Yesterday we gave our brief thoughts on the then impending return of the NBC Thursday night comedies, reflecting on the last season while looking forward to the next. And on the morning after, how do we feel? Impressed, pleased and disappointed, in that order. With the night going from Community to 30 Rock to The Office, we found that the first continues to improve, the second is showing encouraging signs of life, and the third is still struggling to return to its glory days. Taken has a whole, it was a good night, and two out of three ain’t bad. But really, we don’t want “ain’t bad.” We want great, we want three out of three. And, unfortunately, that just didn’t happen.
Category Archives: Must See TV
NBC Thursday Night: Respect Your Friends, Respect your Coworkers, Respect Your Lovers, Respect Your Characters, Respect Your Viewers
Filed under Analysis, Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam, Good Humor, Must See TV
Gentleman, Start Your DVRs: Quick Thoughts On The NBC Thursday Night Comedies
It seems like May sweeps was just yesterday, but here we are on the cusp of the return of Thursday night TV-pocolypse. Luckily for our DVR, Survivor was shifted back to Wednesday nights, and Parks and Recreation is (egregiously) on the shelf until mid-season (of course, while that might be good for our DVR, it’s terrible for our collective well-being). But we’re still left with what is now the NBC comedy old guard, The Office & 30 Rock, and the returning sensation, and probably the best of the bunch, Community. And later we have a little cable fun with It’s Always in Philadelphia and Delocated (if you’re eyeballs aren’t bleeding by then). But, for now, let’s quickly focus on the NBC line-up.
The big story on NBC Thursday nights, as we noted above, is not what’s on, but what’s not, that being Parks and Recreation, benched in favor of the already critically reviled Outsourced. Sure, NBC has the right to air whatever it wants, and if it thinks another show will be more successful, and has the potential to be an anchor the way that The Office is and shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier and Cheers were, then we can’t begrudge them that. But Outsourced hasn’t even aired yet and it seems the verdict is already in: it’s a waste of valuable space. One has to wonder if NBC, who proved with the Jay Leno Show that they’re willing to sacrifice quality programming for profit, chose to promote Outsourced because it’s an in-house production, even knowing its an inferior program. Because even if it pulls in rating as low as Parks and Rec, maybe even lower, NBC will still grab a bigger slice of the pie. That’s just conjecture at this point, but there’s certainly a precedent for it, and we know that TV, network television in particular, is a business above all. Let’s just hope that Outsourced is so terrible that it’s yanked sooner than planned and Parks and Recreation can reclaim its rightful place (especially since they rushed the show back into production for its third season to accommodate Amy Poehler’s pregnancy).
More: ‘Community’ is up, ‘The Office’ is down, and ’30 Rock’ is still here.
Filed under Analysis, Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam, Freak Out Control, Good Humor, Must See TV
Not Very Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Random, Belated, Emmy Thoughts
The Emmy’s were handed out three nights ago, and in the internet world that’s about the equivalent of a fortnight, and everyone who can say it better than me has already said it better than me. But, just to put it on the permanent record, and to get us ready for the impending fall TV season, we thought we’d follow-up with a few humble thoughts of our own, in concise bullet-point form:
- Loved the opening bit, even if it was somewhat of a rehash of 6-Bee‘s glee club rendition of “We’re Not Going to Take It,” a performance that we still giddily cue up on our screen on a regular basis (as well as an audio version on our iPod). But with Tina Fey, Jon Hamm, Joel McHale, Jorge Garcia AND Tim Gunn it was like the Ocean’s 11 all-star version of the original Late Night piece, and it truly demanded some freak out control. Our worlds colliding, but in an amazing way.
- Speaking of Jon Hamm, now that his comedic genius has finally been exposed to a wide audience (30 Rock is still critically adored but commercially ignored, his appearances in viral videos only legitimately reach a small segment of the online viewing public, and even two turns hosting SNL don’t necessarily make you a household name these days), can we start having him be funny full-time? He’s so gifted, and so natural, it honestly feels like a waste forcing him to be so stoic and dour and cold on Mad Men (and we know we sound like a broken record on this, but we’re going to keep bring it up until it happens. Or until Mad Men becomes a farcical satire. Maybe in season 5). Sure, he’s magnetic, sexy and mysterious on the AMC drama, but it’s when he’s allowed to do comedy that he truly lights up. But after being seen dancing like an idiot on HDTVs all across the country maybe someone will give him a chance to headline a comedy. Perhaps something in the Apatowian genre. I think that’s a hit.
- And if and when Hamm gets that nod can they please place Joel McHale alongside him? Please?
Continue: more overdue and rambling considerations, compliments and criticisms…
‘Survivor: Heroes vs. Villians’ – All Hantz On Deck AKA “What Just Happened?”
We we came home to an unexpected treat last night. No, not the Rangers-Islanders game broadcast in 3D (because who besides Future Marty McFly owns a 3D TV? (although, I guess future Marty McFly would now be Present Marty McFly, but that’s there not here)). We’re talking about a special Wednesday episode of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains (moved up a night, as is the yearly tradition, to accommodate March Madness, or, as I think of it, Annual Exploitation of College Kids in Order to Line the Already Deep Pockets of Television Networks and Elite Universities While at the Same Time Deferring Attention From the Start of the Baseball Season Madness. Wow, two sports references in the first paragraph. We’ll stop, promise). And boy, was it ever special.
After our hero Lt. Tom Westman was voted out two weeks ago we* were glad that the show had a mini-hiatus last week. We needed the time to mourn, to come to terms, to learn to love again. And honestly, when the show started last night we didn’t know if we still had the desire. Perhaps the spark was gone. And when it soon became clear that Colby, Tom’s deputy and the last remaining true hero, and Russell, the most entertaining and devious competitor, were on the chopping block our excitement for the rest of the season was diminished even further. A show with no Tom, no Colby, no Russell (and no curmudgeonly Randy)? Would that even be a show worth watching? Why continue tuning in to see Rupert sacrifice his integrity for a weak alliance, to see James hobble his way through challenges and jackass his way through Tribal Councils, to see Courtney literally waste away, to see Sandra make it to the final three by doing absolutely nothing (and to begrudgingly see Boston Rob dominate physically and mentally). I’m just not sure that’s a show I want to watch.
And after the combination reward/immunity challenge, and the promise of both tribes going to Council, the show tried to tease us into thinking that Russell would maybe outsmart Boston Rob, and that perhaps the Heroes tribe would (a week too late) vote out James if he couldn’t beat JT in a footrace. But we knew better than that. They were just trying to create false drama, a faint, feigned glimmer of hope that our white knight and our red devil wouldn’t be going home. Sorry, Survivor, you can’t fool us that easily.
But wait.
Filed under Must See TV, Tribal Council
The Office: Labor Pains
Back in October The Office invited us to Pam and Jim’s wedding, an hour-long special event that had been hyped on NBC and in our hearts, and against unlikely odds that episode actually mostly succeeded. It wasn’t a runaway success, but considering the expectations and the level of difficulty, it was generally a victory. That episode was really the first part of a Pam/Jim seminal event season, with the bookend to their wedding being the birth of their first child. However, since the wedding The Office has kind of skid off the tracks. So then with last night’s episode, another hour-long affair, I was hoping that this would be the moment that they right the ship.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. And whereas the wedding was a modest achievement, this felt like an unsettling disappointment. What should have been a special, moving episode, and a return to form, turned out to be a case study of the show’s recent flaws. Everything that has been frustrating as of late was front and center in “The Delivery.”
Read on: Who are these people and what have they done with Dunder Mifflin Scranton?
Filed under Analysis, Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam, Must See TV
Thoughts on the LOST Premiere AKA Why LOST Was the Best Show of the Last Decade
I’m not sure if I’m going to make a habit of posting weekly Lost reactions. First of all, there are countless other bloggers who do an infinitely better job parsing the show and its mythology (Doc Jensen, Videogum, Alan Sepinwall, AV Club to name a few) And second, I think I’d rather spend my time reading other people’s thoughts and theories than formulating my own, because immersing myself in the world of Lost and its possibilities is one of my all-time favorite pastimes. But, in honor of the season premiere, and in light of a post I didn’t get around to writing six weeks ago, I thought I’d put finger to keyboard and deliver commentary that’s more along the lines of Ken Tucker’s, focusing not on the mythology, but on the storytelling and the characters. Not on what the things in Lost mean, but on what is Lost‘s meaning.
Read on: Why I thought Lost was the best show of the decade, and how I was wrong but still right.
Filed under Freak Out Control, LOST, Must See TV
Dear ‘The Office:’ You’re Making it Harder and Harder to Keep Defending You
First reaction to last night’s “episode:”
What the fuck was that?
A clip show? Really? Really???
Perhaps I would not have be so indignant if the episode had was a celebration of a milestone number of episodes. Or if it arrived in conjunction with another episode wholly comprised of wholly original content.
But for this excuse of an episode to arrive after a 5 week hiatus is rather insulting. I feel used, played, betrayed. And if they were going to start 2010 with a retrospective, why not do it last week when all the other Thursday night sitcoms returned with new episodes? Instead, The Office totally sat out the week, let 30 Rock turn in two new episodes, and still phoned it in this lackluster effort this week. So while 3/4 of NBC’s Thursday night lineup is already two weeks into their 2010, mostly firing on all cylinders, The Office hasn’t even really left the bench. What I posited about “Secret Santa” last week, that the writers were probably burned out and needed an extended rest seems even more accurate now. I can only hope that this extra week allows them to come back even stronger next time (and now they need to deliver even more than they needed to this week).
Read on: What makes this so egregious, clip shows through history, and a glimmer of hope…
Something Funny Happened on the Way to Five Thursday’s Ago
(This a post I intended to compose a month ago, but then the holidays hit, and then the Thursday night comedies went on winter vacation so there was no real rush to write this. But with the comedy block returning tonight, save for The Office, this seemed like the right time to finally record these thoughts).
One month ago, on December 10, before the Jaypocalypse, NBC’s Thursday night comedies aired their Christmas themed episodes. And something funny happened: The Office, well, wasn’t. At least it was very clearly the weak link in what was otherwise a very strong night of comedy. 30 Rock continued to be the joke-for-joke best show on television, Parks and Rec extended what has been a breakout second season, and Community turned in what might have been its best episode yet. And The Office? By far it’s weakest Christmas episode to date. Sure, it had a lot of live up to – Christmas Party, Benihana Christmas – but it didn’t even equal last season’s Moroccan Christmas, which itself was rather a disappointment. And against the other comedies that night, it just didn’t measure up. Something seemed off.
Now, I’m not out on the ledge yet. But it’s certainly concerning.
Keep reading: Do they know it’s Christmas time at all? Plus Anthony Michael Hall and Julianne Moore!
Filed under Analysis, Bad Humor, Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam, Good Humor, Must See TV
Teeter Tots: Up and Down with Mr. Scott the Benefactor
At the risk of getting very repetitive we’ll quickly revisit our season long question: Which Michael Scott did we see in the latest Office installment, “Scott’s Tots?” Well-meaning but confused and ill-prepared Michael or malicious, self-absorbed, cripplingly myopic Michael? Well, as usual, and probably as it should be, we were served some of both. But, as we’ll see, we at least ended with the more preferable of the two.
I didn’t mind this episode, but it also didn’t seem especially funny. Whereas I was in a social environment when I initially viewed “Mafia” from earlier this season, and even laughed heartily at it, I knew very quickly that episode wasn’t that humorous, at least not that good. On other hand, I watched “Scott’s Tots” alone at 2 in the morning which, I admit, could have been a detriment (I did, however, enjoy some leftover birthday ice cream cake, so, despite the hour, I still managed to fulfill my Office watching pre-requisite of either ice cream or NY pizza (and when I say NY Pizza I don’t mean “NY Pizza,” the moniker that every pizza place outside of NY throws onto its marquee in hopes of tricking the consumer into thinking their product is comparable to the thin, crispy, cheesy, heavenly Big Apple standard, and not what it really is, an inferior copy. Rule of thumb: if some pizza joint beyond the tri-state area bills their product as “NY Pizza,” you’re probably going to be disappointed. Also, unless they serve slices, it’s not NY Pizza. And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging)); perhaps I wouldn’t feel so ambivalent about it had I watched before midnight with a crowd. Still, my intuition says that it would have been the same. Not particularly hilarious, but, actually, a nice little episode, and the kind of more authentic offering that has been sorely needed of late.
Filed under Analysis, Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam, Good Humor, Must See TV
‘The Office’: Truth or Consequences
As we’re a bit late to the party, just some (hopefully) quick thoughts on last week’s Office entry, “Shareholder Meeting.”
The theme for this season (and probably the entire series), as we have already talked about in great detail, has been the vacillation of Michael Scott from mildly idiotic but well-meaning and somewhat competent to completely oblivious, self-absorbed and wildly unqualified, and finding that the best episodes seem to be when Michael trends towards the former. Indeed, in their review Vulture notes that, “as a general rule, the less Michael Scott is a Homer Simpson–esque boob, the better The Office becomes.” In “Shareholder Meeting,” we get a glimpse of both Michaels, and I think this episode just missed the mark, not because Michael again veered of course (although, he sorta did), but because the show shied away from the opportunity to let things get even uglier.
Read on: What could have been. Douche or consequences. The return of Ronni!
Filed under Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam, Good Humor, Must See TV
Jumped The Snark 