PARKS and RECREATION

S03E10 - "Soulmates" (B)
             or:
"Burger vs. Burger"

          It's hard enough to write a great episode of television, but it's even harder to write the episode that comes after it.  Parks and Rec had been on fire when it came to cold opens, and the Ron Swanson tooth-pull is undoubtedly the apex of that streak.  In this one, Joe, the creepy and lecherous head of the sewage department, hits on Leslie Knope.  It's so-so.

THE OFFICE

S07E21 - "Michael's Last Dundies" (C-)
                       or:
"The One Where Toby Sums It Up Perfectly"

          "I really disagree with this.  I think it's kind of hateful."

          This is a line of dialog given to Toby at the end of the episode.  While it applies to the situation he is in (receiving yet another derogatory award from Michael) I can't help but feel it's a subversive line planted by one of the show's writers who might not be fond of the show's tone over the past few episodes.

COMMUNITY

S02E21 - "Paradigms of Human Memory" (B+)
                 or:
"Best. Clip Show. Ever."

          It's a clip show, but it isn't, and for that we can all be thankful.  Not that Community doesn't have a wealth of funny material in it's catalog of episodes, but clip shows tend so suck.  Leave it to Community to poke fun at an old TV standby, and do a damn fine job of it.

30 ROCK

S05E20-21 "100" (D)
             or:
"Self-Reference Is Funny, Right?"

          100 episodes is a milestone, regardless of genre, and against all odds, 30 Rock has made it.  But at what cost?

On DS9 and the "Mirror, Mirror" Universe

          So, I'm watching DS9 for the first time.  I'm not what most would consider a Trekkie, I'm more of a Normal with Trek-like tendencies.  I've seen Next Generation and the original series several times at this point, and it will probably be a couple of years before I can watch either show again.  I never really got into DS9 when it was on the air, I think I gave up somewhere in the first season, and not without good reason.  The first three seasons of the show were quite lacking, as the show's creators failed to live up to their promise of creating a Star Trek with more edge to it.  Things don't get truly interesting until the Dominion war begins, which doesn't happen until season five.  And as far as the Dominion goes, don't they seem quite like the Borg without the biomechanical implants?

PARKS and RECREATION

S03E09 - "Fancy Party" (A)
                    or:
"The One Where Shit Gets All Sentimental"

          Hot damn, this is one good episode.  Parks and Rec will never be a ratings powerhouse, but most truly great comedies have abysmal ratings.

          The cold open has one of the best Ron Swanson moments of the series, with Ron pretending to pull a tooth in order to impress his colleagues.  Nick Offerman has tapped into something truly wonderful with his character, where the quality of the writing combined with the subtlety with which he plays Ron Swanson creates instant comedy gold.

THE OFFICE

S07E20 - "Training Day" (C+)
                         or:
"The One Where Will Ferrell Makes a Funny"

          Steve Carell and Will Ferrell go back a ways.  In fact, Carell's audition tape for Anchorman (in which he nails the part instantly) recently surfaced in internetland.  That being said, one would expect more of a dynamic between the two.  Instead, what we get is a near-clone of Michael Scott in the form of Deangelo Vickers.  The differences between the two are subtle, and they're both none too bright, with Vickers possessing stronger social skills.

COMMUNITY

S02E20 - "Competetive Wine Tasting" (B)
                                         or
"The One Where Abed Shows Ned Ryerson Who's the Boss"

           After the last episode's foray into a very specific genre-mash, things settle down a bit this week, with Jeff and Pierce butting heads, and Abed showing a TV academic just who the boss really is.  Spring electives are being taught at the school, and most of these electives border on the preposterous.  There's even a PA announcement class, taught by none other than Dean Pelton.

30 ROCK

S05E19 - "I Heart Connecticut" (B)
                               or:
"The One Where Pete Has an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

          What's this?  A new 30 Rock....that's actually kind of good?  Well, I'll be damned.  Most of what made this show for me was the unusual amount of screen time dedicated to Pete, who has always been one of my favorite characters on the show.

          Liz Lemon is hell-bent on finding Tracy, Kenneth in tow, following the pizza box lead from the last episode.  The A-story is light on jokes, heavy on plot (as heavy as this show gets), but is enjoyable, nonetheless.  In the end she finds Tracy, who's been hiding in her apartment, and convinces him to revert back to his crazy, old ways, which is terrific news for the show.

HOMICIDE - LIFE on the STREET

S01E05 - "Three Men and Adena" (A+)
                          or:
"The Episode that Killed Moses Gunn"

          Watching a good show cross over into the territory of greatness is always a joy to behold.  Thus far into its first season, "Homicide" has shown the potential for greatness, but has never quite captured it.  Until now.

HOMICIDE - LIFE on the STREET

S01E04 - "A Shot in the Dark" (C+)
                                      or:
"The One with the Whore in the Doghouse"

          This is not a bad episode, nor is it a great one.  This episode does, however, set up the next one, and for that we can all be thankful.  But enough about "Three Men and Adena", I'll be doing that one tomorrow, seeing as NBC doesn't have any new episodes of the four I'm covering.
          Bolander and Munch find themselves at the scene of a drug deal gone awry.  Bolander is all focus, but Munch keeps pressing him for details regarding his date with Dr. Blythe.  His inquiry is met with much irritation, leading Munch to presume that the date did not go well.

HOMICIDE - LIFE on the STREET

S01E03 - "Son of a Gun" (C+)
                              or :
The One Where a Police Gets His Wig Split

          There's a uniform down in Charm City, and it's none other than Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen), the officer on the scene of the Doohan murder.  As it turns out, he is a friend of Crosetti's, as they both spent time together in Baltimore's southern district.  Thormann's injuries are severe, having been shot in the head, and his chances of recovery are uncertain, even to the doctors who are operating on him.
          Chris' wife, Eve (a pre-Sopranos Edie Falco), shows up, certain that her husband is already dead.  Crosetti assures her that her husband will recover from the shooting, despite the fact that the odds are not in his favor.

HOMICIDE - LIFE on the STREET

S01E02
"Ghost of a Chance" (B+)

          Episode two picks up right where the first left us, with Bayliss at his first crime scene.  The victim, one Adena Watson, has been murdered in a most unsavory way.  The extremely young age of the victim, along with the vicious manner in which she met her demise, has garnered a substantial amount of attention from the press.  The term "red ball" is used to describe the case, a term which is used to denote a high-profile homicide case with no apparent leads.

HOMICIDE - LIFE on the STREET

          Like most people who write about TV shows on the internet, I hold "The Wire" in fairly high regard.  And, like most people who feel this way, I couldn't help but be disappointed by the conclusion of the show, not because the final episode was disappointing (far, far from it) but because there wouldn't be any more episodes.  No new cover of that oh-so-familiar Tom Waitts song, no new facet of dysfunctional bureaucracy to be picked apart.  Nothing.
          I had spent a substantial amount of time reading about the show online, looking into the backgrounds of  David Simon and his cast, crew, and writing staff, and a show I'd never heard of before kept popping up: "Homicide: Life on the Street".  Both shows were based on Simon's book, "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets", and seemingly every familiar face from "The Wire" was on "Homicde" at some point in time, be it a single episode appearance or a recurring role.  The show was far from perfect, as is the standard for network television, but it helped pave the way for the higher caliber of television that we see today, and it began Simon's quest to demythify the modern television police detective.  With solid writing, and a strong ensemble cast (Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Jon Polito, to name a few) I never felt my time watching this show was wasted, even during its less-than stellar moments.
          I'll be covering two episodes per week, with posts going up every Monday and Wednesday night.  Now, without further ado:


S01E01
"Gone for Goode" (B)

"The greatest lie, I think, in dramatic TV is the cop who stands over a body and pulls up the sheet and mutters 'Damn' and looks down sadly.  To a real homicide detective, it's just a day's work."  - David Simon (PBS Documentary, "Anatomy of a 'Homicide: Life on the Street'")

PARKS and RECREATION

S03E08
"Camping" (A)

          Being pressured to come up with a great idea after you've had an incredible one is quite the burden.  Thom Yorke famously had a mental breakdown after the glowing critical reception he received following "OK Computer".  Leslie Knope follows suit.


          The Pawnee Harvest Festival was a resouding success, despite media hype over an alleged curse due to the region's numerous atrocities.  City Manager Paul Iaresco (Phil Reeves) hold a press conference, during which he announces that he is greatly anticipating the next idea Leslie has to offer.  He then collapses in a state of cardiac arrest, inadvertently clutching Leslie's right breast as he collapses.  Parks and Rec has done (and continues to do) some of the best cold opens I've ever seen, and this ranks among the best.

THE OFFICE

S07E19
"Garage Sale"   (A)

          There has been much discussion in the online community regarding Steve Carell's departure from The Office.  We've all known about it since before season seven went on the air.  Here we have it: the beginning of the end for Michael Gary Scott.


          The staff of Dunder Mifflin is having a charity garage sale to benefit....well, the staff of Dunder Mifflin.  Though one would think the more conscientious employees (Oscar, mostly) would object to such a deceptive and self-serving endeavor, apparently everybody's throwing dignity to the wind for the sake of the party fund.  But the premise of the episode is mostly unimportant, as it only really sets up a Dallas: The Board Game match between Andy, Darrell, and Kevin, who is more than happy to play the game once a wager is in play.  His tournament bracket must already be a bust.  There is also a subtle psychological battle between Jim and Dwight.  Can you guess who's going to come out on top?

COMMUNITY

S02E19
"Critical Film Studies"  (A+)

          A damn fine cup of television, indeed.  Community knows its audience fairly well, and their gamble that much of the audience would be somewhat unfamiliar with My Dinner With Andre pays off in spades.  I am somewhat embarrassed, being the A/V junkie that I am, to admit that I have never seen said film, but if I had spotted the parody at the beginning of the episode, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.

30 ROCK

S05E18
"Plan B"  (C+)

          Liz Lemon walks into Jack's office, motivated by a food-related crisis.  Jack has a cute euphemism for authoritative behavior and a woefully inappropriate acronym for his new cable channel.  Stereotypes are used for joke fodder, which I don't mind, provided the jokes are actually funny.  In the midst of all this, there is one good joke, and it belongs to Tracy Morgan.  All in all, it was a pretty mehctacular cold open.

The shows so far...

I'm jumping into all of these NBC shows midseason, so to make this a little bit less abrupt I'm going to provide a brief summary of my sentiments regarding them.


30 Rock

"I am a stabbing robot."

Tina Fey did fairly well during her tenure as head writer for SNL, but she was at her best for the first two seasons of this show.  Probably the most frequently given advice for writers is "write what you know", so Fey did just that and wrote a show about writing a show.  The first season is an absolute marvel of comedic television.  The show found its dynamic instantly, and its ability to make dirty jokes without actually making dirty jokes was fantastic. ("Has anyone seen my Runt?")  But, anymore, the show about making a show that's named a building in which they make shows seems to have forgotten what the original idea was.  I can't recall the last time I saw the TGS set during a live performance, and not because it was very long ago, it just wasn't very memorable.  But, to me, the truly fatal flaw of the show is its tendency to recycle its own jokes, particularly ones that weren't all that funny to begin with.  Nonetheless, I keep watching 30 Rock, because every so often a genuinely funny bit gets tangled up in this web of ever-increasing mediocrity.  As much as I once loved this show, I really hope season five is the last.


Community

"Set phasers to 'love me'!"

Almost every show on TV anymore tries to do meta-humor.  Most attempts fall flat, but Community has been doing it well right from the start.  A solid ensemble cast performs the perfect blend of well-written humor and pathos.  Self-reference can often alienate the viewer from the ideal viewing experience, but this show does it so well it makes you feel more a part of the fictional Greendale Community College.  In fact, the show sometimes seems so self-aware that I am beginning to think it may be becoming sentient.  Not every episode hits the mark exactly, but even the lackluster episodes still have a bit of shine to them.  But what really ties the room together, man, is the spot-on cinematography.  James Hawkinson (along with camera operator Gary Hatfield, who has nine episode credits as cinematographer) has shown an amazing ability to duplicate almost every distinct cinematic style of the last forty-some-odd years.  Bottom line, the show is fucking hilarious, and a visual treat.


The Office

There's a lot of talk about how the writers of The Office are going to handle Steve Carrell's departure from the show.  I think the answer is pretty obvious.  Seven seasons of a show is usually a pretty good stopping point.  Run any longer than that, and you'll find yourself jumping the shark, which The Office pretty much did with "Threat Level Midnight".  Which isn't to say that this show isn't still capable of doing good things, but the likelihood of an eighth season being worth half a shit is pretty slim.  That being said, last night's episode, "Garage Sale", was actually pretty damn good.


Parks and Recreation

Though it was originally written off by viewing audiences as a pale clone of The Office, nothing could be further from the truth.  I'll admit, Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope bore a few similarities to Michael Scott, and the show did take place largely inside an office environment, the similarities end there.  Well, aside from the fact that both shows had short-but-promising first seasons and came into their own with a full-season renewal during round two, that is.  After being shoved aside for the fuckawful-yet-somehow-popular Outsourced, Parks and Rec is back for a short third season, and it is everything that we have hoped and waited for.  You want proof of the show's greatness? Look to your left.  The motherfucking Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness.




Well, that's that for my sort-of-summaries for the four active NBC shows I'll be covering here.  I'll also be writing about "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Louie" when they go back on the air, and maybe I'll start writing about "Archer" if I'm feeling the FX love.

I've made a blog, because I'm a special person.

Starting tomorrow, I will be reviewing NBC's Thursday comedy lineup, with some exceptions.  30 Rock, Community, The Office, and Parks and Recreations will receive write-ups on the Friday following their broadcasts.  In addition to these shows, I will also be reviewing all seven seasons of "Homicide: Life on the Street", followed by "The Wire" if I ever get around to it.  My hope is to provide a nice companion to these shows, as well as to provoke (somewhat) civil debate as to the merits, or lack thereof, of the bountiful medium that is television.


The next post should come around 2pm tomorrow, unless I find myself in a prolonged state of laziness, which happens from time to time.  Then again, I'm writing a TV blog, so this is to be expected of me.


Cheers.