Community, Season 3 Episode 7 – "Studies in Modern Movement"

How many times a year are we lucky enough to get a sitcom episode as effortlessly, thoroughly enjoyable as "Studies in Modern Movement?" It didn't fit into the high concept mold the show has become known for, and when I'm thinking back on Community as a withered old man I don't know that it will pop into mind as quickly as paintball or Dungeons & Dragons or My Dinner with Andre, but what it was was damn funny, warm, comforting television; sort of an actually good version of what the masses believe unoriginal laugh track shitcoms to be.

But for how remarkably easy it went down, if you step back and observe the mechanics of "Modern Movement" from a distance, it's actually a pretty impressive work of pacing and structure, squeezing four separate subplots into its 21-22 minutes, all of them revolving around the same event and all except Britta and Shirley's tying into the endgame. Even when it seems like the show is taking it easy from a viewer's perspective, the writers clearly aren't taking a damn thing easy.

First off, the episode's primary plot belonging to its youngest trio and arguable holy trinity of Troy, Abed, and Annie was every bit as likable as you'd hope such a story to be. It wasn't necessarily as jam-packed with punchlines as Community is at its very sharpest – though it didn't lack for laughs, as the presence of Donald Glover can make anything up to and including your best friend's funeral hilarious – but between the Dreamatorium, blanket fort, and puppet shows, it was just pure goodhearted fun.

(Sidebar: Though I don't imagine we'll be spending all that much time at the apartment – the show is about Greendale – in an alternate reality every bit as fanciful as Troy and Abed's puppet show where Community is going to see its fifth season, this episode also did a good job indicating a post-graduation direction the show could take, by morphing from a college comedy to basically being Friends. Granted, that increases the risk of Schwimmer fatigue.)

It was also great to see Annie confront her differences with Troy and Abed head-on and the three all adjust to meet each other in the middle. Unlike similar stories such as Liz and Tracy finally leveling with each other last season on 30 Rock, I expect Community has the commitment to narrative and character to make this development count. Annie's loosey goosey routine near episode's start also felt like a nicely subtle callback to her just blowing everything off in "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" almost exactly a year ago.

Speaking of Community nostalgia, Jeff's story felt like a nice callback to classic season one-era "jerkass Jeff learns a lesson" stories, albeit one taking place off campus, which season one never did. The story was a little slow in liftoff, but I must have watched the brilliant "Kiss from a Rose" montage five times, which, granted, is way less than I've watched the "Somewhere Out There" sequence from "Environmental Science." (Man, season one all over the place!) It also paid off about as perfectly as I could imagine with "HE TWEETED IIIITTT!!" and Moon Dean. Comedic escalation, baby: It's an art and a science.

I'd also be remiss not to mention the blink-your-ears-and-you-miss-it reveal that Jeff is seeing a therapist. Just a throwaway line to keep the plot rolling? Something that will come up again and be paid off later? Perhaps the result of his mental break back in "Biology 101?" With Dan Harmon, who knows?

The Britta / Shirley and Pierce stories were slighter, but they were also quick and funny and didn't linger a second longer than needed (Britta and Shirley's lasted barely two minutes all put together). I liked how the superiority hot potato got tossed between Britta and Shirley until the exact moment that Jesus began singing about drinking human blood, and how it ultimately brought the two together in an alliance against general insanity. And as for Pierce, well, Chevy Chase was, is, and always will be a master physical comedian, so he sold the hell out of it. (But my favorite Pierce physical comedy bit will probably always be him tripping over the drum set way back in season one.)

I love Community's high concept episodes more or less literally as much as anyone, but "Studies In Modern Movement" is a testament to just kicking back and delivering a chill, relaxing 22 minutes, and doing it right. Depending on what the next fifteen episodes bring, I wouldn't be shocked if it ultimately lands in my top five for the season. Although, this being Community, I wouldn't be shocked if it winds up way down the list either.

Funniest Moment: The funniest (and most quotable) line was Troy's "Just because we're awesome doesn't mean we're not adults!", but the moment where I really lost it was when it faded from Jeff and the Dean singing "Kiss from a Rose" to Pierce making a snow angel in toxic paint.

Final Grade: A

Whitney, Season 1 Episode 6 – "Two Broke-Up Guys"

They say that the best way to gauge where your gut instinct stands on an issue when your brain won't let you decide is to flip a coin, but not to see whether it lands heads or tails: When that coin is in the air, for a split second, you'll know. The first minute and a half of Whitney's latest pile performed a similar service for me.

You see, I have a dilemma. I know that Neal is the least insufferable character on this show (thanks to the 30 Rock connection), and I know that the worst character on both the show and television as a whole is Mark the cop. But I can't quite decide whether I loathe Whitney or Alex more. They're both super awful and passive-agressive, but Whitney also has that agonizing dialogue that's obviously just slightly rewritten stand-up. On the other hand, Alex encourages her by laughing at said dialogue, and who's more fool, the fool or the fool who laughs at that first fool's decades-stale observational humor about relationships? He also needs to shave so badly. His face looks so dirty.

But the endless and Whitneyless first ninety seconds of "Two Broke-Up Guys," where Alex and Mark get into an argument about a can and the audience repeatedly explodes into tittering mirth at lines like "We're cooking paella tonight," made me realize that I missed Whitney. Yes, I actually missed one of the worst characters on television. With her gone, forced to watch Alex, my gut told me as surely as if I'd flipped a coin: Whitney is terrible, but Alex is worse. I was actually relieved when she stepped through the door. (I'll also note that this scene shockingly mentions Whitney's photography career, which the show is otherwise happy to totally ignore. Mark the cop may be the worst television character since 24's Dana Walsh, but at least his job comes up in conversation.)

But that brings us to the problem with the meat of the episode, doesn't it? I couldn't begin to care less about Alex or Mark as characters, so of course I'm not going to give first able-bodied fuck if they're having a snit or not. Parks and Recreation's "The Fight" this is most fucking decidedly not. Yes, of course they made up at the end of the episode. None of the events that transpired between their split and their reconciliation were funny in any way, and it certainly didn't achieve the slightest emotional weight of any kind, so what was the point?

But I think special props for comedic ineptitude go to the scene where Whitney escorts an intoxicated Alex home from the grill, with Chris D'Elia giving one of the worst drunk performances I've ever seen in a professional production. His nasal, clipped manner of speaking bears infinitely less in common with a drunk person than someone doing a meanspirited impression of someone with Down's, amplified from terrible to horrifying by Whitney smiling and laughing along like this is the funniest shit. Notice to sitcom creators: You can have your characters laugh at things other characters do if the one making them laugh is really, truly, legitimately funny, like Matthew Perry on Friends. Otherwise, it's the death of comedy. Not that there was any comedy in the scene in the first place, but, you know, a note for future episodes.

Isn't it weird how much time Whitney spends wearing a leather jacket in the comfort and privacy of her own home? Anyway, this show blows chunks, then takes a shit into those chunks, then smears it all together, then is taped in front of a live studio audience! You heard me!

Funniest Moment: Well, I was thinking back to and laughing at certain moments from Community and Parks and Rec during the brief respites of the commercial breaks. That counts, right?

Final Grade: D-

The Office, Season 8 Episode 6 – "Doomsday"

One major thing that separates Robert California from previous overly intense bosses such as Charles Miner and Evil Ryan is that, while intimidating and occasionally short or manipulative with people, he's never really been an antagonist. "Doomsday," while structured around a gimmick with all the realism and believability of Community's zombie apocalypse, was funnier than the last couple episodes and interesting in how it dipped its toe into the waters of making Robert an obstacle to be triumphed over for the first time.

The real villain was Dwight, of course, or at least his more or less science fiction doomsday device. But Robert was the one the office was afraid was going to fire them all, and he was the one who Jim was sent to impede the progress of on his secret mission. While I don't think that The Office is by any means a show that needs a "big bad" to thrive (although, as I've mentioned before, I did really enjoy the Charles Miner arc), I do think that, in these perilous post-Carell days, it's good to have some kind of tension hanging over the narrative.

Again: The doomsday device, as a premise, is stupid almost beyond belief. One, it's science fiction. Two, if they actually have software that instantly detects any error made anywhere in the office, why not use that software to simply point out the errors? But I suppose we were asked to accept Michael's film having professional-looking dolly shots in last season's "Threat Level Midnight," so whatever.

In terms of laughs, the episode, while not great, wasn't starving. Kelly's "P.S. We should kill him." at the bottom of her email about Robert; Dwight digging a horse grave; Jim hurling Robert's iPhone across the racquetball court; Stanley singing "Closing Time." What issues existed were less in the setups and punchlines and more in characterization and believability, but still, actual laughs alone boost this episode over "Garden Party."

The warehouse subplot was a drastically mixed bag: On the one hand, I think Craig Robinson is great and I'm always up for a little Darryl action. I also like that they've apparently maintained the new warehouse lady Val's existence across more than one episode, because you never know. But on the other hand, Gabe, like Creed before him, doesn't really work for me as a character with his very own subplots. I sometimes like him as this creepy dude who hangs out at the edges of the narrative doing and saying creepy things, but he hasn't earned full episode spotlights the way that Erin has.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that there seems to be some kind of funny NBC synergy going on here, as both Chuck and The Office contained protracted racquetball sequences a matter of days apart. Maybe with Chuck's impending finale we can take this crossover all the way and bring in Adam Baldwin as the new Sabre CEO in The Office's inevitable season nine.

Funniest Moment: Catchphrases are often called a detriment to comedy, but I have to admit that the return of Stanley's "and shove it up your butt!" took me completely off guard and made me sputter in wonderfully juvenile laughter. Mostly because I didn't think that was ever going to come up again, I think.

Final Grade: B-

7 Episodes In: Up All Night

(The fall TV season's new offerings are starting to hit that point where it's time to loop back around and offer second reviews of those I've kept up with. Some may have started good and stayed good and some started bad and stayed bad, but what's really interesting is shows that started bad and turned good or vice versa, in which case you can feel free to point at my original review and mock me.)

For those who don't recall: Up All Night follows the adventures of new parents Reagan (Christina Applegate) and stay-at-home dad Chris (Will Arnett). Reagan balances raising a baby and reigning in Ava (Maya Rudolph), her best friend and wacky host of the talk show she produces. Link to original pilot review.

Revised thoughts: Up All Night is the epitome of a show that achieves exactly the level of quality necessary to justify its existence and not one iota more. I don't necessarily mean that as an insult – about 80-85% of scripted television does not meet that level (over 95% if you factor in reality TV), so Up All Night is still ahead of the curve – but, as of seven episodes in, I don't feel this is a show I could really recommend someone watch with a straight face. And that's not even comparing it to top tier sitcoms like Community and Parks and Recreation, I'm talking about compared to, like, New Girl and MTV's Awkward.

I specifically waited seven episodes to re-review, because episode seven is the magic number where both 30 Rock and Community shook off any lingering new show cobwebs and put out their first unambiguously great episodes with, respectively, "Tracy Does Conan" and "Introduction to Statistics." That's enough to make episode seven my official "shit or get off the pot" mark for single camera sitcoms.

But while 30 Rock and Community used their first six half-hours to whittle their shows into lean, mean pacing machines, refine their technique, and figure out what made their characters pop, Up All Night, as far as I can come up with right now, literally hasn't solved one single problem present in the pilot. If anything, it's found itself a few new ones.

The biggest issue, as was the case in the pilot, continues to be the entire half of the show that involves Reagan producing her talk show Ava, starring her best friend of the same name. Every time Up All Night cuts from the central marriage and baby to wacky talk show hijinks, it almost always loses its distinctive flavor and instantly turns into a poor man's 30 Rock (and I don't mean a poor man's peak 30 Rock, I mean a poor man's 2011 30 Rock). Maya Rudolph's Ava, who is SO CRAZY and says WHATEVER'S ON HER MIND or even things that DON'T MAKE SENSE AT ALL, usually just comes across as Tracy Jordan with a vagina, and is rarely funny.

And on the other end of that wackiness overdose, Will Arnett's Chris grapples with the exact opposite problem. As I mentioned up top, there are instances in my pilot reviews where I'm just flat-out wrong, and my judgment of Will Arnett's understated, more or less realistic co-protagonist as being a promising new direction for Arnett's career was one of those times. Chris isn't just subtle, he's sedate and boring, which is such a shame coming from the same monumentally lively actor behind Gob Bluth and Devon Banks.

On the other hand, Christina Applegate, who made little impact on me seven episodes back, has managed to shape a reasonably charming and three-dimensional protagonist out of Reagan Brinkley. Granted, when she's at work trying to reign in Ava she positively stinks of Liz Lemon, but she has the natural comedic rhythms to make awkwardness, exasperation, and the occasional weirded-out reaction shot decently funny. I'd say most of my laughs at this point stem from Applegate's performance.

The show is also, as of this point, rather directionless. I know that the vast, vast majority of TV viewers couldn't begin to care less about that even in their dramas, let a-fucking-lone their sitcoms, but I enjoy a good narrative framework to hang a TV season on: The Office had both Jim and Pam and Dunder Mifflin's financial woes, Community had Spanish 101, 30 Rock had Liz and Jack's antagonistic relationship becoming a friendship, Parks and Rec had the pit, Arrested Development had more than I care to name, and so on. Up All Night doesn't really have anything like that. It's all somewhat boringly stuck in place. Now, maybe the show will prove me wrong and have Reagan quit Ava or something, but I'd bet money against it.

Now, everything I've written above probably comes across a little vicious – and, reading over it, even I think maybe I'm being a little too harsh – so I'll clarify that I by no means whatsoever hate Up All Night. I'm in no way bothered by anyone following it (although I'd raise an eyebrow at anyone declaring it great). The main cast all understand punchlines and comic timing, it's reasonably peppy and fast-paced, and it isn't afraid to occasionally bare comedic teeth (like the episode where one of Ava's crew members dies and she realizes she can't remember his name as she fakes her way through a eulogy).

But it still feels pretty schmaltzy and safe compared to NBC's other groundbreaking sitcoms, and, if Up All Night runs for five years and 100 episodes, it will never, ever put out a "Modern Warfare" or a "Dinner Party." I could be wrong about that, but if I am I'll deep fry and eat my own balls. I'm pretty sure I'm done following the show on any kind of regular basis, but, as it hits that "TV to leave on while you're making a meal or browsing the internet or folding clothes" sweet spot with near-perfection, I'm sure I'll see at least a handful of episodes a season for however long it runs.

What's improved since the pilot?
• Christina Applegate's performance, comic timing, and characterization.
• The addition of Jennifer Hall to the main cast.

What's stayed the same since the pilot (in a good way)?
• The pacing still moves at a fairly brisk clip.
• It's scored by Ludwig Göransson of Community fame; always a good thing.

What's stayed the same since the pilot (in a bad way)?

• It usually feels like two separate shows mashed together rather than a cohesive whole.
• Maya Rudolph continues to play like a poor man's female Tracy Jordan.
• The jokes directly involving little Amy tend to be safe, generic baby humor.

What's gotten worse since the pilot?
• Will Arnett's character has had what little edge there was sanded down and is now very dull.
• Occasional treacly, generically sitcommy endings.

New Grade: B-

Parks and Recreation, Season 4 Episode 6 – "End of the World"

At its best, there may not be another show on television – hell, maybe not that many in the history of television – that does warm as well as Parks and Recreation. Not in some syrupy, studio-audience-goes-"aww," fuckin', like, Cosby Show / Full House sort of way, but in a truly genuine way that comes from sincere love for its characters. I don't know that I laughed harder at "End of the World" than I have at any number of other sitcom episodes this year, but in the warmness, it excelled. The ending montage set to "All Will Be Well" gave me tingles that I daresay hinted at the way I routinely felt at the end of Friday Night Lights episodes.

Another part of what made the episode work so well for me is how all its stories grew from the same starting point. I know other people may not mind it – in fact, the wildly enthusiastic reaction to last month's "Ron & Tammys" pretty well proves they don't – but I tend to be less of a fan of sitcom episodes where the assorted stories feel rigidly segmented, like they might as well be taking place in entirely different episodes.

Here, it all started with the Reasonableists and their end of the world cult. I kind of tensed up when that story was introduced, thinking that one of the office's dumber employees (i.e. Andy) would suddenly start to believe, but it turns out it's me who should have had faith... in the show, that is. As they played it, no one actually believed in Zorp or the dawning apocalypse, but the vague idea of what the end of the world would entail did indeed drive the action.

First off, Leslie and Ben and the return of Shauna Malwae-Tweep (not as funny a character as Joan Callamezzo, but always helpful in how she allows Leslie and other characters to bounce comedy off of her). Leslie and Ben have never necessarily been the TV couple I'm most invested in, but Amy Poehler and Adam Scott tore into the dramatic meat of this story with such gusto it's hard to complain. Leslie admitting that if it were the end of the world she'd want to be with Ben captured a perfect balance of the depressing and the heartwarming.

I just hope they stick with Leslie putting her city council run first, because that's flat-out more interesting from a character perspective, and a slightly miserable Ben is just more funny to watch. Chris Pratt can make happiness hilarious with Andy, but Adam Scott's comedic skillset tends a little more toward the put-upon side of life. (Also, by the way, this episode again keeps up the tradition of alternating election and non-election stories, with this of course being an off week.)

Also a bit miserable but trying to spin it Rumpelstiltskin-style into pure joy are Tom Haverford and Jean-Ralphio, finally (and, as I mentioned last week, thankfully) at the end of their Entertainment 720 journey. I was never an enormous fan of this story, but, like bad sex that nonetheless ends in orgasm, it went out with an enormous bang. Their end of the world party wasn't necessarily super-funny, but it was super-fun, every second of it completely and totally enjoyable. Around the time Jean-Ralphio did his drum line dance I'm pretty sure I had a nothing-short-of-moronic grin plastered across my face. The return of Lucy was also a nice surprise, and will hopefully continue into future episodes.

And this week in "Ann's Place In This Ensemble Is Awkward and Loosely Defined,"we have her... not really doing a whole hell of a lot of anything, which I guess fits the name of this paragraph-long mini-segment I've established in these reviews. She talks to Chris a little bit, I guess, and then goes to the party with him, but I have absolutely no investment in them as a couple whatsoever, so I can bring myself to do little more than shrug.

As it turns out, April and Andy (i.e. The Actually Funny Jim and Pam) going through Andy's apocalypse bucket list was the only truly and undilutedly funny story of the night. From Andy's quest to hold a thousand dollars to the return of Burt Macklin and Janet Snakehole, it was one solid laugh after another. But even this story turned quite sweet at the end as they tooled down the road toward the Grand Canyon together, while still sneaking in one last wonderfully unexpected laugh in its final seconds. See the next paragraph for further details.

Funniest Moment: If you're just going by pure laugh volume, it's a close call between Leslie bluntly and tactlessly telling Shauna Malwae-Tweep to keep it in her pants and then backpedalling and the very last moment where Andy asks April, "Where's all the faces? Like the presidents?" Specifically Aubrey Plaza's "What the fuck?" facial expression immediately after, a reaction that would make Arrested Development-era Jason Bateman nod in approval.

Final Grade: A-

Community, Season 3 Episode 6 – "Advanced Gay"

You know what I love? I love that, in the wake of paintball, spaceships, claymation, alternate timelines, Dungeons & Dragons, and My Dinner With Andre, "Advanced Gay" is now a "normal" episode of Community. I'm sure there are live-action sitcoms that match current era Community in weirdness and surreality, but I can't think of any where the baseline for normalcy shifted so dramatically from where it stood in the pilot. If you were to plop this episode with its black Hitlers and spaceman paninis back in the first half of season one, it would be stupefyingly bizarre. Now, two years later, it's positively down to earth.

It also happens to be damn funny; maybe not quite on the elite level of "Remedial Chaos Theory," but up there with "Biology 101." Everyone outside of Troy, Pierce, and to a lesser extent Jeff kind of got the short shrift (although everyone got funny moments, from Abed mimicking Troy to Annie asserting that the gay bash will love Jeff wearing nothing to Chang leaving the party not alone to Britta being the worst), but with the first two in particular it did strong, legitimate character work that explored them as three-dimensional beings while never losing sight of the comedy.

First let's unpack the main Pierce / gay bash A-plot, the episode's more self-contained half. Larry Cedar deserves massive props for the sheer snooty racist zeal with which he tears into the role of Cornelius Hawthorne for the five or six minutes we spent with the nonagenarian prior to his actually fairly timely demise. It can't be easy to make dialogue like "These are your friends, Pierce? Minorities? Jewesses?" actually be funny rather than simply repulsive, but Cedar pulled it off, all while wearing a ridiculous ivory hairpiece.

The actual gay bash itself was one of those things where the comedy existed more in scattershot punchlines (the Dean's obliviousness to Tron perhaps being the greatest) than in a truly clever or original concept, but as a way to explore Pierce as a character I found it effective. Our Pierce may be a little racist, a little sexist, and a little homophobic (although it was more his general manipulativeness that got him temporarily ejected from the group at the end of last season) but his quick taking to the gay party lifestyle interestingly hints at a man who, had he not been raised by Cornelius, could have turned out much more modern and open-minded. So Edible.

And the final funeral sequence – perhaps the lightest, most irreverent handling of the death of a main character's parent I've seen on any live action show ever – struck a careful balance of being pretty dark ("Dude just told his dead dad to suck it.") without ever really plunging into nastiness or misery, a tightrope act I can admire the difficulty of. And although Jeff was undeniably a supporting player this week, the episode's end did a good job bringing it back around to him and making it more clear than ever that Jeff's dad must appear before season's end.

But I think I still might have enjoyed Troy's B-plot more, if only because of how much I love Donald Glover and John Goodman as actors. Granted, lines like "Now come with me to the second floor. Somebody pooped in the sink." and black Hitler don't hurt either. And there's also my simple admiration for watching a sitcom have the guts and the patience to lay pipe (PLUMBING PUN MASTERSTROKE) for longform serialized storytelling. It's only in the last decade plus a few years that TV dramas slowly taught themselves that such a thing was possible; for comedies it remains quite cutting edge to this day.

I never regarded the first season's "English as a Second Language" (the episode that introduced Troy's prodigious plumbing talents) as particularly great or important in the grand scheme of things, but if this story with Troy and the Air Conditioning Repair School Annex pays off in a suitably grand way at season's end it will retroactively become wildly impressive for its insanely distant foreshadowing. Who knows? Maybe this season is heading toward some epic multi-part finale where air conditioning, Vice Dean Laybourne, Professor Kane, Jeff's dad, Troy's gifts, Evil Troy and Evil Abed and paintball all collide in some sort of comedy apocalypse. A Community nut can but dream.

Funniest Moment: Gillian Jacobs' look of panicked horror when Shirley asks Britta, "You can excuse racism?"

Final Grade: A-

Whitney, Season 1 Episode 5 – "The Wire"

It feels like I could start a weekly game of identifying exactly which episodes of better sitcoms the various installments of Whitney Cummings' hate crime against television remind me of. Last week it was Community's "Anthropology 101," this week, during Whitney and Alex's game of sexual chicken while both armed with the knowledge that they were being spied on, I kept flashing back to Friends' fifth season classic, "The One Where Everybody Finds Out."

The scenarios aren't identical, of course – one involves the funny Chandler and Phoebe, the other the cripplingly unfunny Whitney and Alex – but the flavor of the thing was familiar, like how if you fish a half-eaten and moldy burger out of a sidewalk trash can and begin eating, you may be like, "Hey, this reminds me of In-N-Out!"

The basic premise of this episode was amazingly stupid, and not just for a sitcom. If Whitney found Alex's tone of voice condescending, why didn't she just say, "Stop using that shithead tone of voice?" Couldn't she have been trying to catch him in the act doing something illicit or something that would have actually made the spy camera make sense? And once the camera was up, they didn't go nearly far enough with making things uncomfortable for the people watching. The lap dance doesn't count. Between this and the pilot I'm getting pretty sick of the writers' mistaken belief that an extended third-act sequence of awkward sexuality from Whitney constitutes anything resembling comedy. It doesn't.

However, I still believe that this may be Whitney's strongest effort to date, both because of one moment which made me curl my top lip up in amusement for about half a second (detailed below in the funniest moment subsection) and because of the presence of Ken Marino as Alex's brother. Actually, I'm not sure if the latter is a plus, because, much as Party Down is brilliant and I love Marino, when he stepped through that door it was a little like seeing an old friend in pain. Guest starring in Whitney is a Ron Donald Don't.

But awful as Whitney may be, I do sort of admire how hard the producers are trolling people of taste with that episode title, just like when they said in an interview before the show started that all of NBC's other Thursday comedies (you know, those brilliant shows doing stuff no other sitcom has ever done, some stupid bullshit like that) have made it cool to be unfunny and Whitney is going to change all that. If you're gonna make a meritless piece of shit, might as well get some giggles out of its existence. Because, you know, there aren't any giggles to be found in the show's content.

Funniest Moment: Probably the guy who was Jonathan on 30 Rock (still haven't quite memorized his Whitney character's name) noting that Whitney's apartment isn't believable for someone of her means. It was perhaps the first moment of this series that might go over the heads of anyone.

Final Grade: D+

Community, Season 3 Episode 5 – "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps"

There's part of me that wonders if I might not regard "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps" as brilliant had it aired a year later or earlier or if "Remedial Chaos Theory" had simply come afterward, as the two episodes employed the same basic framework of one cutaway story per study group member, but this one just wasn't as good. But, whether or not I kneel in awe of Community's ambition any given week aside, did this episode deliver the laughs? Yep. It was still the best sitcom episode of the week, if only by a small margin.

(If you must have the show vs. show competitive interpretation of it, I would say that my laugh count was pretty damn even between both this and Parks and Recreation's "Meet 'N' Greet," but I ultimately gave "Horror Fiction" the edge in my October roundup simply because I found it more creative and I'm more likely to remember it ten years from now.)

Much as the last two episodes of Community have broken themselves down into seven separate stories, let's just go ahead and break this review up into seven little reviews, ranked weakest to best, one for each of the titular spooky steps:

7. Jeff – Not that I thought there was anything blatantly wrong with this story, but, as the heartwarming resolution, it couldn't help but be a little less riotous than everything surrounding it.

6. Britta – The quickest and least flashy story, perhaps, but the Britta-ized radio announcement of the escaped lunatic by itself gave it the comedic punch to be more than just the episode's control experiment.

5. Troy – Human Centipede references may be a little played out by this point (New Girl of all shows had one this week, and New Girl is about as cushy and mainstream a show as I can imagine), but Pierce having butt-boobs he can touch all day was a vision of true comedic terror.

4. Annie – The quality of this one lay less in the overall Twilight-flavored concept than in the little moments, such as Britta's flat affirmation that "I'm fine with this." and Jeff's coining of the phrase "drained and tainted bitch-dog." The CGI on Annie's werewolf transformation also wasn't too bad for a sitcom. It took me out of the moment less than most of the dinosaurs do on Terra Nova, anyway.

3. Abed – A sublime literalization of stuff that gets routinely shouted at slasher protagonists on TV and movie screens across the nation. True, turning the radio on at the wrong time for the news bulletin reminded me of a joke they did with Wayne Jarvis on Arrested Development some five years ago, but Troy and Abed's harmonized real-world humming saved it anyway. Abed's quick and dirty character development about economic woes and romance was also great, and undeniably successful: I would have been more upset to see these characters get offed than those in Britta's tale.

2. Shirley – That Shirley sees the entire gang – even sweet little Annie – as a crew of deranged, heavy metal-listening potheads she's mother hen of may be the best revelation of its type since we found out that Kenneth Parcell sees all humans as muppets. Her misunderstanding of how marijuana works and her version of Britta's repeated insistence that she lived in New York were both perfection.

1. Pierce – It's difficult to say how much of this was how Pierce sees himself and how much was pure fantasy, but either way it was hysterically funny and so perfectly, utterly Pierce. Abed's "Oh man!" after Pierce punches out Troy is brilliantly delivered.

All in all a fun little Halloween anthology. But while I enjoy a good "Abed is awesome" moral as much as the next guy, there is an ambiguity-appreciating part of me that kind of wishes they had left the identity of the one sane personality test a mystery. Going back to the "Remedial Chaos Theory" comparison, it was a stab at a heartwarming ending that was decently successful but still paled in comparison to the "Roxanne" dance party that capped off the pre-tag end of the episode just one week prior. (And, just like as "Chaos Theory," the tag was a non-canonical continuation of Troy's story. Crazy how closely the two episodes sync up.)

Funniest Moment: Pierce's entire story is the second funniest moment of the episode; the funniest is the group's collective expressions immediately after the story is over, especially Britta. Gillian Jacobs has been killing it this season.

Final Grade: B+

Parks and Recreation, Season 4 Episode 5 – "Meet 'N' Greet"

First off, is anyone out there really mourning the end of the Entertainment 720 subplot? Pretty much the sole thing I was excited about going into this story was the promise of more Jean-Ralphio, which was to some extent delivered on, but, as Ben Schwartz has been cast as a regular in another series, my dream of Parks and Recreation and Jean-Ralphio was not to be. It's not that I object to shows changing, but it can try one's patience when said changes obviously aren't going to last, especially when they feel as intrusive and generally grating as Entertainment 720 did in this episode.

But I'm just getting that one bit of negativity out first thing, because, E720 aside, this episode was a lot of fun and had more than its share of laughs (and even that story made me laugh sufficiently hard with the not-anonymous confessional from "Mark Zuckerberg"). April and Andy in particular were on fire from the opening seconds. April was largely just hanging on the side making quips rather than being directly involved in the action, but she was part of the episode's single funniest moment (as usual, detailed below), so it's all good. Ben and Andy's feud was a bit of a Lord of the Rings film trilogy situation (that is to say, the middle was the weakest part), with Andy's initial attack on Ben in Ben's room being hilarious and the "We're brothers" payoff making it all worthwhile, but the all-night headlock did get just a little soggy before it was done.

As for the rest of the Halloween party, this episode really got me thinking about the interesting role Chris Traeger plays in the ensemble. There's no doubt: he's the peppiest, most friendly, positive, optimistic person on the show (not an easy title to claim with Knope in the mix). He literally loves everyone. But he has, at the same time, filled the antagonist role from the second he stepped into Pawnee, first as the cut man there to slash City Hall's budget to ribbons, then as the obstacle standing in the path of Leslie and Ben, and now as Jerry's (unwitting and benevolent) antagonizer via Mr. Gergich's lithe, willing daughter.

Now, Jerry's despair is always hilarious to witness, and I approve of it wholeheartedly. But I also hope there's a confrontation coming, because Jerry has been bottling up the rage for years now, and I see no better story opportunity to finally let some of it loose.

And this week in "Ann's Place In This Ensemble Is Awkward and Loosely Defined," we have her teaming up with Ron Swanson to put the hammer – the hammer of home maintenance, that is – to April, Andy, and Ben's rotting house. It becomes more difficult by the week to deny Ann's status as Mark Brendanawicz 2.0, but this story wasn't without its solid laughs, particularly Ron's reading of "Sonic and Hedgehog" and his stoic confirmation that if you touch the shock wire above Andy's shower, you do, indeed, die.

While I had my problems with Entertainment 720, I did like the parts of Leslie and Tom's story that less directly involved Tom's floundering startup. They may have reached just a little too hard for the heartwarming beat at the end with her crying over Tom's campaign video (although even that moment wasn't without humor), but there was something very believable, sympathetic, and humorously cringe-inducing about her denying credit for the Harvest Festival that was her baby from the word go.

It's also interesting to note that "Meet 'N' Greet" continues this season's pattern of switching off election and non-election plots for Leslie each episode, which is a format that is definitely working and keeps this season moving without making the election stuff ever get stale. Well, I don't want to say ever, but not yet anyway.

Funniest Moment: For pure schadenfreude goodness, the only real choice is the look on Jerry's face as his daughter and Chris dry hump on the dance floor, perfectly punctuated by April correcting his stick-on smile.

Final Grade: B

The Office, Season 8 Episode 5 – "Spooked"

There's something of a schism down the middle of The Office's latest Halloween episode, "Spooked." If you look at it strictly as Erin's story, it's pretty good. Though the writers always seemed to have more trouble pinning down her exact intelligence and neuroses levels than with any other character (eventually settling on extremely naive), I've liked Erin pretty much since the first moment she stepped into Dunder Mifflin, mostly thanks to the sheer enthusiasm with which Ellie Kemper throws herself into the role.

As for everything outside of Erin, the episode was something of a scattershot mess. Not to say that little snatches of it weren't amusing (namely Kevin's fear of mummies), but of the many teeny tiny subplots they tossed out, there were more misses than solid hits. Jim not wanting to dress as Chris Bosh, the continued Pam vs. Angela pregnancy rivalry, Dwight bonding with Robert California's son – none of this was particularly funny (although the last was at least given a little time to breathe and be somewhat believable).

And, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the grand prize for least funny part of the episode has to go to Jim and Pam, this time arguing about the existence of ghosts. They're boring when they're lovey dovey and, as this episode proves, they're still boring when locked in dispute. I was as invested in Jim and Pam as anyone else during the glory days of season two, but the magic has petered out so hard. I'm not sure what The Office can do to fix them other than just look at TV comedy's funniest married couple – April and Andy on Parks and Recreation – and try desperately to capture a little slice of what that show does.

Robert California was probably the best part of the episode outside of Erin, at least when he announced his entry with the hilarious line to Andy, "And you, on this day of fantasy, are... a laborer." His smugly stating that he's never uncomfortable was also great. But still, while James Spader is doing good work in the part, some of what's stuck in his mouth isn't so great. His final fear monologue would have been charming if it'd been a playful thing for the office to smile, laugh, and goodheartedly go along with (think the Office Olympics back in the day), but playing it as if everyone was actually scared just made it stupid.

But, with that negativity out of the way, back to the positive: This was probably Erin's biggest spotlight since "Secretary's Day" a couple years ago (an episode that actually went too far with Erin's neurotic nature in the restaurant scene), and Ellie Kemper tore into it as well as she pretty much always does. She never lets a single punchline escape her, and, although I remain less than entirely invested in Erin and Andy as a couple, she also sold her heartbreak at Andy's girlfriend reveal in a way that made you feel for her. A solid character showcase, just as "Lotto" was for Darryl.

The one part of her story that didn't quite work was her presentation of Gabe's "cinema of the unsettling." It was a scene that rammed up against the simple limits of what you're allowed to show on television: If the video had actually been gross and upsetting, the characters' reactions would have made sense and their discomfort would have been funny. As is, it wasn't and they weren't. However, this was followed immediately by the funniest moment of the entire episode, which makes up for it. And hey, speak of the devil!

Funniest Moment: A desperate Erin presenting Pecker Poker, "The game of cards that gets you haaard." Brilliant line delivery by Kemper, and the lone gut laugh of the episode.

Final Grade: C+

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 10/13/11

(I felt there was too much positivity in my NBC sitcom roundups as of late, so effective immediately and until I decide I've had enough, I've added Whitney to the lineup. May god have mercy on my soul.)

The Office, Season 8 Episode 4 — "Garden Party"

Well, after three pretty solid outings for The Office's eighth season, we got us a bit of a clunker. Not an apocalyptic clunker – "Garden Party" is no "Christening" – but an incredibly generic, run-of-the-mill Dunder Mifflin party episode, one we've seen a million times before, and one where the few things that differentiated it were primarily for the worse.

The garden party setting, while outwardly harmless, gave rise to one of the dumbest episode framing devices in the history of the show with Jim's garden party advice book. Never mind that most of the resulting Dwight wackiness was less than hilarious; even for a sitcom, the idea that Jim wrote a complete book (from the look of it, a decently thick one) in preparation for this one event, created an anonymous online profile, and somehow got Dwight to buy it in lieu of however many real garden party books there are on Amazon to get a couple silly laughs is unacceptably stupid. Moronic. Almost insulting.

Josh Groban as Andy's brother was the worst, most obnoxious kind of stunt casting, the kind that made last season's finale so grating and that The Office admirably held itself above for six seasons (unless you count supporting players from The Wire as stunt casting, anyway). Now, Groban's performance for his first scene or two was fine, but then they had to bust out the guitars and go for the "funny" singing (i.e. just plain singing), which became an ultimate comedy pet peeve of mine at some point between the hundredth and millionth time they did it with Jenna on 30 Rock. Nothing but hate for that part of the episode.

Of course it all came around to a feel-good ending where the office rallied in support of Andy to make him feel welcome as their new boss, which would be great if they hadn't done the exact same ending two goddamn episodes ago in "The Incentive." Let's start thinking a little outside the box, guys!

Now, granted, there were some funny punchlines here and there as the show's viewpoint swung erratically around the party, including Mose making chaos while parking cars, a bird stealing Erin's hat, and the Citizen Kane debate between Oscar and Darryl. But alas, those bits were but sprinkles covering tuna-flavored ice cream. Worst episode of the season by far.

Funniest Moment: Ryan toasting the troops. All of them. Both sides.

Parks and Recreation, Season 4 Episode 4 — "Pawnee Rangers"

Like The Office, this was a fairly run-of-the-mill Parks outing, but with the important caveat that Parks and Rec's current mean quality level is much, much higher than The Office's. Multiple stories stemming loosely from the same event (most of the office being out camping, the few people left taking advantage of the empty nest), Leslie being triumphant, Ron being stubborn, Ann being awkward, Chris being peppy, Jerry being put upon, Tom and Donna being materialistic, Ben being a nerd, heartwarming ending, etc. All bases covered.

The main Pawnee Rangers vs. Pawnee Goddesses story, while light on Andy and April goodness, was full of funny stuff, especially in the contrast between the two camps and in Leslie's overly precocious kids. After a string of "Ron is awesome and always right" stories last year like the burger cook-off, it was nice to see an episode take him down a peg and show that he can, in fact, be wrong. I also like that, at least as of four episodes in, they seem to be alternating election and non-election stories for Leslie. Good way to do it, I'd say.

Ben, Tom, and Donna's "TREAT YO SELF" B-plot was definitely the highlight of the episode, if only because of Ben eating soup alone on a bench, his fear of acupuncture, and the Game of Thrones and Dark Knight references. Nevertheless, this has been the third consecutive episode to pair up Ben and Tom, so I wouldn't mind Ben getting a new story partner next week. Chris and Jerry's subplot all seemed like buildup for the two-second punchline of Jerry's reaction shot when Chris tells him he fucked his daughter, but that punchline was funny enough to make it all worthwhile.

Funniest Moment: Andy's intensity while reciting the oath of the Pawnee Goddesses.

Community, Season 3 Episode 4 — "Remedial Chaos Theory"

Best sitcom of last Thursday? Yes. Best TV episode of the week? Certainly. One of the best of the year? Absolutely. Best Community since "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons?" Quite possibly! "Remedial Chaos Theory" was the sort of condensed, propulsive brilliance Community specializes in that makes all other sitcoms feel small, dull, and gray in comparison. Granted, it's not the first sitcom episode to explore multiple timelines, but it is the first to explore seven multiple timelines, and weave countless subplots and running jokes through all of them in a manner reminiscent of a man juggling a dozen knives.

What's great is how the episode managed to have its cake and eat it too, being alternately absurdist, dark, poignant, slapsticky, or (in the case of the prime timeline) heartwarming depending on who got the pizza, and, like they've done with action movies, zombies, and Westerns, they made it all fit seamlessly within the framework of the show's reality. In addition to all the stories they were juggling, "Remedial Chaos Theory" showed supreme confidence in its grasp of tone, and how to make it veer in wildly different directions without ever feeling haphazard or uncontrolled.

It doesn't take a master sitcom analyst to look at the episode and notice that the group dynamic immediately improves when Pierce or Jeff is missing. When Pierce is absent, everyone starts getting along. When Jeff the judgmental steps out, they immediately lose their inhibitions and start having fun, which Jeff of course judges them for upon his return ("You guys see what happens when I leave you alone?"). This seems to tie directly into Jeff's nightmare about literally becoming Pierce back in "Biology 101." But beyond Jeff and Pierce, it's also interesting to look at how the absence of the others impacts things.

When Britta is gone, the group loses its heart and gets mean, with Pierce getting a little too harsh with Abed. With Shirley missing, they get selfish, letting her pies burn. When Abed is gone, they just plain stop having fun, with everyone getting really real then hurting each other's feelings. And without Troy, everything goes to fucking hell, seeming to say that without his goodhearted enthusiasm anchoring them there can be no group at all. (The only one for whom this theory seems to break down is Annie, who just last week in "Competitive Ecology" was voted most popular in the group, but whose absence seems to have little ill effect on anyone.)

Even putting aside the breadth and ambition of its storytelling, "Remedial Chaos Theory" was just hilariously funny. From Britta's pizza dance to Troy's candy cigarette to Annie's gun not being a pregnancy test to the Norwegian troll doll to Jeff repeatedly hitting his head on the fan to Britta's repeated botched attempts at singing "Roxanne," the episode refused to lighten up on the onslaught of comedy for a second. Granted, this is more the rule than the exception when it comes to Community, but it's always nice to see and nice to laugh as hard as this show demands.

It's also interesting to note that, save last season's "Competitive Wine Tasting," this is the most brazen episode yet concerning the seemingly inevitable romantic collision of Troy and Britta. I have no extremely strong feelings on this one way or the other, but I am curious to see if Community can pull off coupling up the study group (actual couples, I mean, so not counting Jeff and Britta's secret sex last season) without it starting to feel incestuous the way Friends did around the point that Joey fell in love with Rachel. The show has pulled off 98% of what it's taken a swing at up to this point, so I have no reason to believe they'd botch it.

But the most important question to ponder moving forward is, of course, whether or not we'll ever visit Evil Troy and Evil Abed in the dark timeline again. The show would continue on fine without them, but it would be a shame not to follow up on that astoundingly brilliant tag. If we ever return to that timeline I hope we get a chance to visit in on psycho Annie.

Funniest Moment: For the sheer, manic energy of it I'd have to go with Troy's Darth Vaderian "NOOOOOOO!!!!" upon seeing the Norwegian troll doll amidst the fire, but he also had the funniest line delivery not a minute into the episode. Shirley: "Time flies when I'm baking!" Troy: *grinning widely* "No it doesn't!"

Whitney, Season 1 Episode 4 — "A Decent Proposal"

Watching Whitney's latest pile of shit masquerading as a sitcom episode, it occurred to me that I'd seen this story before: Whitney and Alex's game of romantic chicken was instantly evocative of Jeff and Britta in Community's second season premiere, "Anthropology 101." Now, I'm not saying that Whitney's writers ("writers" in the same sense that one who defaces a urinal with graffiti is an "artist") ripped off Community – nothing about Whitney implies that anyone involved has ever seen a funny episode of television – but it's fascinating to compare the two and see why one works and one doesn't.

Now, you might say, "Tim, you asshole, one is funny because it has good writers, good jokes, Joel McHale, and Gillian Jacobs, and the other is unfunny because it has shit writers, shit jokes, Whitney Cummings, and Chris D'Elia!" And, of course, you'd be right. But beyond that, examining story structure, Community's romantic chicken worked because the two people involved weren't already in a longterm relationship, they were forced to put on a performance for everyone else's benefit, there was another character (Abed) driving the stakes upward, and they had the people around them choosing sides ("Jeff Winger you're a jerk!").

Whitney, however, shows no aptitude whatsoever for the basic notion of comic stakes: The romantic chicken is being played exclusively between two (uninteresting) people, and, whoever wins, no one will care and nothing will result. It will have no impact on Whitney or Alex as people or on their relationship. It's small, boring storytelling. And, yes, as I mentioned above, on a moment-to-moment and joke-to-joke basis, it was cripplingly unfunny. This show sucks the big dick.

Funniest Moment: Geez. That's a little like being tasked with finding the tastiest turd in a toilet bowl full of shit, isn't it? I guess if I had to choose I'd go with the part at the end where Jonathan from 30 Rock proposes to the redheaded one, because it was hilarious that Whitney actually thought I would be emotionally moved by that. You just want to pat the show on the head and say "Aw, good job, champ!", like you would to a kindergartener showing off their artwork.

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Community 2. Parks and Recreation 3. The Office 4. Whitney

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 10/6/11

The Office, Season 8 Episode 3 — "Lotto"

While by no means an Office all-timer, I'd say "Lotto" is the season's best effort to date, an episode that was fairly funny, balanced good A and B-plots, and did interesting dramatic character work with Darryl all at once. The big confrontation between Darryl and Andy in the lobby was genuinely involving stuff which also retroactively fit some of Darryl's odd missteps in the second half of last season into the show's universe and explained in more than satisfying detail why Andy was promoted instead of Darryl. Great scene all around.

The Darryl spotlight (along with last week's strong Andy focus) also seems to indicate a post-Michael Office where the weekly protagonist shifts around, which is very interesting and opens up lots of story possibilities. I'm curious to see whether some more background characters like Phyllis or Oscar will get similarly centric episodes later on in the season.

And the warehouse B-plot, while almost pure physical comedy, was pure physical comedy that more or less worked. It was a little absurdist without totally chucking reality out the window, and Erin and Kevin make a surprisingly potent comedic duo ("You need to drop it, okay? They hate it. I like it a lot, but they hate it, so drop it!").

Outside of the dog in the car cold open (which, except for the final gag with Kevin passing out, was a near-complete dud in which Oscar seemed wildly out of character), the weakest part of the episode was, surprise surprise, the generic Jim / Pam wannabe cuteness with them debating what to do with their hypothetical lottery winnings (although I did like the line, "In your fantasy we're Stephen King characters."). Yes, yay Jim and Pam. For the millionth time. Moving on.

And while I like Robert California just fine and think he adds an interesting something to the ensemble, I'd be dishonest not to note that his absence didn't even occur to me for a second until I saw someone mention it online after the episode was over. That's actually a good thing, I'd say, that they aren't shoehorning him into episodes he has no organic place in. I just hope it doesn't go so far that direction that he starts to feel like a comedic fifth wheel when he does appear.

Funniest Moment: The biggest laugh of the entire season so far is Stanley's look of shock and outrage upon seeing the warehouse applicant eating his lunch. First time in these three episodes I've done the full roaring from the gut laughter.

Parks and Recreation, Season 4 Episode 3 — "Born & Raised"

This episode was exactly the Parks and Rec goodness I was hoping for when the Leslie Knope city council storyline kicked off two weeks ago. In fact, the exact words in my season premiere review were that the story arc "provides easy access to the unilaterally hilarious talk shows and news shows of Pawnee," and boom, two episodes later, Joan Callamezzo. As with Perd Hapley, I understand why Joan can't be a regular – too much of a good thing, it'd be like eating ice cream every meal – but it's always, always great to see her, and this may have been her biggest spotlight yet.

The general consensus online seems to be that "Ron & Tammys" is still the best episode of the season, but that's wrong. It was hilarious, yes, but I wasn't crazy about the rigidly disconnected storylines. "Born & Raised," on the other hand, does a sublime job having its disparate stories all grow from the same seed and interconnect. Leslie's search for the truth of her birth, Ben and Tom's disturbing lunch with Joan, and Ron and April being forced into spending time with Ann all stemmed from the factual error in Leslie's book, and that's the kind of storytelling I find both more impressive and more rewarding.

As with "Ron & Tammys," the Ann storyline was the weakest part, but more so than when she was matched up with Chris, the general blandness of Ann is here counteracted by the general awesomeness of Ron and April (who, as I've mentioned before, probably have the greatest boss / henchman dynamic on television right now). Whatever Ann-related dullness there may have been was more than justified by Ron revealing his wrong name strategy and April flipping it on him to his pride seconds later.

The episode's subjects of parody were somewhat scattershot and outdated, with the Obama birthers and Oprah's Book Club both getting somewhat belatedly skewered, but it was funny enough that I didn't much care. The gotcha dancers, the return of Bert Macklin, Jerry's tragic quest across Indiana, Ben's theories on Star Trek, and the field trip to Eagleton were all hilarious, and moments like Chris helping Leslie reclaim her Pawnee pride and the final waffle party were pure warmhearted goodness. Parks and Rec is at its best one of the most pleasant and uncynical 22 minutes on television, and "Born & Raised" captured that perfectly.

Funniest Moment: Probably Ben's deadpan "That never happened." response to Joan's Val Kilmer story, because Adam Scott has the best line delivery in the world. Also from Adam Scott, a minute later, "Is she gonna powder her vagina?"

Community, Season 3 Episode 3 — "Competitive Ecology"

In utter contrast to the warmheartedness of Parks and Rec's "Born & Raised," Community's "Competitive Ecology" is quite possibly the most bitter, utterly misanthropic half-hour of the entire series. Now, this could get problematic if it stays this way, but for a one-time thing it pretty much made me laugh my ass off. The evolution of the group's hatred of Todd was a fantastically dark and comedically cruel thing to behold, and the main study room scene definitely had the feel of "Cooperative Calligraphy" on crack. (Not in a good or a bad way, just a plain old on crack, nutso way.)

Loved the return of Magnitude, and of course Vicki for the second week in a row. Hopefully Todd can join them in the stable of recurring characters. The episode also made better use of Michael K. Williams as Professor Kane than the premiere. None of the conversations he has make sense.

Chang's noir private eye B-plot wasn't really treading comedic territory that hasn't been explored years or even decades ago, but it had a lot of funny gags on a moment-to-moment basis. Chang mistaking a common passerby for a noir dame was great ("Legs that went all the way to the bottom of her torso. The kind of arms that had elbows."), as was Mel Rodriguez once again as Chang's supervisor. I also loved Chang's repeated "Was I crazy?", and the fact that the show is at this point pretty brazenly depicting him as mentally ill in a way that could just as easily be dramatic in another show, here played for increasingly dark comedy.

Funniest Moment: Gonna have to go with Britta's failed attempt at a "PEW! PEW! PEW! PEW!" middle finger, which Gillian Jacobs executed perfectly. Awkward Britta is definitely working for me this season.

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Parks and Recreation 2. Community 3. The Office

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 9/29/11

The Office, Season 8 Episode 2 — "The Incentive"

I said last week that I won't belabor the point of Steve Carell's absence in these sitcom roundups – and I won't – but I will belabor the point of boss Andy being characterized in a way indistinguishable from Michael Scott. Granted, him having to report directly to Robert California, who is frequently in the office, adds a new flavor, but so much dialogue that comes out of boss Andy's mouth (especially the "cocker spaniel" explanation and awkward backpedalling in this episode) feels like they just took unused Michael dialogue from old scripts and did a find and replace with Andy's name. That's a problem.

But despite that, I did like the main incentive and tattoo story a lot. Andy upping the stakes on his point exchange offers, seeing the office come alive with hard work, and Robert's final explanation about the inspirational power of the underdog to the unexceptional all worked completely. And seeing the Nard Dog tattoo was actually a really great moment of office camaraderie that I didn't predict; probably one of the infinitesimally few reveals of a man's bare ass in the 133-year history of film and television that could be described as "heartwarming."

I thought less of the episode's B-plots. Pam and Angela's brief bonding and then feud over their pregnancies was a comedic nonstarter and didn't have enough time dedicated to it to do interesting character work, and Darryl reconnecting with his ex-wife went absolutely nowhere (although Kevin's response to her Dunder Mifflin entrance was pretty funny). I'm willing to assume for now that Darryl's wife is going to be a continuing story in episodes to come, and I hope I'm right, but The Office has bit me in the ass with seemingly unfinished stories that never came up again before.

Funniest Moment: As with last week, there wasn't really any singular moment that made me tilt my head back and roar, but it was a funny week for Kevin all around – both the intro with him talk funny, and his consternation at Dwight putting walnuts in the brownie mix.

Parks and Recreation, Season 4 Episode 2 — "Ron & Tammys"

This is one of the most rigidly segmented sitcom episodes I've seen lately – the three stories had absolutely no connecting tissue and didn't even have any character crossover; they could have easily been from three completely different episodes – but two of the stories were so damn funny I can't really find it in myself to care.

The heart of the episode was Ron taking the opposite approach from when Tammy 2 transformed him into a psychotic sex maniac and becoming creepily pleasant and unmustachioed, which was brilliant and gave Nick Offerman a great new angle to play. Tammy 1 is a perfectly conceived and performed character who simply must appear again, and the drinking contest at the end was awesome. Plus, April and Andy, while lacking any true spotlight, were consistently hilarious, from April's immediate love of Tammy 1 to Andy panicking and giving a false name before sheepishly backpedalling. Great stuff, great characters, greatness.

Also great was the Entertainment 720 subplot, both because Jean-Ralphio is awesome ("Take me there!") and because Adam Scott does the camera confessional cutaways better than anyone else on this show or on The Office. As I'm sure I've said before, it's crazy that Ben wasn't in the first season or most of the second, because he feels like such a crucial part of the show's DNA now that I can't even imagine it without him.

Less crucial feeling, I'm afraid, is Chris Traeger, perhaps partially because of how distant from everyone else he seems up in his office. Ann and Chris's subplot, while having a few laugh out loud bits (Ann shaking her head at the camera after telling Chris they're rolling), was kind of one joke hammered over and over, and definitely a bit of a buzzkill when compared to the other two stories. Still, even it probably made me laugh harder than anything else in any non-Parks, non-Office, non-Community sitcom episode I watched in the last week, which I guess is why these are the only sitcoms I put in the time to actually review.

Funniest Moment: It's a tough call between the party switch at E720, Leslie's reactions to drinking the Swanson moonshine ("POISON." / "What is that?!"), and Andy asking to take a peek at Tammy 2's acid-burned foot (mostly thanks to Chris Pratt's brilliant line delivery). Hilarity all around!

Community, Season 3 Episode 2 — "Geography of Global Conflict"

"Geography of Global Conflict" was another strange, hilarious, and aggressively irreverent episode that I can't imagine being much more hostile to conventional sitcom lovers. From Garrett's "CRISIS ALERT!" to Britta trying and failing to kick over a trash can to Troy taking the lid off Annie's cup to Abed's fixation on Earth 2 to Troy's Georgian accent to all the Lionel Richie music, it was weird and it kept me laughing loudly the entire time. Annie Kim and Professor Cligoris are both characters I'd love to see recur throughout the season. Especially Cligoris, since Martin Starr is high up on my list of the funniest actors alive who will sadly never become huge mainstream stars.

Despite being clearly stuck on B-plot duty, I'd go with Gillian Jacobs as the MVP of the episode, because I'm continually impressed by how much raw comedy she's wrung from what, at the inception of the series, was such a blandly "cool" and uninteresting character. Now Britta Perry is one of the best sitcom characters on television. How things change. Every scene she had across from Chang was hilarious. I also think Mel Rodriguez has been great as Chang's supervisor thus far, which is funny because I didn't really like him at all in Running Wilde. I guess it's all about having a good script to work off of.

The one bit I didn't like so much was Annie's freakout at Annie Kim. I would have been find if they'd left it at the screaming – there's precedent for that, especially in "Cooperative Calligraphy" – but the full-body freakout was a little out of character and just a little too much. But the show made up for it two scenes later with the Spartacus farting confession, so I can forgive and forget.

Funniest Moment: This is tough, but I'd have to go with Abed whispering nonsense to explain his plan, confident that the show will cut away, and Jeff correcting him. That's the kind of joke that feels like it was written just for me, and that assumed pop culture knowledge is a big part of why I love Community so much.

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Community 2. Parks and Recreation 3. The Office

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 9/22/11

The Office, Season 8 Episode 1 — "The List"

It occurred to me while watching The Office's eighth season premiere, "The List," that the show has gradually evolved into more or less the complete opposite of what it was initially conceived as. Once upon a time, The Office was a bittersweet-to-brazenly-depressing portrait of being trapped in a joyless, dead end job with mostly annoying coworkers that thrived on tension and awkwardness. Moments so uncomfortable that your stomach started to knot and you had to fight the urge to look away from the screen were not an anomaly but the show's bread and butter.

Now, as we enter fall 2011 and the show's eighth season, The Office is a comforting 22 minutes spent among dear friends; a televised glass of warm milk. Moments of awkwardness are far more likely to be diffused with punchlines and cartoonish characters than allowed to let sit and fester, and episodes are routinely punctuated with heartwarming moments to make you coo "aww!" This was especially clear in this episode's ending sequence wherein new manager Andy goes to defend Dunder Mifflin's second tier employees to new CEO Robert California one by one, intercut with beaming faces all around the office and capped off with the millionth "Jim and Pam are cute and have a cute baby" moment of the last year.

But although the bite is almost entirely gone and the days of me counting down the hours until the next episode are long over, I still enjoy the show. The characters are so familiar and so well-defined and the cast so large that plenty of organic comedy can come naturally from even their most mundane interactions, which the show relies on much more at this point than particularly clever or original storytelling. As such, "The List" was an amusing and breezy if fundamentally unremarkable episode of television.

I'm still on the fence when it comes to the new bosses. Andy's somewhat awkward yet well-meaning characterization in this episode was too much like Michael Scott, so let's hope they can differentiate him a bit in weeks to come. I trust Ed Helms has the chops to play something a little more interesting.

New CEO Robert California, while still one-note, seems like a potentially interesting addition, bringing a certain menace (without being a villain) and a very different vibe than Michael. It was pretty clear that he was the best choice of the new characters in last season's finale, anyway, with James Spader being the only one to successfully craft any character at all from what he was given. I was a bit disappointed that the solution to the mystery of his list turned out to simply be winners and losers rather than something more abstract or him just playing mind games, but that's just a one-episode fault. Plenty of room to grow.

Finally, I'll just get this out of the way right now: Yes, there is undeniably a Steve Carell-shaped hole in the show. There's tons of comic talent left on the roster, including several actors who have led or co-led their own wide release comedy feature films, but Michael Scott was the main character and his relationships with the various employees were, barring Jim and Pam's romance, the most important in the show. If The Office had ended gracefully with his departure, that would have been fine, but it didn't and here we are. I miss and will continue to miss Carell's presence, but I won't bother reiterating it after this week, because it'd be redundant and what'd be the point?

Funniest Moment: I guess I'd have to go with Jim's incredulity at Erin, the office receptionist, not having a pen. Not exactly an enormous belly laugh, but there isn't too much to choose from this week.

Parks and Recreation, Season 4 Episode 1 — "I'm Leslie Knope"

One thing I've really enjoyed about Parks and Recreation is the way that it introduces longterm goals for its characters and narrative – filling in the pit in season one and the first part of season two and the Harvest Festival in the first half of season three – and, unlike other sitcoms that do so, such as the mystery of the titular mother in How I Met Your Mother, actually pays off and concludes these stories. It's a sitcom that believes in maintaining a strong narrative skeleton, and Leslie running for office may be its smartest yet. It risks isolating her from the main cast, perhaps, but it also really lights a fire under her character, will make the story move, and provides easy access to the unilaterally hilarious talk shows and news shows of Pawnee.

And "I'm Leslie Knope" did a great job kicking off her campaign and the show's season. It's not on par with the best of the last two seasons, but it never lacked for laughs and it's great to have the show back. Leslie's Perd Hapley interview was typically hilarious, the penis subplot made better use of the perennially underused Ann than the show has made in quite some time (and contained the friendliest possible utterance of "If I could go back in time and cut your eyeballs out, I would."), and Leslie and Ben's forced breakup managed to be touching without dipping into the mawkish. Great stuff all around.

I especially loved Andy being promoted from shoeshinist to Tom's old position as Leslie's assistant, which could result in him being assistant to a city councilwoman if she wins the election. Andy may have the best character development of any current sitcom character and some of the best character development on television, period, with him gradually and believably evolving from a broke, jobless, homeless and friendless man living under a tarp at the bottom of a mud pit into now being a liked, trusted, and happily married worker at city hall as we enter season four. I hope to see that development continue with him actually taking an active role in the government. Leslie and Ben breaking up didn't bother me at all, but I'd be really upset if Andy and April ever broke up.

My only hesitations in regard to "I'm Leslie Knope" are that, one, they seem to be deemphasizing Jerry's sad-sackness, which would be a shame since that's one of my favorite aspects of the show, and two, they blew through April being acting manager of the Parks department for three weeks in about one scene, which is a story I would have loved to see play out at least a little bit longer, even if it meant less Ron Swanson. But still, good solid episode and a promising return for one of the best shows on television.

Funniest Moment: Probably Andy dumping the Pepto-Bismol all over Kyle's shoe. What can I say? I'm a man of simple pleasures. I also liked Andy offering to be Leslie's assistant without pay for no apparent reason before April hurriedly stopped him. Basically, anything Andy does is gold.

Community, Season 3 Episode 1 — "Biology 101"

As of the end of Friday Night Lights earlier this year, Community is now pretty solidly my favorite show on television. I love Game of Thrones. I love Breaking Bad. I love Parks and Recreation. I love Spartacus. But Community is the true shit, a show that is pretty much everything I could ever imagine wanting from a sitcom; a near-flawless marriage of dazzling creativity, boundless ambition, wonderful characters, fantastic performances, hysterical dialogue, and a deep and abiding love of pop culture and the sitcom form itself. It even trumps every other sitcom on the air in non-comedy matters such as score, cinematography, and set design, as if to twist the knife of its effortless superiority. If you prefer another current sitcom, don't feel bad. It doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you wrong.

And "Biology 101," while perhaps a bit lighter on laughs than last season's "Anthropology 101," was a great kickoff to what looks to be another potentially amazing season. Outside of Arrested Development it may be the most setup-heavy sitcom season premiere I've ever seen, opting to lay pipe for future developments with Dr. Marshall King and Vice Dean Leybourne rather than telling complete stories with them the way "Anthropology 101" did with Betty White (and I'm willing to bet that Abed's newfound love of Inspector Spacetime comes up again too, if the Cougar Town arc of last year is any indication), but that's cool. (Cool cool cool.) I love longform serialized storytelling. I think that's the shit TV is made for, so once again, for the thousandth time, Community and I sync up perfectly.

I do think they may have blown a few episodes of potential story by letting Pierce back into the group so quickly, but I trust that Dan Harmon and co know what they're doing. When it comes to comedy, characters, and storytelling, anyway. Between the abstract opening musical number, Abed's subplot relying on knowledge of Cougar Town, Doctor Who, and British sitcom conventions, multiple open-ended storylines, a protracted 2001: A Space Odyssey parody, Chang throwing a ham for no reason, and a plethora of references to various running jokes and subplots spanning the length of the series, I think it's safe to say they have absolutely no idea what they're doing when it comes to attracting new viewers. I can hardly imagine a sitcom episode more violently repulsive to your average Two and Half Men lover briefly clicking in to see what the deal is with this Community he's heard so much about, but that's totally cool. Harmon is now fully making Community for people who like things that are good, which is so rare and amazing on television.

Funniest Moment: While I absolutely loved the 2001 and end of Cougarton Abbey sequences ("You are the opposite of Batman."), the single exchange that made me laugh the hardest was right at the beginning of the episode, between Shirley and Star-Burns:

Shirley: "Oh, Star-Burns, I see you added a lizard to your special hat and sideburns. Am I missing anything?"

Star-Burns: "Yeah, the human being underneath it all. But no one's really interested in that, are they?!"

Shirley: "Noooo."

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Community 2. Parks and Recreation 3. The Office