Mine Doesn’t Have Any Pictures

Stuck on a Channel just recently celebrated its 1 year anniversary, so I just want to thank everyone for reading, and for the sake of my own self esteem encourage you to continue. Thanks!

Spoilers...

Community – “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism” (A-)

So it only took 3 weeks from the time Annie moved in with Troy and Abed to the time it started paying dividends. I knew I was going to love this living arrangement! Seriously though, what a funny twist on the classic sitcom roommate storyline. This show is just so hilariously self aware it seems to make something out of nothing on almost a weekly basis.

As much as I loved revisiting Abed’s Batman routine, it was Annie and Troy who really stole the show in this episode. Their banter with each other was incredibly funny, especially in the scene where Annie revealed to Troy she’d broken the DVD. I just loved how badly things spiraled out of control after that moment.

TROY: You moving in here was supposed to tone us down!

Not so much though... which is exactly the way it should be. For any of you worried that Annie was too straight laced to keep up with Troy and Abed’s antics, consider yourself reassured.

I also want to give a quick shout out to Craig Cackowski’s police officer character in this episode. He was quite funny in both of his scenes and I really loved that call back to “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design.” Annie’s coy acknowledgement that she remembered his lesson in gun safety was pretty awesome. Actually, the episode was full of these little self referential items. The steep learning curve is probably the very reason why the show is getting shelved for the time being by NBC (it’s the same reason why Arrested Development got cancelled), but in reality it’s also what makes it so worth watching.

As for Jeff and Shirley’s storyline, all I have to say is foosball anime. I can’t believe they went there... it was one of the most insane things I think I’ve seen out of a TV comedy in a long, long time, but man was it funny. They really captured that Dragonball Z-esque feel too (sorry to real anime fans if that reference is a little too mainstream for you).

It was also just cool to see Jeff and Shirley get there first real plotline with each other since the first season. Nick Kroll (of the very funny The League) did a great job as their European nemesis and all of the foosball cracks were pretty hilarious, especially Shirley’s long held belief that the game is evil. I was pretty surprised too by how touching the ending was. For a storyline that went animated about half way through, you don’t exactly expect an ending with that kind of emotional depth. Though I don’t know why I’m surprised – Community does that sort of thing all the time. That’s why I love it.

To the quotes:

BRITA: I’m volunteering at the animal hospital.
TROY: Animal hospital!
ABED: The animals are the patients.
TROY: That makes sense...

BRITA: He only has the one eye Jeff. I can’t exactly buy him a cat monocle can I... it’s pretentious.

ABED: Foosball’s like the soccer of ping pong.

SHIRLEY: Don’t you get it Jeff, they’re not evil people that are good at foosball. They are good at foosball because they’re evil!

TROY: Let’s not leap to thing doing... right Annie?

And line of the night (one more time because I love it so much):

TROY: You moving in here was supposed to tone us down!

Parks and Recreation – “The Trial of Leslie Knope” (A-)

This was a pretty heavy episode for the series, which is always a risk for a comedy, but when it works it’s something special to watch and it worked in “The Trial of Leslie Knope.” This gets thrown around a lot on TV blogs and it’s slowly become a bit of a cliché, but in this case it’s true – for a show like Parks and Rec, it may be the comedy that keeps you entertained, but it’s the characters that keep you coming back and you’ve got to admire what the writers have done with these characters.

It was a humbling episode for Leslie. Over the course of the series we’ve come to know her as an exceptional public servant, albeit a tad eccentric, with a strong moral compass, and in fact that’s exactly the way Leslie sees herself. But I love that the writers didn’t let her off the hook for what happened in “Li’l Sebastien” (an instant classic for the series). It may have taken a few flashbacks to jog people’s memories, but borrowing from this show’s rich history is so much better than contriving some sort of imaginary indiscretion that could be used against her.

And all in all, the whole trial really lent itself to some great character moments. We got another one of Ron and Leslie’s classic little chats. I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of those. There was the scene where the whole Parks department stood behind her as she apologised to them (Andy’s “I’ve always liked you” was especially sweet). And of course the well executed finale, where the stenographer Ethel read out Ben’s heartfelt resignation. There was nothing particularly funny about any of the scenes, but gosh darnit if it didn’t make me love this show even more (and if you read this blog with any regularity you’ll know that may be impossible).

I’ve also got to add – in my many kudos to the writing staff this week – that I am incredibly impressed with the way they handled Chris in this episode. He kind of had to play the bad guy in this storyline and with his Mr. Positive persona it definitely put the writers in a tough spot. But the way they just embraced it was sheer brilliance. I loved how no matter how bad what he had to say was, Rob Lowe delivered it with an enthusiastic smile. It kept everything light and really did make the ending where Leslie forgave Chris seem believable.

The only thing really left to talk about now is where Ben goes from here. I sort of wonder whether the show will sitcom its way out of this or try to take Ben in a different direction. Odds are probably with the former, but Parks and Rec doesn’t seem to have much trouble including characters who don’t work at City Hall. It may be cool to see Ben try something else for a little while. I mean, at the moment it looks like it’ll be tough to write him back into the mix anyway. Food for thought I guess...

Oh and Jerry’s real name is Gary – awesome.

My favourite lines:

LESLIE: Tammy 2 is your killer witness, please. You’re going to have to do better... actually she is a terrifying sociopath who could say or do anything. Pretty good killer witness.

ANDY: Okay, mine doesn’t have any pictures.

TOM: Bribing someone to hide a sexcapade – I’m proud to call you a friend.

And line of the night:

LESLIE: I’d like to direct you to your inbox, and specifically an e-mail entitled yay. That’s y, a, and 18 y’s and 44 exclamation points.

The Office – “Mrs. California” (B-)

To be honest, this episode didn’t really wow me like I was hoping it would. Don’t get me wrong, I thought Maura Tierney did a great job (I used to be a huge fan of her on News Radio). She’s a strong casting choice for that role and from the looks of that ending she’ll be back again in the future. But I just didn’t like the way they used her in this episode.

The show has relied pretty heavily this season on Andy’s inability to read Robert, and for the most part it’s worked pretty well, but in this episode the shtick just seemed a little worn. Instead of delivering perhaps a different side of Robert that we haven’t seen before, we got more of the same Andy/Robert awkwardness, and when that got old there wasn’t much left. Jim’s prolonged escape was more weird than it was funny and I wasn’t a huge fan of watching the rest of the cast try to bully Robert’s wife out of the office.

The new look Office is starting to lose some of its original luster, and it’s up to the writers now to explore different territory. The last two episodes have been great examples. Last week’s “Gettysburg” suffered because it relied too heavily on Andy’s desire to be accepted as the new boss, a storyline I think most viewers by now have already embraced (or stopped watching altogether). We didn’t need another episode exploring that dynamic. The same is true for this episode. Now part of Robert’s character is always going to be is bizarre enigmatic behaviour, but if they never develop him beyond that he’s going to become stale and repetitive, and The Office is going to suffer because of it.

Perhaps the one saving grace of “Mrs. California” was Dwight and Darryl’s side story. I still think it’s stupid that Dwight owns the building – that was never a storyline I got behind – but I did like the banter between him and Darryl. Can anyone think of any other times these two have been paired together? My mind is coming up blank, which is weird because they seem to have a lot of chemistry together. I particularly loved Dwight mistaking Darryl’s Val for Val Kilmer. That was a good ending tag for the episode.

Oh, and just real quick – what has happened to Erin over the past few episodes? Ever since Andy told her he was seeing someone (that story disappeared pretty quick, didn’t it) she’s been almost non-existent, which is lame. I miss her! She’s still getting the odd bit here and there, but please writers, give her a real storyline to work with.

To the quotes:

JIM: No, I don’t think we should be trying to make this place seem unpleasant. I think we should let this place just crush her spirit by itself. I mean, it knows what it’s doing.

ROBERT: Where’s Jim?
ERIN: He just rolled out and crawled out.

DWIGHT: This is my gym, my rules. You do exactly what I say no questions asked.
DARRYL: Yeah, I’m gonna ask questions and I might not do what you say.

DWIGHT: How do you think the Fonz got so cool? He stretched his pelvic bowl.

And line of the night:

ANDY: Erin you’re up. Find her a place to work but not too comfortable.
ERIN: Got it. I know exactly which stapler to give her.