Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Funny Stuff:NBC Thursdays(1/10&1/17) part 2



So here goes The Office and Parks and Rec, for all you lovelies who actually read my blog.

The Office

So, in our first episode, Jim is in Philadelphia for several days, wooing a very special client, some sort of basketball guy.  The end.

Pam, while in Scranton being single mom to two kids, is completely and utterly frazzled.  Not only is she taking care of the kids by herself, CeCe got lice.  Of course, it got spread over the whole office, but luckily, Erin has extensive lice experience, and immediately goes to checking everyone out.  Four don’t have lice, but the rest have to partner up to administer treatment.  Pam decides to use the obvious scapegoat of Meredith, and no one doubts it for a second.

Meredith ends up shaving her head, while Erin partners with Pete, Pam and Creed, Angela with Oscar, and Meredith helps Stanley.  Erin and Pete are super cute, playing around, and things, Angela is terribly passive aggressive to Oscar, who is less than appreciative, and Creed thinks Pam is strange.  Things are going swimmingly until Pam’s mother calls, and spills the beans over speaker phone that Pam brought them in.  Everyone is super pissed, but Meredith gets over it pretty quickly, and she and Pam have a nice girls night out, with Meredith commiserating about single motherhood, and it’s really nice.

On the other side of the office, Daryl, Phylis, Kevin and Nelly are chilling in the warehouse with their non-infected heads, and Daryl reveals he broke up with Val since he didn’t see their relationship going anywhere, but lied about it to his coworkers, who immediately try to get them back together.  Successfully, to Daryl’s chagrin.

This was a decent episode, and I really enjoyed Pam and Meredith’s interactions at the bar, with their karaoke and mutual respect and whatnot.

I did get a funny line:

Erin, as Stanley tries to leave without the mayonnaise treatment, and she jumps on his back: “I’m trying to save you from yourself!”

The Office, part deux

Part of this episode had me rolling, and other parts, not so much.  Let’s jump right in.

So Clark is back from a vacation with Jan(!?!), and he brought an espresso maker for everyone, with a bunch of different flavors.  Dwight and Clark leave on a sales call, and Pam and Daryl head to Philadelphia for his interview, leaving the rest of the bullpen to try the new espresso.  No one is sure which flavor they like the most, so everyone makes shots of each kind for everyone.  The results are…as to be expected, but it was pretty freaking funny.  Oscar decided he needed to move the copier to the annex, and managed to rip up a big chunk of carpet, revealing hardwood, which Oscar immediately gets a gigantic boner for.  So what do they do, but decide to rip up all the carpet, of course!  It’s just too bad that they all crash when only about twenty percent of the floor is ripped up, and everyone gives up and goes home…at the same time…with massive swatches of floor partially torn up.

While this is going on, Dwight and Clark are on that sales call, at a family owned business.  They try to tailor the sales pitch to the owner, first showing a great relationship, then, when the owner reveals the relationship with his son is terrible, leads to Dwight bashing Clark in very odd, but very specific ways.  That is, until the son comes in, and it turns out he owns the business, and his dad can’t make any decisions regarding the business.  Things turn on a dime, and Clark takes the lead on the sales call, and the whole thing was so long and drawn out, I got really bored.

Oh, and Daryl and Pam, while in Philly, see Jim, and then Daryl had his interview.  He’s terribly nervous, since he sucks at interviews(see: Andy’s job, which he had in the bag until the interview).  Daryl is a screwball during the whole interview, awkwarding all over the whole thing, AND killing their fish with an ill-timed basketball shot.  Even with the terrible interview, though, he gets hired, and is super excited.  Less excited is Pam, who is coming to grips with the fact that Jim is eventually going to want to move to Philly. *Sad face*

So, the espresso thing was freaking hilarious, but the rest of the episode was rather meh.  It was like a freight train barreling toward it’s destination, and the destination here is the series finale.

No funny lines, mostly because the comedy was physical rather than one liners.

Parks and Rec

This was a great episode.  Two parallel plots, with two very different resolutions.

It’s bachelor(ette) party time!

Ben’s party was super lame awesome.  The writers tried to make it seem like it would be the worst, but seriously?  Board games and alcohol with good friends followed by some great shows, what could be better?  The guys are not incredibly impressed, and after a round of Settlers of Catan, Tom insists on going to a bar for some drinks, and it is the craziest bar in the history of bars.  They have whiskey-infused lotion posing as a drink, for God’s sake!  But while they are there, they realize that no one got a bachelor party, and so, Chris plans something for everyone.  Andy gets to play on the Colts field, Jerry gets ice cream at his favorite joint, and Ron gets a great steak dinner, and all are toasted perfectly by Chris.  The whole thing is extra adorable, and everything was lovely.  And there were shirts!

Leslie’s party completely fizzled practically before it started.  She’s been working on getting a Wamapoe section in her park model, only to find out that Councilman Jamm has started construction on a Paunch burger behind her back.  Leslie is fully distracted during her party, and decides it would be a good idea to bury Indian artifacts in the pit to cause construction to come to a halt.  She almost immediately has regrets, and co-opts everyone at her party(stripper included) to dig them back up again.  Everything would have been fine, but Leslie in her drunken tiredness texted a PR person, and the artifacts they didn’t find were found. 

Leslie has to apologize to her Native American friend, but he totally covers for her, and manages to get Jamm to go back to the original agreement , and Leslie has more time to devote to her park.  Yay?

So this episode was about 40/60 strong to weak.  Ben’s party stuff was really good, really sweet, and I enjoyed it immensely.  The Leslie stuff, thought?  It really dragged.  How many obstacles need to be thrown at the pit/park?  I wish we could have seen April’s dream bachelorette party, that would have been fantastic.

I did get lots of funny lines for you!

Ann, when planning Leslie’s party: “I am stress-eating gummy penises”
Ben, after describing his dream party plans: “They thought I was kidding…I was not kidding”
Ron, after Tom sort of explains the weird concept bar he wasn’t to go to: “There is no wrong way to consume alcohol…this is the wrong way to consume alcohol.”                                                                                                              

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