Last week, we did a preview of NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup. Well the shows are in the books and we would love nothing more to give you a recap and review. Warning…Spoilers Ahead.
Community
The students of Greendale are back after a too long summer break.
That musical number to kick it off was awesome. It was too short, and it is extremely rare that I would ever say that about a crappy musical number in a show.
The group is taking biology together this year, and it kicks off in the study room and Pierce asking to be back in the group, even though he is not in the class with them. Jeff does not want him to be in, but the girls feel like they should let them in. In class, Jeff almost immediately butts heads with the ex-con biology professor when his cell phone keeps interrupting the speech.
After watching the “new” dean approve monkey knockout gas, he meets the wonderful John Goodman, making his appearance. Goodman plays an assistant dean who is head of the very powerful Air Conditioning Repair Annex.
Because Jeff gets kicked out of the group, there is all of a sudden space for wait listed Pierce to make it in. All of a sudden, Jeff is out of the group and Pierce is in.
Jeff goes to apologize, and finds a picture he thinks is pierce and the teacher. He goes to show the group, thinking it is why he got kicked out, but Chang steals the picture thinking it will get him in the group. Jeff chases Chang into the vents and gets knocked out by the aforementioned monkey gas, brand named chimpan-zzzzzzz.
Britta, in attempt to replace Cougar Town for Abed, showed him the original British show it was based on, Cougarton Alley, which only lasted 6 episodes, and then she again tries to replace it with ‘Inspector Space Time’, an amazing take off of Dr. Who. Abed immediately says it is his favorite show ever.
Jeff bursts in with the picture and the group points out that he mistook the guy in the picture just because he was black. Jeff is kicked out of the group and is no longer anyone’s friend.
The group then makes up at the end of the episode, per usual, after Pierce lies and says he paid the professor to kick out Jeff. This makes Jeff let Pierce back in as well.
On the whole it was really standard for a Community episode, which is to say one of the best shows on television. The episode was at it’s best when mocking/loving pop-culture despite a rather ho-hum plot. I was also a bit startled by the lack of John Goodman, although he shined when he was on-screen.
I give it a 4 out of 5 (Most any other show that puts out an episode of this caliber would get a 5, but the bar is raised)
Parks and Recreation
As I said before, this is really the show I was most excited for to come back. It just got so good during season three that I have high hopes for it.
Leslie is struggling with whether or not to run for office because it will mean breaking off her fledgling relationship with Ben. The man Ron Swanson is reduced to a trembling, shaking man at the prospect of seeing his first wife Tammy and tells Leslie that he will be taking all the 200+ personal days that he has accrued so that he can hide from her. He even had a Jason Bourne like kit for escaping from her. The way he escaped and scrambled made me laugh.
A picture of a penis is then mailed out to all the women in the city. They eventually discover that it is the junk of the diseased sewer worker. The nominating team is excited by the way she handles it and forces her to hurry her decision about office/breaking up. She runs from a breakup attempt with Ben to seek Ron’s advice.
Ron has the most amazing beard, especially considering it is like one days growth. If I could grow that beard, I would never shave. Based on Ron’s advice she decides to run for office. Ron also returns to the office awaiting the return of Tammy 1, because you can’t run for your problems. Leslie bites the bullet and breaks up with Ben, who already knew that she was going to run.
The episode was made me laugh out loud. It was great, even the side plot with Andy getting recruited to work for Tom’s new company. This show really hit on it’s strong points and leaves me just as excited for the rest of the season. The part after the last commercial, with the first sighting of Tammy 1, Patricia Clarkson, was fantastic.
I give the episode a 3.5 out of 5.
The Office
This second hour of the Thursday night comedy lineup kicks off with the most senior of the shows. A lot of people still love it even…
Robert California, even though the search committee picked him to be the manager, is now the CEO of Saber because he convinced Kathy Bates to give him her job. The new manager is…drumroll please…ANDY BERNARD!!!
The staff find a list from the new CEO that has all of the employees divided in two columns. They all freak out over what it means. Robert eventually brings the left side of the list to lunch, saying they were winners and the left side of the list were losers.
Andy takes healing the growing rift between the left and right siders as his first managerial task. Correcting the misconceptions of the new CEO earns Andy a lot of points with his subordinates.
As Pam said, “I used to be young and cute and sort of funny” which pretty much sums up the show. I really don’t think that the already stumbling show can recover from the loss Michael Scott. There really wasn’t a point during the show where I laughed out loud or even had a chuckle. I was sort of optimistic for the new season but left with a bad taste in my mouth.
I give the episode 1.5 out of 5.
Whitney
The show was filmed in front of a live audience, which I like. Other than that I don’t want to waste your time on this show. I already wasted enough time in my life on this show. If it doesn’t pull up out of this nose dive, it will be canceled once the episodes already filmed are shown.
I give it 1 out of 5. It gets the 1 because of the live studio audience.
Images: NBC
Grizzly Bomb 