Friday, January 22, 2010

NBC Thursday Thoughts

Community Interpretative Dance

Last week I complained that Community broke the fourth wall too much and after rewatching this week's episode I'd like reword that complaint to "they broke the fourth wall too overtly". When characters are literally winking at the camera I roll my eyes more than laugh. This episode had a subtler 4th wall break, which I really enjoyed. At the climax Troy decides the most masculine thing for him to do was save Brita from being embarrassed. Generally the motivation for this action is noble, preventing a friend's shaming out of pure altruism. Community flipped this on it's head my making Troy's actions selfish, since he knew the others would react as if his actions were altruistic. Another strong showing for Community, which I pleasantly discovered will add more episodes this season because of the Leno fiasco.

Stray Thoughts

- I am tired of the will they won't they stuff with Jeff and Brita, hopefully they will turn this into a Jerry/Elaine relationship and not Ross/Rachel relationship.
-Prelimiwow
- I have been spending too much money on breakaway clothing.


Parks and Recreation Leslie's House

Parks and Recreation manages it to be at it's best when it is really well grounded. I like being in a little world that thinks Indianapolis is a booming metropolis and the library is your biggest rival. This episode was less grounded than I would have preferred, but it still managed to be really funny. I thought they had a really solid tight episode before they added the belly dancer, fencing, etc. and I wish they decided to end the dinner party with good, funny human interaction instead of a couple of sight gags. I generally don't care for trials in comedy's as it is a stale contrivance that has tapped into most of it's potential humour. Specifically asking about a date in a trial is an old tired gag and something I really wish they eliminated at the time, however they did have a nice payoff with Leslie's talking head at the end. Similarily the respond to any question with a question is a gag that stopped being funny in high school, but Ron Swanson managed to make it hilarious. I think it worked so well because generally the hostile witness isn't good at asking questions, but Ron's proficiency at evading questions was really funny, ending with this little needle "Thank you Ron" "Are we done?".

Stray Thoughts

-Every episode I feel like I want to see more Tom
- "I'm going to need to refoliate"
- Ron bringing deviled eggs had me dying.

30 Rock Get Dale Snitterman

Last week I didn't blog about 30 Rock because I find it really hard to write about. Firstly I find it really hard to judge 30 Rock because I could watch 22 minutes of Tracy reading off a teleprompter, secondly because a lot of my reviews would just be listing 8-12 funny one liners. I think 30 Rock usually doesn't use their peripheral characters enough and last night gave every character a couple of solid jokes Toofer's attempt to name drop Harvard, which was later repeated by John Hancock, a couple of good Lutz moments, Grizz bashing dotcom's screenplay, etc. All of these elements led to what I felt was a pretty strong B story, some broad silliness with good writing that was very funny. My one problem with the B story is that they didn't give it a satisfactory ending, it was as if they thought the audience would forget about the B story once they went to the credits. The A story was pretty weak and I love Julianne Moore in almost anything she does, it wasn't particularly funny or engaging and I found myself waiting for those scenes to end a lot.

Stray thoughts

- As someone who hates all Boston sports teams, watching Boston jokes for 22 minutes was fantastic
- She's the female Kevin Mchale

Friday, January 15, 2010

Community and Parks and Recreation

Community Investigative Journalism
Most sitcoms take a while to find their legs, but Community has been an exception and has been the best new show this fall. Community is strongest when it is at it's most absurd with episodes like Debate 109 and Introduction to Statistics, unfortunately it's return this episode was one of their weaker efforts thus far. Like usual it has some very good throwaway gags; primarily from Pierce, but the whole episode fell a little flat. Meta-humour is very hard to execute since it takes the audience out of the reality crafted by the show, usually when people are laughing at it they are laughing because they understand the joke and not because it is funny. Community has successfully used meta-humour in its more absurd episodes, but in a fairly grounded episode like Investigate Journalism it became an annoying crutch for the writers. Investigative Journalism had overt, obnoxious meta-humour and I quickly grew tired of seeing Jack Black's character (literally his one character) continue to break the fourth wall by explaining the group dynamics or making other commentary on the absurdity of TV. This reached it's apex when he mentioned giving a winking nod to the camera, making the only meta-meta joke I have ever seen; unsurprisingly it didn't work.

Stray Thoughts
- Pierce's ironic t-shirts throughout the episode worked really well.
- "Troy's gotta point"
- I already have a huge crush on Allison Brie and than she does a "It doesn't matter"
- At some point I would like to see a final 30 seconds that isn't an extension of the Troy and Abed rap.


Parks and Recreation The Set Up
Earlier I mentioned how most sitcoms take a while to find their stride and P&R is a great example of that, after a first season that felt like a mediocre Office spinoff they started developing their own characters and it has become one of the strongest sitcoms on TV. The Set Up took a couple of cliched sitcom plots blind date gone wrong and boyfriend jealous of girlfriend's friend and managed to make them seem fresh. It is unfair that P&R will always be compared to The Office, however the one area where I feel they have already surpassed them is by turning Leslie Knope into a likeable real person a stark contrast to the man child caricature that Michael Scott has become. I like Will Arnett in almost everything he has done and I thought he had a very good guest spot with a couple fantastic lines my favorite being "I guess I am not as good a technician as I thought I should have noticed you're missing a heart". It was also nice to see Chris and Mark in a plot that doesn't pit them as rivals; they have gotten lots of mileage out of that, but I don't know how long it will last.

Stray thoughts
-I could have watched 22 minutes of Tom interviewing potential candidates for Ron's job.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Update

I haven't given up on this blog after two posts there just haven't been many new shows for me to discuss. I just watched the first third of the Monty Python documentary, which I really liked I heard that is is a little redundant if you have seen other documentaries, but I haven't and I love it.

I will be in the Bahamas all of next week, but after that I will hopefully be blogging frequently.