This Week in Television - Oct. 18-22, 2010

No Ordinary Family
This week's episode felt like it was trying really hard to be a sitcom. There were a lot of moments that I could tell were supposed to be funny but weren't because, like everything else about this show, they were bland and unoriginal. JJ only looked smaller than the other football players because he actually looks like a high school student, whereas the other guys were clearly in their 20's. And then he makes the football team because of ONE complete pass? Coach, don't you think you should make sure he can do it more than once, as well as test his abilities in other areas? That was even worse than Artie joining the football team on Glee. The only good scene was when Daphne tried to blackmail the variety store cashier and it didn't work because she had no proof.

Running Wilde
I didn't laugh too much at this episode, except for the scene where Steve and Fa'ad discuss their low scale "unnecessoirees" and then lapse into tiredness and Fa'ad steals the idea for a hooker-filled cocaine dome. That scene was great, but the rest of the jokes felt a little lazy and predictable.

Survivor: Nicaragua
Marty's story about being a Grandmaster in chess might have been believable if he hadn't added the part about beating a renowned player twice as a kid. But I guess that's irrelevant when you're talking to "Fabio". I didn't really understand the logic behind either of the votes in this episode, possibly because they edited it that way to make it surprising. Well, I suppose they only wanted to flush out Marty's idol and not vote him off, but I don't get how the other tribe would unanimously vote Eve after Dan kind of talked himself into a hole. Oh, and kudos to Jill for cleaning up at the challenge.

Community
So true that Professor Duncan would waste Anthropology time by showing Youtube videos in class. I know we've all spent hours watching movies in English class (and others, but mostly English) for no educational reason. With the leather pants and no beard, Abed looked more like Michael Jackson than Jesus, and I was expecting one of the characters to point this out but since no one did I guess it wasn't intentional. For an Abed storyline, though, it wasn't that great, although I found it funny when they were watching a rough cut and Star Burns - the editor, I assume - kept looking over at Abed to check his approval. And I liked Britta's line, "I don't even believe in God, but I love me some Abed."

30 Rock
Kudos for getting that one-take commercial filmed multiple times, unless they only did it once and then snuck a cut in there. Jack's solution for Tracy was awesome, and not unlike putting peanut butter on the roof of a dog's mouth for a talking animal movie. Liz's weird/gross/embarrassing stories are always great, and flashbacks of her playing her younger self are even better. Also liked all of the stupid cake typos, even if the bakery staff should've become suspicious at the same person constantly returning misprinted cakes (I know they made a point of mentioning there were two clerks, and that they were ordering from one and returning to the other, but nobody ever switched roles so they would've caught on.) P.S. Happy Blirthday, Jennica!

The Office
It's good that once in a while they do an episode like this, where Michael actually accomplishes something (in this case the hiring of Danny), because we need to be reminded that he does actually have some sales skills and that's why he made manager. Although it was also backhanded in that he "forgot about Packer", which might lead to an amusing firing (or at least a conflict between the two traveling salesmen) in a future episode. I like that Andy was bummed when Creed liked his song - even though Creed (both the character and the actor playing him) was part of a bluegrass band at one point, so he has musical abilities, it's probably not a good thing if Creed agrees with you on something. The best line in the episode was Dwight's about the "Penis Museum", where tickets are a thousand dollars.

Hero of the Week: Britta from Community, for the line above which was QUOTED FOR TRUTH!

Douchebag of the Week: Kelsey Grammer from 30 Rock, playing a version of himself that was pretty evil. FRAAAAJERRRRR!