Category Archives: Analysis

2012/05/17 · 4:38 pm

Must Flee TV: ‘Parks and Recreation’ – We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes

This week we’re checking in on NBC’s Thursday night comedies as they finish their respective seasons.  Today: ‘Parks and Recreation.’ 

Perhaps the greatest compliment you can offer Parks and Recreation is that it’s no longer referred to as the quasi-Office spin-off (ignore the fact that we just did that in the first sentence).  We’re now multiple seasons into an excellent run where Parks and Recreation has cast off the chains of its origins, found its own voice, become its own show, and surpassed its progenitor by all metrics save for Neislen ratings.  We still maintain that Community is the best show of the night, but Parks and Rec has not been behind by much, outpacing The Office during its second season.

At the end of Parks and Rec‘s brief, unimpressive first season, we laid out a plan for how the show could not only improve but excel, and we revisited this primer just prior to the start of the show’s brilliant third season.  We also presented three more key points as the show moved forward and they were as follows:

More: What do you with a problem like Rashida?

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2012/05/16 · 4:09 pm

Must Flee TV: Managing Expectations – An Uneven Season of ‘The Office’ Comes to the Close

This week we’re looking back on the just completed/completing seasons of NBC’s Thursday night comedies.  Today we check in the senior member of the team, ‘The Office.’ 

For quite some time we were religious with our Office recaps, but then two things happened 1) we were working a paid job more than full-time and 2) the show became, well, inessential.  We hoped to check-in during Steve Carell’s final season, but analyses was few and far between.  But even though we weren’t providing regular reviews, the series was still required viewing.  We might not follow-up the next morning with our thoughts, but we were still going out of our way to watch it Thursday night, as much out of habit as desire.  But this season, with Carell’s Michael Scott off to Colorado, the show became the least appealing, least critical member of the lineup.  Wait til Friday to watch Community?  We’d rather not.  Skip an episode of Parks  and Rec?  No way.  But go a week without watching the latest The Office?  Sure.  View an episode of Robert California’s Dunder Mifflin out-of-order?  Fine.  We just didn’t care that much anymore.

But a funny thing happened at the end of The Office’s eighth season.  We were actually invested.  We almost felt things, things that just nearly came close to approximating the real emotions that the show’s best seasons elicited.  For the first time all year, the series seemed to find its voice.

More: How Andy Bernard got his groove back…

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2012/05/15 · 12:47 pm

Must Flee TV: Friday Night Fits – About ‘Community”s Move to Friday Nights

We’ve admittedly, regrettably, been remiss with our recaps and analysis of NBC’s Thursday night comedies.  There was a time when we provided weekly thoughts on ‘The Office’ (luckily our neglect kicked in just around the time when Friday morning post-mortems on that show would have been unbearable) and periodic temperature checks on ‘Parks and Recreation.’  With the season already complete for half of these shows, and the other two concluding their runs this week, we thought it was high time that we put aside some real estate to check in on these programs, starting today with a discussion about ‘Community’ (whose season (and not series) finale airs Thursday night (preceded by two other new episodes and the ’30 Rock’ closer).  

NBC announced their Fall 2012 pick ups last week and, despite lots of rumors and hand-wringing, Community will return for a fourth season.  That much wasn’t quite a surprise to us.  Could NBC have axed the criminally low-rated comedy?  Sure, and they would have the cold, emotionless Nielsen numbers to back it up.  But, at the same time, they know what they’re getting with Community.  Will it ever break out into a Friends or even These Friends of Mine sized hit?  Unlikely at this point.  But does it have a devoted, die-hard fan base?  Absolutely.  Attractive cast?  You bet.  A smart, discerning, relatively affluent audience?  We guess.  Close to reaching enough episodes for lucrative syndication?  Definitely.  So the renewal, especially for the 13-episode order it received, is not all that shocking to us.  What was unexpected, however, was the announcement at the NBC Upfronts that come this fall Community will be found on Fridays, as the lead-in to…Grimm?

Read on: Go ahead and step back from that ledge…

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2012/05/14 · 2:40 pm

‘Survivor: One World’ Finale – Tops and Bottoms

[SPOILER ALERT!!!]

“I know I lied to you and voted you out, but I have no boobs left so have a little mercy.” – Kim 

It is somewhat fitting and poetic that in a game defined by boobs – both anatomical and intellectual – it was the least endowed woman who triumphed over her more busty peers (and, no, we’re not talking about Nina).  In the end, it’s not what you have here (pointing to our chest), but what you have here (pointing to our head).  And whatever Kim may not have or may have lost in her bosom, she certainly more than made for up with her brains (we could also note how she played the game with a lot of heart, but that would require also pointing to our chest, which would confuse the whole point.  She also played with a lot of guts, but if we’re going to point to anyone’s stomach, it’ll be Colton’s to giggle at his doughy appendix scar).

More: The road to the final goes through the Valley of the Fallen Mikes…

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2012/05/07 · 6:24 pm

‘Survivor: One World:’ Child’s Play

Following Troyzan’s exit on last week’s Survivor: ONE WORLD! the vibe was tense back at the former Big Mike’s Co-Ed Dorm, with Kim spooked by Troyzan’s last words to Kat: DO IT.  It’s haunted all of our memories since:

But what did he mean???  What secret deal did Kat and Troyzan have?  What did those magic words express?  Were those the same words that Bill Murray uttered to Scarlett Johansson  at the end of Lost in Translation?  Were they trigger words intended to set Kat off into a hypnotic state?  Well, no, none of those things. He was just rattling the cage.  But he did a good job of it.  Enough to make Kim, queen of Survivor but always a bridal shop owner and never a bride, nervous about Kat’s continued presence in the game.

More: It’s Family Day! And things get weird.

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2012/04/17 · 9:02 am

‘Survivor: One World’ – Going with Your Gut

First off, we apologize for the two-week hiatus.  We took, what we consider to be, a well-deserved holiday, and are just now getting back into the swing of things.  However, while we were gone Survivor: ONE WORLD! just kept going, including a shake-up at Big Mike’s Co-Ed Dorm that displaced its namesake.  With the Salami and Manano-hope tribes merging earlier than anyone could have or should have expected, the game, as Tarzan would say (and does repeatedly), is afoot, and head into this lastest episode with always-a-bridal-shop-owner-never-a-bride Kim at a crossroads: does she stick with her alliance of four with Chelsea, Troyzan and Jayzan, or maintain her gender ties with the original Salami tribe.  She straddled both sides for a couple Tribal Councils, convincing Jay and Troyzan to vote out the biggest of the Mikes, but now she must pick her side and reveal her true colors.

For Tarzan it’s all just fun and games, but for the rest of the players this is real.

Read on: Jay’s stomach was bigger than his eyes…

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2012/03/23 · 8:56 pm

‘Survivor: One World’ – Karma Right Back At Him

For the last few seasons we’ve become increasingly irritated by the presence of God, or, rather, some players’ insistence that he (or she!) has some influence on the game of Survivor, from Matt justifying his repeated exile to Redemption Island as part of Jesus’s plan to Brandon Hantz invoking the will of the Lord in his quest to purge Mikayla from the game (and maybe the Earth) because of her fictional harlot tendencies.  For one season we can deal with these bible thumpers, but as it became a consistent aspect of the game, it became grating, obnoxious even.  Sure, God may love Survivor, but as a true fan he would never get involved.   When it comes to Survivor, God is agnostic, and if he had a dog in the fight, it wouldn’t be someone from the God Squad, it would be a rough and tumble champion, like Sophie or Lt. Tom Westman.  But even if God had a rooting interest, we were sure that he (or she!) had no impact on the game, just like he has nothing to do with Tim Tebow (unless sending him to the Jets is God’s idea of a holy hilarious joke).  However, after this week’s Survivor: One World! we’ve changed our mind.  Because if that wasn’t divine intervention, if that wasn’t an instance of God reigning down vengeance from above, we don’t know what is.

Read on: What goes The Worst comes around…

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2012/03/19 · 1:46 pm

‘Survivor: One World’ – The Game is Afoot, Smelling a But

What continues to astound us about Survivor players, season after season, is how little they understand the format of the game, how they continue to be surprised by surprises they should have seen coming, if only by the precedent set by every season of the show ever.  And what’s particularly interesting in a contradictory way is how they’re so myopic in looking so far ahead.  By already thinking about the end game – i.e. we have a strong alliance that can take us to the end, or at least to the merge – they fail to acknowledge or comprehend the twists and turns that will come along the way, i.e. a tribe shake up.  Because OF course that’s going to happen, ESPECIALLY since the tribes were originally drawn up along gender lines.  When you have such a stark contrast between teams, it’s a matter of a when, not if, the tribes will be realigned.  By handing over immunity to the Salami Tribe last week the men may have accelerated the tribe shake up, but it was a foregone conclusion to occur sometime soon.

As such, the universal look of shock on the players’ faces when they learned at the beginning of this week’s Survivor: ONE WORLD! that the tribes would indeed be redrawn was shocking, but only because they should have seen it coming.  To not have anticipated this shows how clueless these people really are, even Colton, who has self-professed himself to the master of this game.

And what’s up with Monica?  In the first episode she refuses to do a strip tease, then offers to do a pole dance in the third, and now this?  Lots of mixed signals, Monica (also, are you an ex-football player‘s wife or an ex-football player’s wife?  We’re a little confused.  Like we said, lots of mixed signals).

Click here to see Monica strip!

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2012/03/15 · 6:09 pm

The Return of ‘Community’: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hiatus

Tonight brings us the long-awaited return our beloved Community, the show that is, if you ask us, far and away the funniest, most innovative show on television (or off television, as the last couple months would have it).  While we still had Parks and Recreation, and welcomed back 30 Rock with open arms, Thursday nights just weren’t the same without the Greendale study group, just not as magical.

However, even though we dearly missed the show, and do worry about its chronically low-ratings and tenuous chances of renewal, we were not in panic-mode like some others were over its benching.  First off, the show was not canceled, and even though there was no definitive return date when the hiatus was announced, there was never a doubt that it would return this season.  Even if the show pulls in dismal ratings (which it unfortunately does), it wouldn’t make much financial sense for NBC to produce a full season and then never air the back half.  It’s not like Community will fare much worse than any of their other comedies, save for The Office.  So the hiatus was not a punishment, or a really even a threat.  Just a business decision, one that NBC scheduling has now applied to Parks  and Rec, as that equally wonderful show takes a break til late April.

Keep reading: Why the hiatus was good for Community and good for us

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2012/03/14 · 2:15 pm

Five Unlikely Reasons to Optimistic About the 2012 Mets

Occasionally we like to stray from our usual posts about TGIF and Jason Sudeikis and talk sports.  As much as we love pop culture and television and Internet nonsense, a lot of our time is also taken up by watching, reading up on, and listening to sports (which, unfortunately, leaves us little time for much else).  And with the 2012 Major League Baseball season nearly upon us, we thought we’d take a few minutes to explain why things may not be so bleak for our beloved NY Mets, even if these reasons seem completely counterintuitive.

1. Jose Reyes is No Longer a Met

Yep, the same Jose Reyes that won the NL Batting Title last season, and who was the best player in baseball for stretches in the first half.  That guy.  The same Jose Reyes who is the Mets all-time leader in triples, runs and steals, who can excite a ballpark like no other player we’ve ever seen.  When he’s on his game, there may be no more dynamic, electric player in the sport.  Yep, that’s the guy we’re happy to have off our roster.

Read on for 4 more!

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