Tag Archives: community

2010/11/30 · 9:03 pm

Philbin/McHale: Clash of the Titans

Yesterday Joel McHale visited Live! with Regis and Kelly (who themselves are visiting Las Vegas this week), pitting McHale against the source of much of the material shown on The Soup (or, as Regis calls it, simply Soup).  But, much like his recent appearance on Today‘s interminable fourth hour, McHale demonstrated that he has no reservations about biting the hand that feeds him, as he deftly inserted a Regis-is-as-old-as-the-Wright-Brothers crack within the first minute, and continued to harass the irascible Philbin for the entirety of the segment.

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This is something we’ve come to adore about McHale (add it to the list), that he doesn’t make nice with objects of his scorn when he appears on their shows.  Instead, he continues to call them out for their incompetence or insidipity, but still being careful to show appreciation for their existence, as they are the reason he’s able to feed his children (at least until Community came along).  And despite his snark, we can tell that McHale does respect Regis and many of the people he mocks, and I think they in turn admire him for being genuine, sarcastic yet gracious (although, with Regis, it’s hard to tell if he even realizes he’s being derided.  Or that he’s on TV.  ZING!).  So cheers to McHale for being an inveterate smug prick, whether in the comfy confines of The Soup studio or behind enemy lines.

Oh, and Regis revealed his true form.

That explains a lot.

Video courtesy of Gawker.TV.

 

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2010/09/29 · 5:50 pm

In Memoriam: ‘Lone Star’

Well, Fox, you’ve done it again.   Axed a show before it even had a chance to reach its bris.   Lone Star is officially dead.

But this feels somehow different.  This was not The Pitts, or Brothers, or even Kitchen Confidential.  This was a show that arrived with critical praise, almost unanimously hailed as the season’s “best new network show.”  It had a beautiful backdrop to match its beautiful young faces.  It had Jon Voight.  And, most importantly, it had an original, complex story.  While a lot of shows come and go, and a lot of them deserve to be banished (looking at you, Outsourced), this is certainly not the first series unfairly cut down before it’s time.  It joins a group of shows like Love Monkey and Action that share the unfortunate distinction of a premature demise, depriving the viewing public of quality television.  Lone Star is not the first and it won’t be the last.  But why then is this particular cancellation so troubling?

Read on: The end of network TV as we know it?

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2010/09/24 · 5:09 pm

NBC Thursday Night: Respect Your Friends, Respect your Coworkers, Respect Your Lovers, Respect Your Characters, Respect Your Viewers

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.

Continue: We will follow Community down a long, dark alley…

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2010/09/23 · 7:29 pm

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.

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2010/09/01 · 10:11 am

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.

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2010/01/22 · 4:26 pm

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…

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2010/01/14 · 3:41 pm

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!

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2009/12/25 · 10:12 am

Christmas: The Final Clipdown

SNL might not have always been funny.  In fact, it might have never really been funny.  But it’s always been topical.

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Just try to watch the first few minutes of the Community Christmas episode and not get into some (non-denomination) holiday spirit.

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And before Dwight was Recyclops he would just come into the office with the Christmas goose.  You know, before things got weird.

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Merry Happy to all!  And to all I’m off for buttermilk pancakes!

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2009/12/12 · 5:02 pm

H(appy + anukkah)!!!!

Sorry about the title, just took the GREs and I must have factoring on the brain.

Anyway!  Happy Festival of Lights!  Hope you have your menorah ready to light, latkes ready to burn,  dreidel ready to spin, and Hanukkah gelt ready not to eat and eventually just throw away a month from now.  It’s the most wonderful time of the (Jewish) year!  As such, enjoy this clip of Stephen Colbert listening to the merits of Hanukkah, and, ultimately, deciding it’s not for him:

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For night #1 I received socks, which might sound hackneyed and lame but is actually a gift I look forward to every year.  Cause, hey, who can’t use a good pair of socks once a year?

But I received an even better gift later in the night:

Turns out that Community‘s Alison Brie is a member of the tribe! (for those of you who eschew for those puerile 22-minute network comedies you might  know her better as Mrs. Pete Campbell on Mad Men)  And don’t worry, I cross referenced with IMDB and Wikipedia to make sure Brie, and not just the character, is Jewish.  And it turns out that as a child she performed at the Los Feliz Jewish Center, just a hop, skip and a jump down the road from here!

Boy, they didn’t have girls like that at Temple Beth Shalom.

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