that the idea for Greg and Terry to have a baby through IVF was inspired from executive producer Kenny Schwartz, who had two children through IVF around the time of the episode’s production. Kenny had helped the writers make sure the episode was accurate in its portrayal of the process. Mike Barker notes that during production of the episode, the standards made the writers change the word "mentally retarded" to "slow" for being "offensive", as Mike puts it. Mike Barker also notes that for Terry and Greg's quick dance sequence, the team had to secure the rights for "Jet Song" from West Side Story to play in the background, which they were eventually granted.

"Surro-Gate" was written by Erik Durbin and directed by Tim Parsons, in his first episode of the series. In addition to the regular cast, actresses Jane Lynch, Leisha Hailey, and Mary Jo Catlett guest starred in the episode. Despite airing as a part of the show's fourth season, it was actually produced as the seventh episode of its third season, hence bearing the production code 3AJN07.

Cultural References

The episode contains several references to popular culture. When Stan comes to Greg and Terry's house to fight, Greg and Terry start dancing to the tune of "Jet Song" from West Side Story, with their dance sequence also being taken directly from the movie. Greg mentions that one of the candidates to be their surrogate put down Erin Brockovich as her favorite film. Stan assumes that the idea of in vitro fertilization comes from Star Trek, and then mentions his distaste for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Reception

"Surro-Gate" was first broadcast on December 2, 2007, as part of the animated television line-up on Fox. It was preceded by reruns of The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and its sister show Family Guy. It was viewed by 6.48 million homes during its initial airing, according to the Nielson ratings, despite airing simultaneously with Cold Case on CBS and The Oprah Winfrey Show on ABC. It received a 3.2 rating in the 18-43 demographic. The episode's ratings were significantly down from the previous episode, "The 42-Year-Old Virgin", which was viewed by 8.12 million viewers upon it's initial airing, and garnered a 2.8 rating in the 18–49 demographic. The episode's ratings and total viewership were also the lowest since the season four episode "Dope & Faith", which was viewed by 6.20 million viewers and acquired a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club gave it a mixed review, calling it "predictable" and mentioning that she preferred family-centered episodes such as "Meter Made" and "The Vacation Goo" to episodes that satirized politics. She went on to criticize the subplot: "I would have much preferred to see an all-out war between the two factions, rather than Roger and Steve wearing diapers and slowly growing even more pathetic". She gave the episode a C−, the lowest grade of the night.

In his review of the Volume 3 box set, James Musgrove of IGN cited the episode as a "fine example" of one of the season's "severely unfunny" installments, calling the episode "quite a stumble though, harkening back to the shaky first steps of this still-growing television comedy".

External links

• "Surro-Gate" at IMDb