( I am going to try and make this a regular feature. We'll see how long that lasts...)
Community
Community has 2 types of episodes - crazy pop-culture parodies (the zombie episode, the spaceship episode) and down to earth episodes that explore the relationships between the characters. Throughout Community's season and a half, it has shown that it can do both types equally well and make them equally funny. Last night was one of the latter types, and it was pretty good. It touched on a lot of the relationships that had been building over time - Pierce and Troy, Jeff and Annie, and Chang with the study group as a whole. It also finally introduced a relationship that had only been talked about until now - Shirley and her ex-husband (Malcolm Jamaal-Warner sporting a FANTASTIC Cosby sweater). Another funny episode from the 2nd funniest show on TV.
Favorite scenes: Troy interrogating Shirley's ex-husband to see if he gets horny post-Halloween, Jeff bringing the woman to the mixer who spelled her name (Kendra) with a Q-U, the interrogation of Annie at the beginning to find out who her crush is ("Black Michael Chiklis"? "White George Foreman"? - both the same person).
Grade: B+
The Office
The Office continues its slide downwards in quality from its once lofty heights of comedy. However, it still has its funny moments (pretty much anything with Creed, and I like the fact that there is more Darryl). Steve Carell leaving after this season will either re-invigorate the show or be the final nail in its coffin, and at this point, I am fine with either outcome.
Favorite scenes: Dwight rollerskating across the road to go to the strip club, Michael and Erin dividing up supplies into Micheal's happy and sad boxes (Erin: "Gummy bears and gummy worms?" Michael: "Bears sad, worms happy—c’mon Erin”).
Grade: B-
Parks & Recreation
IT'S BACK, BABY! And it style too. It was a really funny episode, and it also acted as a good jumping on point for the (hopefully) new viewers that stuck around to watch after The Office. It did a good job of introducing what is great about the characters - Leslie's devotion to her job, Ron's manliness and lack of devotion to his job ("I'm not usually one for speeches, so… goodbye."), Andy's sweet-natured cluelessness, etc. It also sets up the rest of the season with a nice story arc - the "Harvest Festival", upon which the entire future of the Parks Dept. rests. Hopefully, it was enough of a set up to convince people to stick around the rest of the season.
Favorite scenes: Ron dressed as, and eventually acting like, Bobby Knight, Leslie throwing Jerry's painting in the water, Ann's spot-on impression of Chris, Tom as referee.
Grade: A
30 Rock
30 Rock has been having a very strong season so far, but this episode was a slight step back. It had some extremely funny moments (pretty much everything involving Jack and Liz), but the whole subplot with Jenna and Danny and their pretend "marriage" just didn't work for me and dragged the episode down whenever they switched to it. Still, the Jack-Liz dynamic saved the rest of the show for me.
Favorite Scenes: the cut-aways to Liz' behavior/appearance at the wedding, the final counseling scene with Mr. Weinerslav (a GREAT name), Angie's reality show (and Liz' inability to hide her excitement for watching it).
Grade: B
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