NBC Thursday Night Comedy 11/11/10 Recap: “Tell Your Disappointment to Suck It!”

Thursday night. It’s a night that we associate with great comedy. This week’s shows aren’t great, and ‘The Office’ barely passes as good thanks to the show’s supporting cast. Still, I’ll take mediocre comedy over the CMA’s that made me miss ‘Modern Family’ any day of the week.

Community

This week’s episode is a bottle episode, as clearly called out by Abed a few times. That means it was created with the intent of a low budget to make up for more lavish episodes. It takes place entirely in the study room, with only a brief gag outside the room during the closing credits.

Usually there’s a lot of plot to talk about with ‘Community’, but this one’s as simple as it gets. Annie’s pen has gone missing and she refuses to let anyone leave until they find it. See? Cake.

There are a couple of really wonderful moments in the episode, such as Britta’s intense Big Brother talk, and Troy’s continued lament of not being able to go to the puppy parade happening outside. “Have you ever gone to a puppy parade halfway through? It’s pointless!”

The second act gets a little muddied down and loses some of the ‘Community’ style humor. It goes for sitcom tropes without the smirk we’ve come to expect, but things pick up in the third.

The important thing is that this is finally a down-to-earth ‘Community’ episode with absolutely nothing supernatural, implausible or weird – What? Oh yeah, there’s a monkey living in the vents collecting Annie’s pens. Still, it’s relatively normal and down to earth.

I want to make sure I take a minute now to call out Jim Rash, the actor who portrays Dean Pelton. His incredibly straight delivery of ridiculous lines, like this episode’s “Just a non-violent verbal reminder” makes me laugh every time I catch one. I’m confident that he manages to slip those gags by me sometimes without my even noticing.

This episode also brings us the startling revelation that Shirley might be pregnant with Senior Chang’s baby. A part of me would really love it if that’s Chang’s plan to get back at the study group for excluding him, or a way to get in. Either way, we’re bound to see something interesting happen in the next nine months or so.

30 Rock

There’s a lot of potential in ’30 Rock’ this week. Jenna is helping Tracy win over some Golden Globes judges, Jack is backing a completely crazy political candidate, and Liz finds a pair of jeans that just plain work. The episode, sadly, does not.

Liz delivers a few fantastic lines like, “These jeans make up for all the times I took a long hot shower because I was bored,” and “The liberal media would have told me about this!” In fact, Liz seems to be essential for comedy to happen in this episode.

The whole Jenna and Tracy thing flops. It seems like it could have been an interesting aside, but we spend a lot of time on the story with not much going on. Tracy is going to try to bribe the judges and then doesn’t. How exciting.

It’s the same with Jack and his political candidate. The man’s crazy, and it seems like there’s plenty of comedy to be had, but there’s just nothing there. We simply watch Jack put up with him and then tell him to be quiet for most of the episode.

When Liz is in the scene, Jack and Jenna shine. When she’s out of the the scene, jokes fall flat. Perhaps it’s the lack of a straight character to bounce the craziness off of.

The Office

I feel like I missed out on a whole lot of humor at the beginning this episode because I don’t watch ‘Glee’, which is never a good thing. I shouldn’t have to watch another show just to understand the one I’m watching now.

Still, despite the annoyance of the beginning, I went into ‘The Office’ hopeful. Erin and Gabe throw a ‘Glee’ party and the whole office comes. Andy is hesitant to attend based on his past with Erin, and Michael shows up resentful and upset because people see Gabe as the boss.

There’s also a side story with Pam, Jim, Andrea and Dwight, which starts out incredibly dull. It ends with Jim feeding Dwight beer, though, and I can’t help but laugh at that. All you need to know is that the baby is crying and Dwight is the only one who can calm her down.

Darryl delivers an amazing pep talk to Andy, who is feeling really down about the whole Erin/Gabe thing. It shows once again that Craig Robinson is one of the most underused actors in the show. He delivers lines like no other.

In the end, Michael does something stupid and mean-spirited like he always does when he feels threatened. There’s no humor in Michael disconnecting the cable, and it’s a little unclear why Erin is so quick to forgive him. Clearly she sees him as a father figure, which perks Michael right up, but there’s instant forgiveness for no reason.

Outsourced

I keep giving this show these little 10-minute chances while I finish my dinner or when I just don’t feel like getting up. It’s still not good, but I quite like the theme song!

2 comments

  1. Keith

    Are you sure it’s not because you can’t get up rather than you don’t feel like getting up? 😀 Sorry had to.

    I think the this week’s episodes of The Office and Community were by far my favorites of the season so far.

  2. JoeRo

    The office has been on a bit of downturn lately, but they’ve had a few winners this season so far as well. I agree 100% regarding Craig Robinson. He has at best a handful of lines in any given episode, if he has any at all, and the man gets a laugh every single time.

    I don’t know what the problem is with 30 rock these days either. As a matter of fact, NBC’s entire Thursday night lineup has been lackluster this season. I’m hopeful that the return of Parks and Rec will turn things around for the network, perhaps by inspiring the writing staff of all the shows. It … could happen.

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