Community and Parks and Recreation

Community "Physical Education"

After the Olympics I was craving for NBC Thursday and Physical Education gave me what I was missing for two weeks. Physical Education could be my favorite episode of the series thus far, two really strong plots, tons of funny one liners and some good character work. Earlier I blogged about how I liked Community's subtle twists on formulaic sitcom plots so long as they aren't winking too much at the camera. Physical Education successfully achieved that in both of their stories. The Abed plot sets itself for the cliche, "just be yourself" plot and veers towards the obvious cynical twist. You can be yourself in the world of family sitcoms where mean things happens solely so everyone can learn a lesson, but in the real world conformity is necessary. As I watched this unfold I felt the plot uninspired, but succeeded because of all the jokes along the way, however I didn't anticipate the final wrinkle. Abed was never acting like himself and he was doing it to appease his friends who are so sure there is something wrong with him. It's easy to view Abed as pop culture references machine, but episodes like this show that he has some elements of a real person and isn't just a quirky funny sitcom character.

The other plot was an outrageous, but hilarious parody on cliche sports movies. Though Community has shown it has a heart, it is at its funniest when it is as its most absurd. Dan Harmon has created such a crazy environment at Greendale that it seems like any character can reasonably inhabit it; even a senior citizen pool teacher who insists all of his class wears tight gym shorts for increased mobility. However in spite of it's insanity Greendale is still endearing. It makes sense that Jeff would start embracing this Community instead of just making cynical comments at everyone's expense. While I wouldn't want to be there forever Greendale does look like it would be a lot of fun and we can see that Jeff really enjoys the spectacle of the pool game. Similar to the debate episode, I thought it was a really strong choice to attach the ludicrous views of the coach to the game of pool. Pool is always portrayed as a tense, cerebral game and it was delightful to see Community's manic version of strip pool, that led to several hilarious sight gags and crowd reaction shots.

Stray Thoughts

-The original joke and all the callback from Shirley wondering if white people got offended that they remade black movies specifically for white audiences was executed perfectly. Starting with Jeff calling Fat Albert the black after school special and continuing with Brown Joey and White Abed.

- Abed as Don Draper hitting on Annie/Trudy Campbell was fantastic.

Parks and Recreation "Lady of the Year"

Despite The Office having an hour long baby episode tonight, I wasn't that enthused to watch it and after Lady of the Year I have a hypothesis for why that might be the case. The Office has frequently used outsiders as an audience surrogate, they are the minority who realizes how wacky and zany all these characters are so hilarity ensues. The peripheral characters on Parks and Rec are often equally if not more insane than the cast members allowing us to empathize with Leslie Knope for having to deal with militant soccer coaches or feminists who sell out for transient publicity. In bad episodes of The Office I find myself pitying the cast members and empathize with the periphery, over time this has caused me to become resentful of a lot of the characters.

Ron Swanson has a strong sense of humanity and decency that allows us to like him and not just laugh at him. He showed this compassion in the pre-olympic Valentines Day episode and continued to show it in this episode. He has a lot of fun playing with Leslie, but never does anything especially mean spirited just a bunch of harmless pranks that rile Leslie up. While elaborate pranks are often funny, sometimes simple ones are much more effective and I enjoyed watching Ron getting under Leslie's skin so much when the most elaborate thing he did was hiring a photo crew.

Stray Thoughts

- I would go to a club called clubadubdub

-"Andy why are you digging that hole in the backyard?"

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

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.