What I’ve Been Watching This Week

Note: This week is upfront week, where each of the networks will announce their new schedules for the fall.  Most of the bubble shows have been ruled on, with 90% of the renewals/cancellations having already been announced.  NBC and FOX have their upfronts on Monday, ABC on Tuesday, CBS on Wednesday, and the CW on Thursday (hint: I don’t care about this one).  So the plan is for me to post something on Friday with news, links, and thoughts on the final decisions from the networks.

Top Honors

Photo via NBC

Parks and Recreation – “The Fight/Road Trip”: NBC made a weird decision regarding one of its strongest comedy series, pushing it to midseason.  As a result, we got terrific back to back episodes this week, and we’ll get two more to conclude the season next week.  The show has seemed to deliver one home run after another, and this week was no exception.  They really have not had a mediocre episode all season, which is truly remarkable.

I have a soft part in my heart for when our favorite parks department employees get plastered, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that “The Fight” was right up my ally.  I remember an episode from last season where Leslie and Ann got plastered but this week’s had everyone (except Donna) getting involved.  Tom’s new alcohol, Snake Juice, seemed to really do its job of getting people drunk really fast.  It was great as always to see our favorite douche, Jean Ralphio, and see his constant failure at rhyming in his raps.  The episode also featured a drunk argument between Leslie and Ann that was funny because of the booze, but also seemed honest and one I could understand.

Needless to say, with everyone hammered, there were plenty of hilarious moments.  I particularly enjoyed a drunk Adam Scott saying “Bababooey” for no real reason.

“Road Trip” was also very good and did a nice job with all of the Leslie/Ben stuff in a very funny way.  The real laughs though in this one came from Tom and Ron.  First off, seeing Tom rip off the Newlywed Game and host a game show called Know Your Boo is just plain funny.  Then to see a nine year old girl come to Ron with the assignment of answering “Why does government matter?” was just fantastic.  Giving her a land mine might have been a bit extreme, but Ron’s teaching methods might just be a tad eccentric.

Honorable Mention

Treme – “Santa Claus, Do You Ever Get the Blues”: Thankfully this week’s Treme did not have the absolute dread of last week’s (that’s a compliment for that dread, which was handled expertly).  It’s the holidays and we get a very good snapshot of where all of our characters stand.  Needless to say, with all the rough things some of them have had to deal with, it doesn’t end up being the cheeriest of holidays.  Chief is angrier than ever (with good reason, since the time he can wait to build his house could be infinite), we know what LaDonna is trying to overcome, crime and death seem to loom around still, etc.  Things haven’t gotten any easier for most of these characters.

However, there was still plenty of great stuff here to put a smile on your face.  I love listening to Antoine’s band and would definitely sign up for an episode where it’s just them.  Those cats can really play and the bickering among them is always a joy to watch.  I also really dug seeing Jeanette lose it in the ultimate badass moment, tossing a drink in that mean food critic’s face.  Everyone has a breaking point, especially when you’re working in those kind of heated conditions.

Things can’t get much worse for this lot, I guess.  Right?  RIGHT?

Photo via

The Chicago Code – “Black Sox”: We could talk about all of the strong points of this week’s episode.  We could mention the intriguing power play going on between Alderman Gibbons and Superintendent Colvin, or the watch, or the strong work by Devin Kelley and Camille Guaty this week.  Yet somehow, this isn’t really what’s on mind about this show at the moment.

Yes, The Chicago Code has been cancelled.  Their ratings were pretty borderline, and their death might have come due to abundance of new programming that FOX has to squeeze in this coming fall.  The show’s final two episodes will air back to back next week.  Much like Terriers, another of Shawn Ryan’s failed shows this year, we only got one season.  This tweet by Shawn Ryan is pretty depressing if you’re a fan of these shows like I was.

It’s frustrating because cop shows rarely are capable of rising above the formula of that genre.  The Chicago Code did that.  It wasn’t as spectacular as the season of Terriers we got but it was very good.  I understand the “Getting a season each of these two shows is better than none at all” party line.  It’s just a little tough to agree with that when the wound is this fresh.

On the bright side, this might give me some time to finally dive into The Shield, Ryan’s cable hit that laid the groundwork for successful dramas on cable.  I know I’ll be first in line when that Terriers DVD hits shelves, if it ever does.

Photo via

Community – “For a Few Paintballs More”: Community wrapped up its sophomore season with the latter half of their two part paintball episode.  This week departed from the terrific spaghetti western vibe of last week’s, and was mostly Star Wars influenced as they went into the final battle.  The Star Wars parody is something that has been done so many times that it’s tough to do something original there, but this one was funny.  It just wasn’t as great as last week’s or the legendary “Modern Warfare” from last season.

The two comedy highlights for me had to be the above death of Magnitude and the great reaction by Donald Glover (POP WHAT?!) as well as Abed playing the role of Han Solo.  When Abed goes full out and inhabits a character, the results are pretty fantastic.  This made my think fondly of Abed as Batman in season one, as well as his crack at playing Don Draper.  It was also nice to see them pay off the Pierce heel turn and address that with something that felt like was well earned.

Two seasons of Community are through which were equally great.  The fact that we’ll be getting a third seems like a bit of a blessing.  If you people don’t start watching I’m guessing that’s all we’ll get.  Because that’s what happens to quality programming these days.

Others Receiving Votes:

• Thor (4.5 stars out of 5): I thought this was a very fun movie and did just about everything I wanted for a superhero origin film.  It had the proper special effects for a world centering on gods and such.  This is probably the loudest film I’ve ever seen in a theater and it also looks good in 2D (3D is for suckas, ya’ll).  The continued exposition with these Shield guys for the Avengers movie continues to bother me.  But whatever.  Thor is fun, looks good, is sharp with some pretty good humor, and has a much better script than I anticipated.  Easily the biggest laugh for me came when Natalie Portman was revealed to be an astrophysicist.  HAHAHAHA.  I mean, come on now.  I’ve taken a couple semesters worth of physics classes, and that doesn’t exactly add up.  Thor works though as summer/blockbuster fun.
• Chuck – “Chuck vs. the Last Details”: This was a fun episode that left us hanging with a suspenseful twist in the closing scene (although I’m pretty sure none of us think that character is…well, you know).  The Vivian Volkoff thing continues to bother me though.  Her heel turn wasn’t convincing/realistic at all and she makes a pretty uninteresting villain.  It just never felt like the turn was earned at any point.  Yet, the show plugs along with plenty of fun episodes because of everything else the show has working for it.  The finale is supposed to be terrific, if you believe what Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak are telling us.  They were right about last season’s conclusion so I guessed they’ve earned our trust.  This is the worst villain they’ve dealt with though, which limits the amount of enthusiasm I have for Monday’s finale.