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.