Loaded Couch Potatoes

Ah, yes … the fall television season has begun again, meaning that Thursday nights are sure to find me glued to the television for something like three to four hours each week.  On the other nights of the week I’m, like, you know, gettin’ in fights and, like, gettin’ drunk and doin’ it and stuff, but on Thursdays …?  Stayin’ in.

SNL Weekend Update Thursdays 2×1 (?)

I’m not entirely clear whether or not this technically counts as a separate series from Saturday Night Live, so that “2×1″ designation might not actually be accurate.  However, I am entirely clear on the fact that only nerds give a shit on that subject, so, moving on…

Those election-year Thursday-night SNL specials were apparently such a big hit for NBC last season that they decided to have another go at it and see if they could make it work on a semi-regular basis.

Judging from the first episode this season, the answer is about 50% “yes” and 50% “no,” which qualifies as a win in SNL terms.  Almost always uneven even during great stretches in its history, the long-running series has been such a mixed bag in recent years that almost nobody knows whether they should actually be watching anymore.  But there were some decent laughs tonight, including a hilarious bit in which Bill Hader — almost always worth admiring — played James Carville.  Less funny…?  Kristen Wiig’s Madonna.  Blame the writers for that, though, mainly because if I catch you saying anything bad about Wiig, I will come stomp a new gap in your teeth, American History X-style.

The bit in which “Jimmy Carter” debated “Michael Steele” also fell mostly flat, but that’s counterbalanced by the fact that it’s always awesome to see Amy Poehler on Weekend Update, and there were enough good moments that I certainly feel like my time wasn’t wasted.  It’s an odd concept for a show, and the series has as awkward a title as I’ve ever seen, but still, it’s better than acid in your eye.

Parks and Recreation 2×1, “Pawnee Zoo”:

I’ve been a fan of this show since the first episode, and have occasionally found myself having to defend it to people.  Hopefully, this episode — which is pretty darn chuckleicious — will win a few more converts over to my side.

Here’s the thing: any episode that has a cold-open in which Amy Pohler does an a capella rendition of “Parents Just Don’t Understand” is an episode that I am 100% in favor of.  This is that episode.  From there, it contains other such hilarity as gay penguin marriage, a girl whose boyfriend has a boyfriend who she hates, and Aziz Ansari.  And no, I still haven’t seen his stuff on LaughYourDickOff.com; need to, haven’t, will.  Soon.  Not tonight, though, as I’ve still got an episode of Fringe to watch and review.

Poehler’s Leslie Knope finds herself in a two-pronged sticky situation, in which she is unwittingly thrust into the limelight as a gay icon when she accidentally marries two male penguins, and then takes some heat from a Family Rights protester who thinks she should resign from her job as punishment for pushing a gay agenda.  All of this leads to Leslie debating the protester on a local tv talk show, “Pawnee Today”; turns out that Tom (Ansari) is a regular guest, and the montage of him chatting up host Joan Calamezzo is by itself better than most series’ entire episodes.

But wait, that’s not all!  There’s also a gay bar named The Bulge.

And really, if that’s not enough to get you to watch this series, well, I don’t know that I can be of further use to you.

The Office 6×1, “Gossip”:

I’m gonna rip off the Band-Aid and just come right out and say it: this series has probably seen its best days come and go.  This is probably the weakest season premiere the series has had since the pilot episode, but hey, let’s all look on the bright side: that don’t make it bad.  Not by a long shot.

Truth is, this show could be about half as good as it currently seems to be and still be well worth my time, so the mere (unsubstantiated) fact that the show might have seen its glory days pass it by is not necessarily a cause for concern on my part.

The setup for the season premiere is that Michael hears a rumor about Stanley, tells it to the entire office, finds out that the rumor is true, and then proceeds to make up false rumors about everyone else in the office so that nobody will actually believe the rumor about Stanley.  It’s an idea that is a bit better on paper than it proves to be in the execution, but at least one series of great moments comes out of it: when Andy hears the rumor that he himself is gay, he immediately starts to more or less believe it, and seeks advice from Oscar and Jim; later, he pleads with Michael to tell him whether or not he is gay.  Will this plotline continue?  One can only hope; there’s probably more gold nuggets to be mined from that particular vein.

The episode is sort of framed by Jim and Pam having not yet announced to their co-workers that she is pregnant; that plotline comes to a conclusion that is typically sweet, and continues to prove that the Jim/Pam dynamic is one of the show’s best accomplishments.

Not a great beginning to the season overall, but these actors are all so good in their roles that at this point, even an uninspired episode is kinda wonderful.

Can I also mention that I’m happy to see Ellie Kemper still hanging around as Pam’s replacement?  She purty.

Community 1×1, “Pilot”:

“Not impressed” is my initial reaction to this series.

The writing — it’s from Dan Harmon, who also wrote the not-liked-by-Honk Monster House as well as numerous episodes of the not-as-funny-as-it-thinks-it-is The Sarah Silverman Program – is the problem: it’s mostly weak, forced, not-as-funny-as-it-thinks-it-is, and trite.  Breakfast Club jokes?  Really?

However, the cast is pretty good, and while I won’t keep watching if the scripts don’t improve, the players are strong enough that this show earns a provisional four-week commitment from me.  Joel McHale plays the lead, and he’s smarmily convincing as a lawyer whose degree doesn’t actually count for anything.  Hence, he’s in community college.  (It’s as flimsy as concepts get, but that’s okay by me as long as they bring the funny; here, they really don’t.) 

Chevy Chase — who you’d expect to have some funnier lines — is also on hand, obviously hoping like hell for the show to be a hit, and while you might not know some of the other folks by name, you might have seen some of them before.  Yvette Nicole Brown, for instance, has been in everything from House to The Office to Tropic Thunder. 

And when I saw Alison Brie — she plays Trudy Campbell on Mad Men – I actually caught myself shouting out loud something along the lines of “Hey, who’s that?  I know her!  OOOH!  Is that Trudy from Mad Men?”  It was.  She’s awesome on that show, and might have some potential on this one, too.

But the truth is, I chuckled only a couple of times, and those were just chuckles; I expect at least one guffaw.  IMDB tells me that future episodes will feature Ken Jeong playing a character named “Senor Chang,” and if that’s the limit of this show’s wit — see, it’s funny ’cause he’s Asian but people call him “Senor” — then odds are good that my Alison Brie fix will be restricted to AMC before much longer.