Oh, my goodness, all the shows are on this week, save 30
Rock, so I’m just going to get right to it.
Big Bang Theory
I haven’t really watched this show regularly, but I am not
too concerned, you can usually jump right back into sitcoms even if seasons,
plural, were missed, and BBT is no exception.
So, Howard and Bernadette got married, and then Howard went
to the International Space Station. It
looks like they used the gravity planes, because he was really floating, and it
looked pretty cool. Anyway, Howard didn’t
mention to his mother that he and Bernie would be moving out. Mom is mad, followed by Bernie being mad,
followed by Howard growing some balls with his mom, and that story line is
over.
Sheldon and Amy are having the first anniversary of their first
date, and Penny is helping Amy get ready.
I had my first laugh of the episode when they were discussing Leonard’s spontaneous
wedding proposal in bed, and Amy responded with this: “If Sheldon proposed to me in bed, my ovaries
would grab hold and never let go.”
Unfortunately, it kind of went downhill from there. Sheldon invited a lonely Raj on their date,
and Amy was not impressed. Even
worse? Sheldon did it to ‘outsource’ his
relationship agreement obligation to an Indian.
You can’t see it, but I made this face: >.< . Amy rightfully got pissed, and nearly left,
except Sheldon told her something from the heart, which he 100% cribbed from
Spiderman. Oh, Sheldon, you so
oblivious.
Lastly, Penny and Leonard are all sorts of awkward, and go
exactly nowhere. I’m not even going to
mention Raj’s last night visit with Stuart.
I feel like this show has gone downhill a bit. For a season opener, it was pretty low on the
laughs. Gay subtext does not
automatically equal funny. I still enjoy
the characters, so it isn’t off my watch list yet, but I really hope BBT moves
forward from lowest common denominator humor.
Up All Night
This was not a complicated episode, but I was laughing
through a lot of it.
Ava had a run-in with a former coworker, one that she
screwed over. He didn’t seem to mind,
and invited her to coffee, where we had this bit of glorious roommate living:
Walter: “I am 41 with a roommate…”*strums guitar*
Roommate: “SHUT THE HELL UP!”
Walter: “I’m allowed to make noise until 9PM!”
I was rolling, for real.
Anyway, he invites her to make a jingle with him, and then, while they
are making it, is totally passive-aggressive with her. In the end, he was screwing with her the same
way she did with him, and it was glorious.
I’m really hoping this Ava peg-knocking continues, and sticks. It’s pretty fun.
Reagan, on the other hand, was getting used to being a stay
at home mom, and pretty much failing miserably.
Chris was attempting to backseat parent, and Reagan was having none of
it. That is, until she locked herself
out of the house with Amy locked inside.
Amy ran amok…
…painting the house purple.
It was super adorable. Reagan
nearly has a major meltdown, “what if one night I leave the back door open, and
we have a house full of hobos?” but
Chris brings her back from the brink, and we end in the same place the entire
series started: in the bedroom,
incredibly exhausted, but feeling accomplished.
This was a great episode, with a nice subversion of the dumb
dad trope, and a bit of Ava ego deflation.
I’m looking forward to the arcs all the different characters are going
to go through in this season, I just hope NBC lets it go all the way.
The Office
There were a lot of misses this week in the office. They really are trying to go off into the
sunset gracefully, but I don’t know that it’s working all too well.
We start off with the cold open, where Pam tells us that the
janitor is on a month long(!) vacation.
She has come up with the chore wheel, but everyone wants it to spin, and
not have chores. After several
iterations, she comes up with a fun wheel, and everyone is happy! There is even a space for a tiny wheel spin,
and the tiny wheel does have chores, so Pam is all sneaky and whatnot,and no
one minds that there are chores, so win-win say the rat that is eating the
garbage on the floor.
Jim and Pam then talking head that they are going to Roy’s
wedding. Yes, that Roy. Pam brings a banana because she is certain
there is going to be no actual food.
They get there, and holy crap, Roy grew up. His house is amazing, and Jim is still going
on to the new business opportunity without Pam’s knowledge. When they see Roy, they find out he made a
gravel business, and is loaded. His now
wife owns a restaurant, and they are both terribly successful. They apparently still surprise each other
every day, so Jim and Pam wonder if all the surprise is out of their
relationship, and Jim does his patented head tilt to the camera. They spend the rest of the episode trying to
figure out if they have any secrets, and Jim procrastinates telling her.
In other office news, creepy Clark hits on Erin, and then
tries to get her to be in a porno, maybe?
He tells her that he has a hot shot news anchor friend, and she should
make an audition tape with him for the news anchor. Erin tells Andy and he storms into the
customer service annex…to give Clark his credit card, and tells him to,
essentially, sex Erin up.
Ok. I’m just gonna
stop there, because, while Erin may be dumb, Andy certainly isn’t, and there is
no reason for character assassinations, SHOW.
Anyway, the other Pete totally cockblocks the whole thing, and he and
Andy accompany Erin to a silk robe-clad Clark’s apartment. Creepy.
Lastly, with the rest of the bullpen, Nellie is trying to
commence her first special project, a charity…thing, where DM will give money
to charities of employee’s choice.
Dwight takes this to be a serious affront to his freedom or whatever,
and chooses an organization that is really a front for the Taliban.
Nellie has a plan, though.
She has Dwight sign a contract saying he will follow Taliban law, and
proceeds to steal his pen, necessitating Dwight to chop off her hand with a continently
around cleaver.
Dwight hems and haws for
a long, until Toby brings them a laptop with 127 hours, where they argue about that
for the rest of the episode.
Like I said, this episode tried to throw a bunch of ‘funny’
things at the wall, and only a couple stuck, but even then, they were mostly
middling.
I guess it’s a good thing I’m in this for the characters,
and not the laughs, cause I didn’t have very many tonight.
Parks and Rec
Parks and Rec, on the other hand, has me rolling throughout
the episode, as well as caring about the characters.
Lets start with Leslie, as hers was the main story. She has decided that her first act as a city
councilwoman is to impose a tax on sugary drinks, to help fight obesity in the
city. Leslie has a powwow with a service
industry rep about it, and they have child-size pops! It’s 512 ounces of amazing, and called that because
it’s about the same size as a liquefied two yearold. Also: “The zero on the label refers to the
amount of water in the bottle.” And the rep
drops a bombshell: if the tax act
passes, they will have to lay off about 100 workers, and a press release will
be sent out saying it’s Leslie’s fault.
Next, at a public forum, half the people are for it, and half are
against, so Leslie is completely torn.
Leslie gets ready for the council meeting by staying up all night and
drinking a full gallon of pop, which leads to the expected conclusion: she yaks
in the trashcan, and asks for a recess.
In that recess, she talks to her mentor, Ron, and he tells her that he
tried to have her fired four times, but her dogged determination and conviction
convinced him to withdraw the termination.
Leslie gains her confidence back and votes for the tax bill, and it
passes. Service industry rep is pissed.
Ben, on the other hand, is having issues in Washington DC:
font is not uniform, and ’12 point, 13 is just obnoxious.’ April ironically helps, but Ben doesn’t
really get it. Then, there is a funny caricature
of Ben, and he decides to fire the interns, except whoops! They are all seriously connected, so Ben’s
going to smooze like a mofo, and how. Ben is a complete dork and tries to get
them to like him, by buying pizza and giving them the day off to play Frisbee. “Someone please tell me we Kodak’d that
moment.” When they get back to the
office, he finds another picture, and finds out that the artist is April. He gets pissed, she stays apathetic, and fun
times are had by all. Oh, and Ben begs
for 15% effort out of her, and she gives it.
Ellis gets the result, and she basically tells him to work or she will
straight up murder him. It was funnier
when she said it.
Andy has to get in shape to get into the police academy, and
Chris and Tom are going to help him.
Andy is terribly out of shape, and it is amazeballs.
He and Chris work out a bout over what appears to be the
course of a couple of day, but what is more likely at least a couple of weeks, seeing
as Tom had time to completely pimp out his pace cart.
Chris helps Andy find his motivation, but
realizes that he(Chris) has only physical motivation, and thus, heads into a
downward spiral, culminated in a complete breakdown .
Tom finally tells him he should see a
therapist, and Chris takes it as a revelation.
So, therapy, yay!
So, not only does this show bring the funny every time, and
the characters are great to boot. Quipy
retorts but believability is a great combination, and makes me want to come
back for more every week.
