Pilot Inspektor Tim: The Playboy Club

The show: The Playboy Club, Mondays on NBC

The premise in ten words or less? Chicago's Playboy Club in the 1960s, and gratuitous murder.

Any good? I've never really been part of the cult of Mad Men. I mean, I like Mad Men. I've seen all 52 episodes of Mad Men. But there are lots of other TV shows I prefer to Mad Men – past and present, network and cable, comedy and drama – and I never fail to grimace at TV critics offhandedly stating that it's the greatest show on television, if not in the history of television, as if it were an objective fact. I roared with approval at Friday Night Lights thrashing it in acting and writing at the latest Emmys.

But whatever problems I may have with Mad Men, one thing it does have is restraint, and supreme confidence in the depth of its characters being sufficient to anchor compelling drama. Granted, the last network show I saw display similar confidence was Lone Star, which Fox took into a back alley and executed after two episodes, but even so, it throws The Playboy Club into sharp and bitter contrast. The Playboy Club features its first attempted rape right around four minutes in, followed one minute later by its first spurting-blood murder and a few minutes after that by body-hiding shenanigans. That right there is not showing restraint.

I compare the shows because, however much the producers of The Playboy Club like to pretend differently, their show would not exist without Mad Men. It's trying hard to tap into the same 60s chic – smoking, drinking, retro clothes, retro cars, social regressivism and all – and the main male character, Nick Dalton, is modeled after Don Draper to a laughable, almost sad degree. One of the show's leads, Naturi Naughton, was even on Mad Men, playing a Playboy Bunny in both shows. But, in trying to do Mad Men except with murder and the mob and prettier, younger actresses, The Playboy Club shows a grave misunderstanding of what made that show tic in the first place.

And it's a shame, because, unlike the Parents Television Council (more on this in a second), I actually wanted to like this show. Mad Men ripoff or no, I was rooting for it to succeed if only for having the balls to try something off the beaten path for network TV, with nary a cop or doctor to be found.

And it does do a number of things right. A lot of money was injected into the project and they chose their director well (Alan Taylor of Rome, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and, would you look at that, Mad Men fame) and the results are all on the screen. It looks like a million bucks; easily the most sumptuously designed, visually pleasing pilot I've seen so far this season. The cast includes Amber Heard and David Krumholtz and Firefly's Sean Maher, and some of the actors I'm less familiar with like Laura Benanti as the Bunny house mother also do good work. The characters are all pretty well-defined in the available 42-minute window and some potentially engaging interpersonal conflicts are introduced. But that murder is just such a silly and juvenile way to kick things off, and it's hard to get past that.

The other huge problem is Eddie Cibrian as the previously mentioned Nick Dalton, who is, I guess (going by the billing order), supposed to be the main character. Outside of his cringe-inducing wannabe resemblance to Don Draper, he has this agonizingly disconnected story going on about being a lawyer and trying to clean up the mob, and it's just so not what I was interested in going into the show. Shouldn't the idea be to follow the Bunnies, especially with minor movie star Amber Heard as our viewpoint into that unique sorority? I mean, who the fuck wants to follow some slicked-hair lawyer who happens to hang out at the Playboy Club a lot and sleep with one of the Bunnies? One episode in and he's already my least favorite protagonist on television. What an utterly bizarre miscalculation.

I feel I should mention that, having now actually watched the show, the Parents Television Council hysteria preceding its debut (including the show being briefly banned in Utah) is more hilarious than ever. With acknowledgement that pornography exists and women walking around in the equivalent of one-piece bathing suits being the extent of the show's "adult" material, this is basically the least racy version of a Playboy show you could possibly imagine. 2 Broke Girls is more salacious.

Will I watch again? That such an ambitious, pricey, heavily-hyped drama premiered to 5.02 million viewers all but assures The Playboy Club's fate as one of this season's first freshman casualties (I'd be surprised to see it complete its 13-episode season run, but, this being ratings-starved NBC, it's not impossible), so I'll probably keep watching out of sheer curiosity, since I'm not likely to be watching long.

Premise: B-

Execution: C+

Performances: B

Potential: C+

Overall:

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

Pilot Inspektor Tim: 2 Broke Girls

The show: 2 Broke Girls, Mondays on CBS

The premise in ten words or less? Snarky waitress and former rich girl work together, become friends.

Any good? I've said before and, on account of there being several more to premiere over the next few weeks, I know I'll say again that I am openly and unapologetically prejudiced against multi-cam laugh track sitcoms. (If you love the format and are offended by my stance, feel free to think of me as being racist against them.) I don't like the braying laughter or the actors having to pause for said laughter every other line, I don't like the broad humor and performances the format encourages, I don't like the sedate editing style and small number of sets and scenes, I don't like how the majority of shows in the genre are light on continuity and story arcs; I just plain don't like it.

I don't want to take the format away from anyone who does enjoy it (okay, okay, I do want to take Two and a Half Men away), but I can't pretend that's not where I stand. If that makes my opinion on 2 Broke Girls irrelevant to you, feel free to skip this post. I won't take offense.

So anyway, no, I did not like 2 Broke Girls. I found it to be profoundly unimaginative generic sitcommy fluff. Much of the overwritten, dripping-with-"attitude" dialogue they shoved into Kat Dennings' mouth (especially a scene where she tells off a table of not-that-rude customers about a minute in) made me physically cringe. Basically all the supporting characters outside of the two leads are actively awful, especially the profoundly racially troubling Asian caricature restaurant owner, who makes Sixteen Candles' Long Duk Dong look progressive. And, for a show called 2 Broke Girls which follows struggling waitresses, Kat Dennings' New York City apartment is FUCKING HUGE!

But, to give whatever credit where it's due, I'd still take the show in a second over last fall's $#*! My Dad Says, Better With You, or Mike & Molly. Between the perennially hip Kat Dennings and jokes about orgasms, jizz, and vaginas, the show is obviously tailored with a slightly younger audience in mind, and in a purely mechanical sense they've done a good job. With its two strong archetypal leads, comfortingly familiar restaurant and (overly enormous) apartment sets, and broad, unchallenging humor, CBS has an expertly constructed warhorse on their hands here that will last and last and last.

It is kind of a shame though. I liked Kat Dennings in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (somewhat less so in Thor, but that's more the fault of the script than hers), and it's a shame that she couldn't have dedicated her undeniable charisma to a better show on a better network.

Will I watch again? Nope. But the series premiered to 19.37 million viewers, meaning that CBS can safely begin planning their fall 2016 schedule with the sixth season premiere of 2 Broke Girls in mind, so fuck me and my worthless opinion in the ass repeatedly.

Premise: C

Execution: C-

Performances: C+

Potential: C+

Overall:

Pilot Inspektor Tim: The Secret Circle

The show: The Secret Circle, Thursdays on The CW

The premise in ten words or less? Teenage girl discovers she's a witch and joins a coven.

Any good? Well, first off, I should say that this show really, really isn't aimed at my demographic. It's a Twilight-flavored supernatural teen soap about a bunch of high school girls and a couple token chiseled-ab guys doing magic and making kissies in an extremely Dawson's Creek-esque fictional town called Chance Harbor. I can tell you without one glance at the ratings breakdown that the majority of people jonesing for episode two are either 13 or 14-year-old girls.

But if I try to empathize and look at it from their perspective, it's actually not too bad. The show's executive producers are Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain of Angel fame, so it's not like they don't know their way around a supernatural drama. Most of the actors are the same blandly pretty twentysomethings-playing-teens you expect from any CW show (with the most notable adult participant being Natasha Henstridge as the high school principal, and yes, it's weird that the girl who spent much of the 90s sci-fi flick Species walking around naked is now old enough to play the mother of a high school student), but Britt Robertson has a certain spunk as the protagonist Cassie.

The show opens with Cassie's mother dying in a house fire started by a mysterious evil wizard, then skips several months ahead as Cassie moves in with her grandmother in the waterfront town of Chance Harbor, Washington. It's only about one commercial break in that Cassie gets dragged to an abandoned house in the woods by five of her peers and told that she's the progeny of a line of great witches and must join them for, well, fun, I guess (though the same evil wizard who killed Cassie's mom is seen to live in town, so there's obviously a collision brewing there). It's all very "yer a wizard, Cassie!"

Cassie proceeds to feud with Faye, this popular mean girl witch who's all about power, and get all flirty and almost make out with Adam, a hunky teenage wizard and boyfriend of Diana, head of the coven, which is exactly as generic teen soap as it sounds. By the end of the first episode Cassie is powerful enough to stop a lightning storm via dramatic chanting in what's actually a decently cool scene.

Now, I wasn't overwhelmingly gripped by any of this, but it's not aimed at me, so who cares. The supernatural element affords plenty of wiggle room for the writers to tell just about any story they want so long as it can be explained via magic, and the show does appear to actually be shot in a harbor town, with boats and piers and boardwalks, making it look more alive than most network TV pilots. All in all, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen. Hands down better than the CW's other pilot Ringer.

Will I watch again? No, but at the same time, unlike, say, Twilight or The Secret Life of the American Teenager, I find little objectionable about the notion of the show's junior high girl demo getting into it. It's a perfectly competent supernatural teen drama. Who knows, Whedonverse alums do run the show; maybe it's building towards some sort of apocalyptic magical showdown for the fate of the planet ala season six of Buffy.

Premise: B+

Execution: B-

Performances: C+

Potential: B-

Overall:

Pilot Inspektor Tim: New Girl

The show: New Girl, Tuesdays on Fox

The premise in ten words or less? Recently dumped girl (ZOOEY DESCHANEL!) moves in with three guys.

Any good? New Girl has its problems, which I'll tear into with zeal in just a second, but of the three new sitcoms I've watched so far this season – this one, Up All Night, and Free Agents – it's the best by a decent margin. It's the only one that actually made me laugh out loud using my lungs and voice box and everything at any point during its premiere. That may be the sitcom equivalent of praising a car for successfully getting you to the supermarket without breaking down, but hey, so many cars do break down in the comedy game.

The pixieish, doe-eyed elephant in the room is of course Zooey Deschanel, who, save for a few guest spots on Weeds, has been on big screen duty her entire career. Granted, her filmography includes The Happening and Yes Man, but it also includes (500) Days of Summer, Almost Famous, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Hell, I'll even cop to liking Elf. Unless it's Alfred Molina debasing himself on Law & Order: LA, there's always a certain thrill to seeing a movie star step sideways into television (not step down, mind you, both because I'm not a snob and because at least half of the best stuff made in the last several years has been in TV), and that stands here. Zooey is charming, insanely charismatic, and fun to watch.

It's the writing that remains suspect. The script doesn't quite trust Zooey (whose character is named Jess Day, but who I can only think of as Zooey) to be funny and resemble a human being at the same time and severely overwrites her as this cartoon person who randomly bursts into song and whimpers and baby talks and loses her train of thought and misunderstands basic human interaction to an autistic degree. Zooey very nearly makes it work, but they still need to scale it back about 40% immediately.

Don't get me wrong: Jess can be goofy. She can be awkward. She can be silly. But she shouldn't be infantilized, because it borders on creepy. I saw Zooey Deschanel in a movie called Our Idiot Brother just a week ago where she was playing Paul Rudd's lesbian sister and she was perfectly funny and likable while remaining human. New Girl should try to tap a little more into that and a little less into whatever they made her do in the pilot.

The pilot opens with Zooey moving in with three strangers after her boyfriend dumps her for another woman, and while I wouldn't exactly say that any of these three characters grabbed me, I did like them better than any of the coworkers in Free Agents. They're characterized in pretty broad strokes – one is pervy and douchey, one a recently dumped sad sack, one a personal fitness trainer who doesn't understand women – but it's a sitcom, so hey, that's fine.

The less fine thing is that the funniest of the three guys by far, the personal trainer, is played by Damon Wayans Jr., who wound up committed to Happy Endings on ABC when it got renewed and had to drop out of New Girl. Rather than recast and reshoot the pilot with a new actor, they created a whole new character who will arrive in the second episode, which is kind of annoying and probably a bad choice. I mean, they reshot the $8 million Game of Thrones pilot after a batch of recasting; you're telling me they couldn't reshoot this? Whatever.

But on the plus side, at no point in the pilot is it hamfistedly hinted that there's an epic romance on the horizon between Zooey and any of her new roommates, an absence I can't put my thumb high enough in the sky in approval of.

Will I watch again? If the show was just about the three guys I'd be long gone (especially without Damon Wayans Jr.). But Zooey is exceedingly likable and will only become more so if they scale the violent quirkiness of her character down to tolerable levels. I'll take a look at the second episode. If the show ever reaches a point where I look at Jess Day and think "Jess Day" rather than "Zooey Deschanel," then it will have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

Premise: B

Execution: B

Performances: B+

Potential: B+

Overall:

Pilot Inspektor Tim: Free Agents

The show: Free Agents, Wednesdays on NBC

The premise in ten words or less? Two coworkers deal with the aftermath of sleeping together.

Any good? On paper? Hell yeah! Free Agents was adapted for American TV from a British show of the same name by John Enbom, co-creator and head writer of Party Down, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. It stars Kathryn Hahn, who I've loved ever since I saw her in Step Brothers, as well as Buffy alum Anthony Stewart Head and frequent David Wain collaborator Joe Lo Truglio. It seems like it should be funny as hell.

But in practice? I sat stony-faced through almost the entire pilot.

The show is a workplace sitcom (that also occasionally follows its characters home) set in a PR firm with a perverted boss (Head) and a bunch of nosy and / or generically wacky coworkers backing up its two leads. Kathryn Hahn is Helen, still recovering from the death of her fiance a year ago (to the show's credit, it plays this more darkly comic than tragic), while Hank Azaria is Alex, still stung from his recent divorce. The show opens with the two having a one-night stand and then follows them into work the next day for the awkward aftermath, but hints that true romance may await in their future.

And there's the biggest problem – Azaria and Hahn really, really don't have romantic chemistry. I like that the show attempts to give them fast-paced dialogue to ping-pong back and forth, but by the end of the pilot I gave less of a shit whether these two characters ever end up together than who the current cricket world champion is. Azaria gave voice to a number of classic characters on The Simpsons (Moe, Wiggum, Apu, Chalmers, Carl, Comic Book Guy, etc.), but the clingy, weepy, emotionally damaged middle-aged divorcée he plays here is such an unappealing sitcom lead. I mean, I'm all for sitcom characters being broken people. They just need to be funny broken people.

Speaking of, the one character who actually made me laugh a couple times in this pilot was one of the coworkers played by Al Madrigal, an actor I've never seen before, who keeps desperately trying and failing to insert himself into his coworkers' social plans. This wasn't a character who even began to hint at the brilliance of the Party Down ensemble, but hey, it's something. Maybe John Enbom can make a couple more characters actually funny moving forward.

Will I watch again? If I was basing this purely on laugh count, no, but the guiding hand of Enbom and the presence of Kathryn Hahn, Anthony Stewart Head, and Joe Lo Truglio make it so difficult for me to imagine that this show has nothing to offer. Then again, Running Wilde was created by Mitch Hurwitz and starred Will Arnett and David Cross and had a narrator, and that sure as fuck didn't make it Arrested Development. I'll give Free Agents one more shot. If I laugh a few times, maybe I can brush the pilot off as growing pains. If not, well, there's still a million more sitcoms premiering in the next couple weeks.

Premise: C+

Execution: C

Performances: B

Potential: B

Overall:

Pilot Inspektor Tim: Up All Night

The show: Up All Night, Wednesdays on NBC

The premise in ten words or less? New parents, the mom works as a talk show producer.

Any good? Comedy pilots are rough. That might sound like the prelude to a vicious takedown or a way to excuse a show I didn't laugh much at, but it's neither. It's just the reality of the situation. Arrested Development and Party Down had funny pilots, but Community, which has evolved into the best show currently on television (comedy or drama, network or cable) and one of the best works of comedy ever produced in any medium, had a pilot that failed to make me bellow with laughter at any point, as did Parks and Recreation. So much of enjoying a sitcom lies in getting attuned to its pulse, absorbing the rhythm and quirks of its characters, and letting the writers get comfortable enough to experiment and surprise you, and for any showrunner to accomplish that in 22 minutes is a Herculean feat.

So no, at no point during Up All Night, in which Will Arnett and Christina Applegate play new parents, did I tilt my head back and let out a satisfying roar from the gut. I did chuckle a number of times, if nothing else thanks to the comedic application of bleeped out swears, something that has continually made me laugh ever since Arrested Development. But speaking of that hallowed show, one relieving way that Up All Night actually differs from it is that, unlike in Running Wilde and most of the other comedies he's appeared in over the last decade, Will Arnett is NOT playing Gob Bluth here. He's a new, mellowed out man who actually bears resemblance to a human person, which is at this point a novelty.

Now, there's no lack of generic "baby pooped," "baby won't stop crying" and "baby won't sleep" jokes here, which don't really impress outside of the actors giving it their all, but the bigger problem is Christina Applegate's job. This is that rare sitcom that seems to equally follow the home and work lives of its hero, and (at least in the pilot) the two halves don't quite mesh. Maya Rudolph showed that she's got comic chops in Bridesmaids, but as Christina Applegate's wacky boss and host of the talk show they work at together she feels overly broad and hammy thus far.

Still, the show has room to grow and they've done a good job casting it with talented comic actors. In Arrested Development Will Arnett made me laugh as hard as I've ever laughed at any film or TV show in my life, so I figure he deserves a shot.

Will I watch again? I'll give it at least a few more episodes to see if it can iron out the kinks with Christina Applegate's job and kick up the laugh quotient a bit. But all the generic baby humor caused me to violently eject Raising Hope from my viewing schedule after a few episodes last fall, and this show certainly threatens to tread the same path. Fingers crossed.

Premise: B-

Execution: B

Performances: B+

Potential: B

Overall:

Pilot Inspektor Tim: Ringer

(Rather than grouping multiple pilots into each update as I did when I discussed last year's new shows, I've decided to do this season a little more like my movie reviews, with one show per post. Some of the write-ups might be on the short side if I don't have much to say, but still, I figure this way streamlines things a bit.)

The show: Ringer, Tuesdays on The CW

The premise in ten words or less? Woman on the run assumes her wealthy identical twin's life.

Any good? I've said before that the way I differentiate a soap opera from its broader umbrella genre of serialized drama is that a soap opera has no thematic ambitions beyond simply following the lives of its characters. Ergo, The Wire is not a soap opera because it explores the downfall of the American city; Friday Night Lights is not a soap opera because it's about the culture of small town America; Breaking Bad is not a soap opera because it examines the drug trade; or even, to use a less haughty example, 24 is not a soap opera because it's about fighting terrorism. (Lost, however, is a soap opera. Sorry Lost fans.)

I say this so that when I call Ringer a soap opera no one mistakes me for using the the term as a lazy epithet. The show truly is a soap opera through and through, unless you believe that being a poor stripper chased down by a mob boss because you witnessed a crime and taking over your rich identical twin sister's life as a means of hiding in plain sight after she mysteriously disappears on a boat is a thematic mission statement that will make many viewers nod and go "Mm, yes, I've read much on this topic."

So, operating under the assumption that the character of Bridget (the poor twin and protagonist) is the only real thing we're supposed to care about here, does the show work? Not really. The notion of how dizzying and how difficult it would be to navigate another person's life if everyone thought you were that person is a potentially fascinating one, but the show skates right over it, with Bridget falling into the groove of hanging out with her estranged sister Siobhan (I shit you not: Siobhan)'s husband and best friend and living her posh lifestyle instantaneously. It never goes into the literally hundreds of blind spots Bridget would have, from not knowing the names of mutual friends to the addresses of Siobhan's regular destinations or familial stories or anything. The conflict continues to stem mostly from Bridget's laughable run from the mob and the cops, and it's just not very interesting at all.

I know a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans were looking forward to this series solely for the magic of having Sarah Michelle Gellar back on TV after eight long years, but make no mistake: this is not a Joss Whedon show. Ringer and Buffy have nothing in common. Gellar gets very little chance to show the pep or personality she did as Buffy Summers, instead being forced into playing blandly polite as Bridget and blandly snooty as Siobhan. It's still hard not to like her – she's one of the more charismatic TV stars there is – but the script offers her little to chew on. Nestor Carbonell plays the FBI agent searching for Bridget, and as many problems as I had with Lost by the end of its run, Carbonell's performance as Richard Alpert was never one of them, so that's cool. The rest of the cast is serviceable and forgettable.

I understand if you want a little more Sarah Michelle Gellar in your life, but you'd be better off just busting out the Buffy DVDs and rewatching those. Or hell, even Cruel Intentions. Honestly, if forced to watch a poor-girl-on-the-run-masquerades-as-her-rich-identical-twin show I think I'd rather watch ABC Family's The Lying Game, and The Lying Game is pretty damn bad, so that's saying something.

Will I watch again? I may give the second episode a look on the off chance that it shakes off the freshman jitters and stops feeling like a slightly better-lit soap opera, but the soapiness is built into Ringer's DNA, so I'm willing to bet that will be the end of my journey with the program. So much of the premise revolves around who is going to find out Bridget's secret, when, and how they'll respond, and I can't even fathom how such a story could sustain itself into a second, let alone a sixth or seventh season. The pilot's audience of 2.84 million makes me strongly suspect that question will never be answered, either.

Premise: C+

Execution: C

Performances: C+

Potential: D+

Overall:

2011 Summer Recap, Part I – Comic Book Movies

It seems like just yesterday the envelope was opened and people everywhere said "What the hell?" as The King's Speech took home Best Picture in lieu of six or seven better nominated films, but time chugs unrelentingly onwards and Oscar season will be on us again in a flash (arguably in a couple weeks, depending how high Moneyball is aiming). But before we look towards the future I'd like to glance back at the past and discuss the summer movie season that just was, spanning the April 29th release of Fast Five to, well, let's just say the last day of August.

The majority of movies I'll be discussing in this retrospective are no longer in theaters, with some already out on DVD or due out this month, but that's alright. The average American sees four movies in theaters a year, so I know most of you assholes only saw Transformers, Harry Potter and / or Pirates of the Caribbean anyway. But take my incontrovertible word for it – you missed out on a whole bunch of worthwhile flicks if that's the case! And by "a whole bunch," I mean about a dozen. But I saw way less than 120 movies this summer, so that still exceeds the "90% of everything is crap" axiom people parrot all the time.

I'll be writing this up in six separate categories (or five categories with one split into two, anyway): comic book movies, non-comic book blockbuster action part 1 and 2, mainstream comedies, indie flicks, and miscellany that doesn't go in any other category, i.e. horror and straight drama. Let's do this.

Thor


It was odd watching not only the expected geek cavalcade but a surprising number of critics go apeshit and jizz themselves over this fairly mediocre superhero flick. But the summer movie season was just getting underway at the time, so the critical support can be attributed partially to them getting swept up in a rush of flying hammers and lousy 3D that would have felt insanely generic just a few weeks later. And, well, comic nerds love seeing any of their superheroes translated to the screen with fidelity. If you want a real laugh, go to some of the negative review comment sections for Thor on Rotten Tomatoes and observe a fascinating and hilarious rage as you might an angry zoo animal.

But the film isn't all bad. For starters, Chris Hemsworth embodies the titular viking god with amusing swagger – nothing on par with Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark charisma-wise, but good enough to anchor the film – and Thor's heavenly homeland of Asgard is brought to the screen with amusing fantasy verve, fully embracing its batshit nature with pomp and flair. Idris Elba also puts in a badass supporting performance as some sword-wielding guardian god named Heimdall.

It's when the character Thor comes crashing down to earth that the film does as well. I get the contrast they were going for, but the tiny New Mexican desert town Thor spends most of the movie in looks like a movie set, seemingly populated by about fifty people, and is utterly absent the big, sprawling feel these superhero sagas demand. The action scenes are either overly busy or too dark to make anything out and Natalie Portman's character is a shallow one-note cipher even by summer action flick romantic interest standards, which is especially a shame seeing she's fresh off one of the best performances of the last decade in Black Swan. And, just like in Iron Man 2, an irritating portion of screentime is dedicated not to telling the film's own story but to setting up 2012's The Avengers, including a cameo from Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye shoehorned in with such force I actually felt embarrassed.

Verdict: Well, the villain Loki (played with slimy if less than intimidating charm by Tom Hiddleston) is apparently going to be in The Avengers along with Thor himself, so it's probably a good idea to see this film if only to help set that one up. Under no circumstances should you consider purchasing it, but Netflix it at some point before May 2012.



Priest


I feel like I enjoyed Priest just a tiny bit more than America's critic collective, which is shocking seeing as I thought director Scott Stewart's last movie Legion was pretty much one of the worst theatrical releases ever. I'm not saying it even vaguely approximates goodness, but damn, feedback was harsh.

The movie wastes little time on plot, exposition, or mythology outside of a somewhat cool animated opening which runs a few minutes and explains how vampires came to take over the world until everyone was left holed up in cities. Then it's quickly off to the races as Paul Bettany's niece gets kidnapped by the vampire menace and he heads out into the desert and starts killing bad guys en masse. Like half of the film's runtime is action, just slashing and hacking and shooting and motorcycles and fighting on top of trains. It's sublimely stupid but has a nice if derivative visual aesthetic; Blade Runner in the city, pure western pulp on the outside. But the characters are lumps of nothing and the screenplay atrocious, so don't get too excited.

Verdict: Not worth your time, though I grant that it's still a better vampire flick than any of the three Twilights to date.



X-Men: First Class


I LOVED X-Men: First Class. It's so fun and so energetic and so colorful and so cool, which I guess shouldn't surprise seeing as it's from Matthew Vaughn, who directed the also really fun Stardust and Kick-Ass. But I honestly wasn't looking forward to this much after The Last Stand and Wolverine, so it was still an awesome surprise and indisputable proof that sometimes it's filmmakers that matter, not franchises. I can't believe Vaughn put this movie together with a turnaround time of a year, shorter than any other movie on this list. It mixes Cold War political intrigue, awesome mutant powers, legitimately great humor, pure aesthetic style and an amazing performance from Michael Fassbender as Magneto for a dizzyingly entertaining whole that's absolutely one of the best franchise prequels of all time (not as good as Casino Royale or Batman Begins, but those are reboots, not prequels).

Fassbender in particular deserves spotlighting. I also enjoyed James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert and Kevin Bacon as the villain, but Fassbender's reimagining of Magneto as a badass James Bondian Nazi hunter was so utterly cool that it all but erased Ian McKellen's interpretation for me. And Ian McKellen is one of the greatest actors of all time, so that's not something I say lightly. In a just world the performance would get a Johnny Depp-in-Pirates of the Caribbean-style "hey, genre movies exist!" Best Actor nomination. I know that won't happen, but it doesn't change the fact that Fassbender is utterly (please forgive me for this terrible pun I'm about to inflict) magnetic.

If I were to critique I'd probably point out the fact that (spoilers) out of only two black characters, one turns evil and one dies after about five minutes of screentime, (end spoilers) but that could be fixed if they'd give Vaughn the chance to make a sequel. Part of me worries that a sequel might wind up being a Matrix or Iron Man situation and just cheapen the original, but damn it, I wanna see Fassbender play Magneto again. Matthew Vaughn is one of the few directors working who still maintains a 1.0 batting average when it comes to making great films, and I see no sign his talent is about to give out now. He's up there with Nolan, Scorsese, Wright, and Aronofsky for me. This movie is awesome.

Verdict: Buy it, watch it, cherish it. If you opt otherwise, Wolverine can tell you what's up.



Green Lantern


I wanted to like this movie, not because of the Green Lantern character or mythology (which this movie is and will probably remain my only contact with in my life, barring a sequel), but because director Martin Campbell also directed GoldenEye and Casino Royale, two of my favorite movies of all time. One man, two great films, I was hoping it was a pattern. But alas, the critical and relative box office drubbing Green Lantern received was spot on.

And it's a shame, because I really admire the epic, encompassing-the-fate-of-the-entire-universe space opera vibe that Campbell and team were aiming for here, more Star Wars than Spider-Man. This movie has journeys across the galaxy and visits to other planets, a freaky throne room of space gods, an evil alien the size of a Star Destroyer, superhero armies, an entire city being menaced with thousands of people running screaming through the streets, a battle on the surface of the sun. It's huge! It's also really cartoony, absent a thread of tension, filled with terrible attempts at humor and populated by horrible characters!

Granted, Ryan Reynold's Hal Jordan / Green Lantern does have a personality, but it's been ripped directly from Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and shaded with the most embarrassingly generic dead father backstory. The villains suck. Every beat of the plot is hideously predictable and full of holes even within the fantastic nature of its own universe (hundreds of equally powerful Green Lanterns and Ryan Reynolds has to fight the planet-eating alien menace all alone because… ?). I'd love to see an engaging space opera fantasy, but this ain't it. Hell, Attack of the Clones was better.

Verdict: In brightest day, in blackest night, this movie must escape your sight



Captain America: The Unnecessary Subtitle The First Avenger


Now this one was entertaining. I liked it a lot. And that's probably due to the fact that it doesn't follow the traditional, now cliché superhero story arc we've become accustomed to in the years since Spider-Man, instead taking the flesh of a superhero flick and wrapping it around the bones of a World War II saga. I absolutely love that they went full 1940s period piece with this material, and I also love that they didn't make the character of Captain America into a glib fast-talker in the mold of Iron Man as Green Lantern did with its hero. He's just a good, heroic guy who happens to get himself juiced up with superhero serum, almost archaic in this day and age. Which works since the film isn't set in this day and age.

The special effects are among the only special effects of the year to genuinely impress me – the manner in which they shrunk Chris Evans' muscular body into short and scrawny form for the pre-super serum first act is mystifying in how good and how seamless it looks – the action scenes are fun, the adventure robust, and the movie blissfully doesn't retreat from its inherent cheese. I mean, the villain is a super Nazi played by Agent Smith whose face is a red skull and claims that Hitler is an underachiever. That's just great, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Like in Thor, there's a little bit of The Avengers setup, but unlike in Thor it's actually a little bit. Two or three minutes, and it's stuck at the end of the movie rather than being aggravatingly diluted through the duration. I mean, I'm looking forward to The Avengers a lot, even though this is the only genuinely good movie it's stemming from. But I like the Avengers stuff at the end, as in this film and the first Iron Man, not mixed throughout as in Thor and Iron Man 2. I like ice cream, but I want it at the end, not mixed in with bites of my hamburger.

Verdict: Unquestionably worth a rental. Possibly even a purchase if you can get it on the cheap and dig its somewhat kitschy World War II vibe.



Cowboys & Aliens


Far and away the best thing that Cowboys & Aliens has to offer is a Harrison Ford who appears shockingly alert and engaged in the material. I mean, he growls and glowers and glares with full-frontal Fordiness in a way that easily trumps his performance in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, though not Air Force One. If nothing else I enjoyed seeing one of the great movie stars do his thang once again, and Daniel Craig also does a good job as your archetypal Eastwoodian Western tough guy.

Beyond that… eh. There's a few decent action scenes, though nothing to write home about and without any individual moment that will make you go "whoa!" or even bother perking up. There is a plot twist involving a character's identity about halfway through, but the character hasn't been shaded or established enough beforehand for the reveal to inspire much more than "oh, that's nice." The biggest problem is the movie's severe faceless villain syndrome; the black CGI aliens pose a threat, sure, but they feel unoriginal and devoid of any zip, distinction, or personality. They just aren't any fun to root against, or at least not any more than a sufficiently large and intimidating boulder might be. Actually, now that I think of it, Harrison Ford faced off against the greatest boulder in movie history, so I take that back. Compared to Jon Favreau's other films, this is definitely more an Iron Man 2 than an Iron Man.

Verdict: Possibly worth a Netflixing. A Watch Instantly Netflixing for sure. But not a purchase even at a discount.



Conan the Barbarian


For the first half-hour or so of the Conan the Barbarian reboot I was thinking "man, the critics were wrong, this rocks!" The movie opens with a Morgan Freeman (!!) voiceover establishing the mythology followed immediately by Conan being born on a battlefield via sword C-section and held into the air by a screaming Ron Perlman. Then cut to years later and boy Conan has his village slaughtered and cuts off a bad guy's nose before his father is killed via molten metal. Cut to years later again and adult Conan rescues a bunch of topless slave wenches, hangs out with them (still topless) at a tavern, gets into a bar fight, then meets the guy whose nose he cut off and tortures him by sticking his finger up the guy's gaping nose-hole while the guy pisses himself before throwing him to his own slaves to be torn apart. And I was like, this is pure barbarian, baby!

But then the main plot kicks in, and what a boring plot it is. Conan, seeking the man who led the attack on his boyhood village, winds up having to babysit this woman named Tamara, and they have a Generic Action Movie Romance. Conan spends much of the rest of the film battling CGI sand people and CGI tentacle creatures and the awesomeness, bloodiness, and frequency of his slaughter takes an incredibly sharp nosedive. The movie ultimately loses all the cheesy charm of its first act and becomes overly serious for a story that doesn't warrant said seriousness in any way. The entire climactic sequence, which includes the CGI tentacle creature I just mentioned, is somehow less thrilling than the climactic sequence of the stoner fantasy comedy Your Highness from earlier this year. I guess I shouldn't have expected any better from the director of the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot.

And again, like Green Lantern, it's a shame, because the thought of Conan the Barbarian being awesome, making bank, and leading to a resurgence in violent R-rated 80s-style barbarian fantasy pleased me just as much as hearing the lamentation of his enemies' women pleases Conan. But it sucked, and Conan himself could learn something from the manner in which his film was spectacularly slaughtered at the box office. Nope, consider the barbarian genre dead and buried.

Verdict: Stick with the 1982 version.



Category winner: X-Men: First Class with little contest. It's not only the best superhero flick of 2011 but one of the best movies, period. There's modest pulp adventure fun to be found in Captain America, but First Class sweeps it aside with pure cool.

The Return

Hey, remember that time I went like four months without updating? That was weird, right? But have no fears, dab your tears, the Timster is back with a vengeance. I'd love to make some (read: any) excuse for my sudden absence, preferably one brimming with mystery, tragedy and intrigue, but truth be told it was just a bout of prolonged ennui. I'm feeling that itch again, though, and I'd really like to get back to writing about some pop culture, both for myself and because the fall 2011 TV premiere season officially begins tomorrow with the debut of Ringer on the CW, and I wanna get in on reviewing all the new scripted shows that be poppin' up. And movie reviews and summer recaps and trailers and general opinions and posting too much about James Bond and NBC comedies and all that other business you may or may not love me for. Rock!

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 5/12/11

The Office, Season 7 Episode 24 — "Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager"

Now that the great Will Ferrell experiment is behind us, we can start getting a more clear picture of what the post-Michael days of Dunder Mifflin are going to look like. And based off this episode, they may actually hold some promise! No one's going to pretend that the Carell-sized hole is a small one, but it shouldn't obscure over a dozen talented and funny stars left behind, several of whom have led big screen movies of their own (even if a few of said movies were spectacular bombs). This won't go down as one of the series' classic episodes by any stretch, but it was funny and completely worth its weight in network time, which, Michael or no, still places The Office well within the 95th percentile of television.

Except for a couple of Erin / Andy / Gabe scenes (which we'll come back to in a minute), this episode was sharply focused on Dwight's stewardship of the office — understandably, since it seems that they've crammed the entirety of that subplot into these 22 minutes. And, despite Dwight's dictatorial and weaponry-heavy managerial style being pretty predictable, it was fun to watch. It gave Jim a good chance to screw with Dwight without seeming like a bully, and everyone holding Dwight's gun mishap over his head with Jo at the end added some very funny tension.

As for Andy and Erin, I stand by what I've been saying for over a year now: love both actors. Ed Helms, great. Ellie Kemper, amazing. But I have zero emotional investment in their romance. If they never get together my heart shan't ache, and the show just isn't going to change that. However, I still laughed at how grossed out and anxious to leave Andy was when Gabe cornered him in the conference room, and Gabe trying to swallow his tears as he left.

Funniest Moment: I'm torn too close to call between Kevin's reaction to the piranha in the toilet and the scene where he forces Dwight to give him a disquietingly intimate deep tissue massage in the middle of the office. "Knead it like a pizza! But don't eat it!"

Parks and Recreation, Season 3 Episode 13 — "The Fight"

Ann Perkins is this season's Mark Brendanawicz. I hate to say it, since I think Rashida Jones is as cool and likable as just about any actress out there right now, but it's clearer by the episode how little of a place Ann has in this ensemble outside of being a straight woman for Leslie to bounce dialogue off of. So this episode suffered a bit on account of its Ann A-plot, even if there were good jokes spread throughout it. I mean, we got the return of The Douche, so that's something. We'll see if Ann's hiring at the city government can allow them to integrate her less awkwardly moving forward.

Everything going on under the main plot, however, was unambiguously great: Andy and April again assuming their alter egos of FBI agent Burt Macklin and wealthy widow Janet Snakehole (I'm reminded of Phoebe's alter ego Regina Phalange on Friends); Jean Ralphio's various botched attempts at rapping; Tom's new booze at the Snakehole; and of course anything and everything with Adam Scott, because Adam Scott is the greatest. One of the things that makes Parks so damn good is that anyone in the ensemble except Ann can hold down the fort comedy-wise all on their own if need be. 30 Rock would do well to take some inspiration from it in that regard.

Funniest Moment: If I'm being 100% honest, my biggest laugh was Andy puking on Kyle. That may sound pretty lowest common denominator, but sometimes a perfectly timed physical grossout gag just hits the spot.

Parks and Recreation, Season 3 Episode 14 — "Road Trip"

And so we tackle the "will they or won't they?" story head-on, and if I do say so myself, really well. I'm still not feeling the erotic charge between Leslie and Ben that the show wants me to be feeling, but Amy Poehler and Adam Scott are so funny and likable that, eh, what the hell, right? I also like that they didn't save Leslie and Ben finally kissing for the season finale. Seems fair — the third-to-last episodes of TV seasons need love too. I'm more curious about the fallout than the kiss itself anyway.

There was a bit of a schism in the secondary subplots, however. Andy and April getting into a fight during Tom's fake game show and then making up was a perfect combination of funny and sweet that really showed Parks at its bright, optimistic best and actually overshadowed the main Leslie / Ben story for me. Gotta love those two crazy kids.

Ron Swanson becoming political mentor to a wayward grade school girl didn't work, though. There just wasn't any punchline to it except, "Hey, remember how Ron is a libertarian?", which I don't think anyone who watches this show forgot. Unless he's on a quest for all the bacon and eggs a diner has, Ron needs someone else in the main cast to bounce his crazy off of.

Funniest Moment: Andy holding up his sign for Tom's "favorite place to smush" question and reading "at the Neutral Milk Hotel" was fucking hysterical, largely due to Chris Pratt's brilliantly low-key delivery. I'm already preemptively angry at Pratt not being nominated for an Emmy.

Community, Season 2 Finale — "For a Few Paintballs More"

Across the internet, it seems people are eager to compare the collective whole of "A Fistful of Paintballs" and "For a Few Paintballs More" to last season's magnum opus "Modern Warfare." But I say, what's the point? Far more fun to compare Community to every other sitcom on television and see how incredibly short they all fall in comparison. Community is one of the greatest television shows of all time — sitcom or drama, broadcast or cable — and episodes this alive, ambitious, and creative show exactly why.

When I said last week that I found 30 Rock's season finale to be disappointingly sedate and anticlimactic, I didn't really offer a comparison point for what a sitcom season finale should be. Well, here it is. This is a season finale. I'd effortlessly call it one of the top five sitcom season finales ever made, and even that may be selling it short.

How did I love "For a Few Paintballs More"? Let me count the ways: I loved the villainous Dean of City College making his return. I loved how tons of Greendale supporting characters spanning two seasons got moments to shine (Star-burns, Leonard, Vicki, Garrett, Magnitude, even Quendra with a Q-U!). I loved the return of Troy's plumbing skills. I loved the scene of the Greendale survivors planning their battle strategy over a diorama of the school (no doubt applying the skills they picked up over the year in Anthro 101). I loved Annie and Han Solo's miniature romance. I loved how cinematic and beautifully-shot the whole episode was. And I loved what they did with Pierce at the end.

Who knows what the show's plans for Pierce are next year — he could become a teacher, start a rival study group, or simply rejoin Jeff and the gang a few episodes in — but I admire the show so much for not ignoring how villainous they were making Pierce for the sake of comedy and truly confronting the issue as the culmination of a season-spanning character arc. Longform character arcs not centered around romances aren't something sitcoms outside of Arrested Development do often, but I think Community may now be the gold standard for such a thing. Chevy Chase has never been asked to do emotion on the show, not even when Pierce's mother died, but he gave genuine weight to that final scene.

But let's not dwell too much on the heaviness of human emotion — just like "Modern Warfare," this two-part finale was notable for making its action movie parody more exciting and energetic than a pretty good fraction of actual theatrically-released action movies. Troy's team setting up and executing the library trap was great, but Britta and Shirley's final drive-by paintballing was spectacular. I also like that Jeff wasn't the last man standing this year.

I don't know whether or not Community will have the balls to try to pull off yet another paintball extravaganza in season three, but they already have all the kudos I have to offer for making a sequel to the greatest episode of their first season and actually having it measure up. I'm going to have a lot more to say about the sheer ambition and unrivaled genius of Community in my full season wrap-up, so I'll stop here with the final comment that this season finale lived up to everything I wanted it to be and hoped it could be.

Funniest Moment: "Pop? Pop what? Pop what? What is he trying to say?! Pop what, Magnitude?!!"

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Community 2. Parks and Recreation "The Fight" 3. Parks and Recreation "Road Trip" 4. The Office

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 5/5/11

The Office, Season 7 Episode 23 — "The Inner Circle"

Okay, so I guess that's what an episode of The Office without Steve Carell looks like. It wasn't very good, was it? Not that I'm going into full panic mode just yet — if we're several episodes into season 8 and the show is still this shaky on its feet, then it's time to sound the alarm. But this episode was trying to work around the shit taco that is Deangelo Vickers and ultimately, even if season 8 blows, won't prove in any way representative of what is to come.

But Deangelo, man. I don't know what happened. I mean, I know that I feared Will Ferrell was going to be awkwardly shoehorned in, throw the energy of the show off, and be forced into doing Will Ferrell schtick, and he was. But he very specifically didn't do any of that in his first episode "Training Day," and somehow I feel doubly offended that the show tricked me into liking him before deciding that he'd be playing a completely new character in "Michael's Last Dundies" (shy stage fright man), and another in "Goodbye, Michael" (dumb screaming lunatic), and now another in "The Inner Circle" (juggling sexist, curiously completely over his stage fright). I've seen TV characters develop more consistent and coherent personalities within one scene.

And then getting rid of him by having a basketball hoop fall on him? There are no words, and not in a good way. That is some lazy fucking writing. I also don't have any words for new character Jordan Garfield, not as a criticism, but simply because she's 100% bland and vanilla right now. Let's hope they beef her up comedically over the next two episodes.

Funniest Moment: The laughs, big or small, were pretty thin on the ground. The only two moments that really connected were Kevin telling Deangelo "Oh, I think it's eighteen-hundo" and Jim's subsequent reaction, and Darryl letting out a shocked "DAMN!" when Jim brought up the allegations of sexism to Deangelo. Pam's young adult novel series was also funny, but more "cute" funny than "ha ha" funny.

Parks and Recreation, Season 3 Episode 12 — "Eagleton"

I'm neither the first nor the thousandth person to note that despite being born as a thematic and stylistic spin-off of The Office, Parks and Recreation has evolved into something much closer to a live action take on The Simpsons, with the mythology, rich cast of characters, and general joyous absurdity of Pawnee, Indiana being insanely reminiscent of Springfield. And with the introduction of hated neighboring city Eagleton mirroring The Simpsons' Shelbyville, the comparison deepens all the more.

The specifics of this episode were superb, as Parks and Rec tends to be. Leslie was great, Ben was great, Parker Posey fit right in as Lindsay Carlisle Shay, the revelation of Ron's birthday party at the end was both funny and really sweet, the sickeningly posh city hall and prison in Eagleton were hilarious, and Andy sent Tom flying with a bag of trash. But what I found most interesting was how the episode spoke to the other way that Parks has evolved from its pilot other than becoming much more Simpsons-y: the exponentially increasing competence of Leslie Knope.

At the start of the first season, Leslie was clearly being written as Michael Scott with a vagina. Her town hall meetings were horrifically mismanaged and she seemed dim and constantly in over her head and largely incompetent at her job. Then, throughout the second season, the writers gradually made the discovery that Leslie, while socially awkward, is actually a really great parks department deputy director. She knows Pawnee's history and government with textbook perfection, knows the right people in politics and how to grease the wheels and make shit happen, isn't afraid to take initiative and is perennially upbeat even in the face of disaster.

Now, in season three, we've seen her turn a crippling budget crisis into a robust surplus, singlehandedly put the city and parks department back on their feet, turn every adversity into a positive (such as the new softball field in this episode), had it dropped in "Soulmates" that she's a summa cum laude political science graduate, and now, in "Eagleton," we learn that she was actually offered plum spots in city governments throughout upper-class Indiana that she turned down out of loyalty to her hometown before the series began. Leslie Knope is not only good at her job, she's damn near the best, now less like Michael Scott and more like what a character from The West Wing would be if they were funny and employed in local city government rather than the White House.

There's no grand, unifying point to this train of thought except that Parks and Recreation is an exhilarating watch from the pilot through season 3 because it's an example of a show with an absolute willingness to evolve, think on its feet, and change course in really fundamental ways. It just feels so alive and so vibrant. I love it.

Funniest Moment: I'm dangerously close to going with Ben's reaction shots of disgust at the Eagleton town hall, aka my quickly-becoming-standard "I'm gay for Adam Scott" funniest moment pick, but it's hard to beat April holding up the scissors with murderous intent as Lindsay Carlisle Shay exits the Pawnee parks department. The garbage fight was also hilarious. Pure, broad slapstick, but hilarious nonetheless.

30 Rock, Season 5 Finale — "Respawn"

Was it just me or did this not feel like a season finale even a little bit? It was light on laughs, had little narrative ambition, and didn't really resolve or put a satisfying bow on anything. Talk about going out with a whimper rather than a bang, especially at the end of what's otherwise arguably the best 30 Rock season since the first two. It almost feels (though I know this isn't actually the case) like "100" was produced as the season finale and Tina Fey and co were then suddenly told they'd have to throw together two more on short notice.

Jack using Kenneth as a surrogate Avery was pretty clever and clearly the episode's highlight. Liz and Tracy on the other hand did nothing for me outside of a few moment-to-moment punchlines, and Jenna and Paul kill the funny and momentum same as they always have (and of course they made Jane Krakowski randomly burst into song for the billionth time, and as always, it was about as funny as 9/11. Just keep beating that horse, 30 Rock). Lastly, they had to go and cap off the season with an incredibly awkward and unfunny Lost gag with Kenneth that was both about a year late and made me appreciate just how skilled Community actually is when it comes to pop culture meta references.

I'm going to do more elaborate full season retrospectives for all of these shows in the week or two after their finales, so I'll wrap up "Respawn" here. But I leave you with one final nugget for thought: What the hell happened to Chloë Moretz's character Kaylie Hooper, who vowed to destroy Jack and take over Kabletown? That was clearly intended to be a recurring character (her one episode was all setup and no payoff), and now the season's gone, and nothing. What gives!

Funniest Moment: Lutz begging Liz not to look at him as he uses his adult diaper made me laugh. So did the judge going, "Gavel gavel gavel! I lost my gavel over the weekend." But I'm disappointed that's all I got for a season finale.

Community, Season 2 Episode 23 — "A Fistful of Paintballs"

I'm going to keep this brief, because this is only the first half of a two-part finale that was initially intended to air as an hourlong episode, so it seems odd to review it by itself. After "For a Few Paintballs More" I'll have much, much more to say. But what we got here was masterful and the millionth testament to how Community is playing on a field of ambition and creativity that no other sitcom on television dares tread. It's one of the greatest TV series of all time and I love it beyond words. I love how they used the Black Rider as a red herring antagonist, how they're bringing the Pierce situation to a head and especially how they made Annie the protagonist (at least of this half) rather than focusing on Jeff à la "Modern Warfare." Masterstroke. Brilliant. Loved it.

Funniest Moment: Like "Modern Warfare," this episode succeeded more on the basis of me having an enormous, shit-eating grin on my face the entire time than on punchlines. There were dozens of hilarious bits, but I was having such a good time already that they stood out less than usual. It's a tough call. Jeff's obsession with being better-looking than the Black Rider was pretty great, as was Troy's input on the size of Jeff's forehead.

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Community 2. Parks and Recreation 3. 30 Rock 4. The Office

2010 Kraemer Movie Awards Part VI — The Best #5-1

#5 - BLACK SWAN


Intoxicating, horrific, and beautiful, Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan serves as the perfect thematic sequel to his 1998 microbudget debut, Pi. Ballet has replaced math as the protagonist's unhealthy fixation, but as a disturbing journey into obsession and delusion, the narrative beats are similar, often identical. I'd lambast Aronofsky for plumbing his own leftovers if Black Swan weren't every bit as great as its spiritual predecessor. Aronofsky knows how to draw bizarre, disquieting energy from even the most seemingly mundane scenes, and this film also cements The Wrestler's suggestion that he may be the best working actor's director in the world. Whatever retarded, manufactured "controversy" sprung up around how much of the dancing she did, Natalie Portman's performance is brilliant, among the greatest of the last ten years. Shocking news for anyone who feels that Portman using a dance double for a few long shots negates her performance: Heath Ledger did not actually get into a truck and get flipped over in it during production of The Dark Knight. Oscar revoked, right?

#4 - THE SOCIAL NETWORK


Like Quentin Tarantino, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is a man whose smugness and unflinching belief in his own greatness begs you to hate him even as the irritatingly consistent quality of his work speaks for itself. Sports Night and The West Wing? Two of the best TV series ever. I may have smirked to see him taken down a peg with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but just as Tarantino followed up Death Proof with Inglourious Basterds, the wit and the power and the dazzling energy of Sorkin's screenwriting rose forth from the ashes as strong as ever in The Social Network, instantly shutting up thousands of internet whiners who spent two years bitching about how they thought a Facebook movie was stupid. More breathless and propulsively-paced than the vast majority of action thrillers (thanks to Trent Reznor's brilliant score as well as Sorkin's script), here is a film about corporate greed and torn loyalties that humiliates nearly all that came before it. Why anyone would stoop to going back to Wall Street with this film available is beyond me.

#3 - A PROPHET


A truly awesome mix of the prison movie and the familiar "rise of a crime boss" narrative, A Prophet tells the story of Malik, an illiterate nineteen-year-old Muslim who gets thrown into a rough, violent prison for a six-year sentence after hitting a cop. He's forced to align himself with a gang and do their dirty work (up to and including murder) to survive, but gradually and eventually, without giving away specifics, starts taking things into his own hands. Tahar Rahim is absolutely incredible in how much he evolves his lead performance through the film's two and a half hours with little obvious makeup or other crutches. The change is in his eyes, his face, his voice, his body language. He's a completely different character going in and coming out, but without the evolution ever feeling jarring or unconvincing. It's like you've just watched an entire TV series about Malik, not one little movie. A Prophet had its Best Foreign Language Film Oscar stolen by the great-but-clearly-inferior The Secret in Their Eyes, but thankfully it now sits on Netflix Watch Instantly for all to see. It's a bit of a time commitment, but there are few 2010 films more worthy of that commitment. Just two, in fact!

#2 - INCEPTION


Like many, I went and saw Christopher Nolan's Inception opening weekend (and again the next weekend). Unlike many others, I then opted out of the conversation entirely. I didn't read any reviews, didn't click on a single message board thread about it, didn't read a word of the thousands of pages of vitriolic arguments about the ending. Outside of watching and enjoying the movie several times, I have spent approximately five total minutes of my life on Inception fandom since the film's release — I didn't even review it on this blog, despite it being my most anticipated movie of the year. I guess this might be why, despite some apparently being exhausted by the mere mention of it, I continue to absolutely love the film, as I absolutely love damn near everything Christopher Nolan touches. I had no hesitation describing him as one of the greatest blockbuster filmmakers of all time before Inception; now I have even less.

You've seen the movie. You don't need me to tell you about how dazzlingly ambitious and creative it is, how cool the action scenes are, how gorgeous it looks, how it swings from thrilling to haunting to deviously clever from scene to scene. The film caters equally to The Dark Knight fans looking for crackerjack summer entertainment and Memento fans looking for an elaborate cinematic puzzle, and, going by box office results, just about everyone in between. Nolan is one of the few working filmmakers who deserves final script authority, final casting say, final cut, and whatever budget he wants for whatever he wants to make. Studios should just throw him bags of cash, get out of his way, and let him do his thing.

#1 - SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD


Inception, A Prophet, The Social Network, and Black Swan are all great, of course. If Scott Pilgrim vs. The World didn't exist, I'd be happy and satisfied to call them my favorite films of 2010. But Scott Pilgrim vs. The World does exist and it's a warm, gooey mix of classic video game nostalgia, comic book action, and Arrested Development that if I didn't know better I would think Edgar Wright made just for me. True, I'm not Canadian, but everything else about it is a cinematic Cupid's arrow straight through my heart. A few times a decade am I lucky enough to sit in a movie theater and fall so madly in love with the film unspooling before me. On a more objective level I could go into how vibrant and creative the action scenes are, how propulsive and unique the editing is, the great music, and how simultaneously sweet and hysterically funny the film is from beginning to end, but at a certain point I don't know if being objective about film is that useful, especially on a blog. I love Scott Pilgrim vs. The World because it's about and is filled with stuff I love, simple as that. I'll cherish and continue to watch it forever.

I think I'm actually going to re-review the film around its upcoming one-year anniversary — despite how much I enjoy it, I do have some issues, particularly with the ending — so I won't bother going too much more in depth right now. But just know that I have pure love for it, and it's unquestionably my favorite movie of 2010.

That wraps up the top 25, but stay tuned: best performances, directors, screenplays, and movie moments of 2010 are still ahead.

NBC Sitcom Roundup for 4/28/11

For fairly obvious reasons, I have more to say about The Office this week than anything else, so I'll keep my thoughts on 30 Rock, Parks, and Community on the brief side. Which isn't intended as disparagement of any of their episodes, all three of which I thought were pretty good.

The Office, Season 7 Episode 22 — "Goodbye, Michael"

This really is a series finale in a sense. I mean, The Office will go on for probably two or three more years and I'll keep watching until the end, but this iteration of the show is done. Steve Carell was one cast member in a huge ensemble, but he was unmistakably the core, the linchpin. Quite a few characters were primarily defined by their relationships with him and will have to carve out new roles on the show. The energy and the vibe of Dunder Mifflin is irreparably altered and will never be the same again. We're now in (remembering to count the British original) The Office 3.

But that's something to discuss over the next month and in the fall — for now, let's just focus on Steve Carell / Michael Scott's pretty great farewell episode. Absolutely no one can say that Carell phoned it in on account of being out the door. He nailed it, beautifully capturing the emotion of his long goodbye, sharing a nice scene with almost every character, and depicting every facet of Michael from his childlike vulnerability to his obliviousness to a surprising self-awareness, particularly in the talking head where he finally acknowledged, sputtering with laughter, how little respect Oscar has for him. Not that the Emmys are relevant, but maybe this episode can finally give Carell a shot at winning one, rescuing the Emmys from the embarrassment of letting one of the most iconic sitcom protagonists of all time go unrecognized.

I also loved how, in contrast to the overly schmaltzy "Seasons of Love" riff in the last episode, the bulk of this episode was quite subtle and understated. Michael not telling anyone it was his last day both made sense for the character (I think back to how hard he tried to avoid confrontation with Stanley in "Did I Stutter?" a few years back) and was a brilliant way to avoid the clichés of a farewell episode in favor of something that actually wound up being more emotional. Rather than oozing with forced TV tears, the vibe was a slightly disquieting mix of hope, warmth and inevitable sadness that will stick with me for much longer than any Rent parody ever could.

This was best encapsulated in Michael's final scene with Pam. In a way it seemed odd that the show treated Michael's relationship with Pam as his most important (I mean, he did fuck her mom), but when actually watching it I was surprised by how correct it felt. There's always been a level of sarcastic disconnect between Jim and Michael, Dwight is too goofy to have the final emotional farewell, Erin too new. Michael and Pam's relationship has, at its best, been rather sweet, such as when she quit to help him found the Michael Scott Paper Company and when he negotiated her her job at Dunder Mifflin back several episodes later. The final airport scene was near perfect, and having Michael Scott's final lines inaudible and related to us by Pam later a masterstroke.

I do have to say that I didn't buy how emotional Jim was getting in his final scene with Michael, which put a crack in the wonderfully understated vibe. Telling Michael he was a great boss and wishing him well with un-Jimlike sincerity, sure. Awesome. Tearing up? No. That just wouldn't happen. Jim has spent the entire series exasperated by and struggling to tolerate Michael, including in this very same episode when Michael gave Andy all of his top clients. But viewed in the light of doubling as John Krasinski's farewell to Steve Carell, I suppose it's excusable.

On the more indefensible downside (and I toyed with not even mentioning this subplot, but I guess I have to), Will Ferrell's character has in two episodes devolved from surprisingly likable to being every single thing I feared he would be and more. Acting wacky, going crazy, being stupid, shouting, the whole Will Ferrell nine. After "Training Day" I was hoping that Ferrell could actually stick around longer than was initially planned; now he can't be gone fast enough. Let's hope the barrage of guest stars in the season finale is less obtrusive, although I can't say I'm holding my breath.

Funniest Moment: "Goodbye, Michael" mostly went for poignancy as opposed to laughs when it came to Michael himself, but there were a lot of great moments surrounding him. Take your pick from Jim noting with a degree of real irritation that they've started filming people going to the bathroom now, Phyllis' relief that Michael didn't reveal her abandoned baby, and the introduction of the terrifying Rory Flenderson, implying that the specter of Toby will haunt Michael across time and space.

Parks and Recreation, Season 3 Episode 11 — "Jerry's Painting"

This was a pretty solid little episode. I mean, pointing out that Parks and Recreation is good is kind of like pointing out that water is wet at this point, but still. I will say that I actually preferred the B-plot to the main, titular story. I liked Leslie's protectiveness of the painting and especially Chris's feeble attempts at resolving things ("But I am not in the nude now, am I? Because we're in a government building, and that would be inappropriate."). The returns of Perd Hapley and the repellant Marcia Langman were welcome. But even if a somewhat high-ranking (by Pawnee standards) government employee not being able to find his own apartment makes no sense, I still preferred the story about Ben moving in with April and Andy. That's a three-way collision of awesome characters, and Adam Scott could make me laugh by reading the ingredients off a cereal box.

Funniest Moment: Leslie Knope and Brandi Maxxxx on Ya' Heard? with Perd was classic, but I still laughed harder at Ben's exasperation with Andy and April. Adam Scott deserves all the comedy Emmys for his delivery of the line, "No. Do you know what cute means?"

30 Rock, Season 5 Episode 22 — "Everything Sunny All the Time Always"

While inevitably not as strong as the previous week's fantastic series-spanning 30 Rock tribute "100" (probably my favorite episode of the season), this was a brisk, amusing 22 minutes solidly focused on the big three of Liz, Jack, and Tracy. Liz's subplot didn't amount to much (although I did love the "sometimes, we use a song to move a story along" montage), but Jack's and Tracy's were a bit more clever and out there. Anyone who's ever been stuck on the outside of an inside joke should admire Tracy's heroism. I also appreciate them introducing a seemingly ongoing storyline with Avery and Kim Jong-un, because that's something 30 Rock normally avoids, barring Tracy's disappearance. However, even for a politician, Condi Rice is a startlingly horrible actor.

Funniest Moment: Grizz's "You wouldn't expect a movie called Somewhere... to go absolutely nowhere," on account of it probably making no sense to the vast majority of the show's audience yet also being hilariously accurate. I mean, if your giant blockbuster movie gets burned on a sitcom, that's par for the course, but if your tiny indie movie gets burned, some writer must have really hated it.

Community, Season 2 Episode 22 — "Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts"

The birth episode is among the most ancient and cliché of all TV traditions, but I still loved what Community did with it. For one, no hospital. In fact, it turned out to be a full-blown bottle episode (although without calling attention to it the way the classic "Cooperative Calligraphy" did), set entirely in the anthropology classroom. They didn't feel the need to make it double-length either, and still found plenty of room for non-Shirley subplots, such as Britta's angst over her hypocrisy, the Dean struggling to make a good impression, Pierce buying the rights to Troy and Abed's coolness move, and even a hint of romance between Vicki and Neil. It was consistently funny and incredibly fast-paced. No gimmicks, no movie spoofs, just traditional sitcom greatness. Yep, Community rules. (I should note that Shirley's baby being born healthy and not having to spend months in an NICU at this point makes absolutely no sense, but whatever. I mean, it's a wacky comedy. Just gotta accept it and move on.)

Funniest Moment: Obviously Pierce forcing Abed and Troy to mark his announcement of "Betty Grable" with their patented coolness-signifying chest slap / high five, because no actor on earth cries funnier than Donald Glover. But the close-up of Britta under Shirley's skirt was also rather grand.

Weekly Power Rankings: 1. Community 2. The Office 3. Parks and Recreation 4. 30 Rock