This Week in Television - Apr. 18-22, 2011

Glee
The stuff with Sue's League of Doom was great, though it's getting harder to believe that no one likes glee club given the popularity of Glee itself and shows like American Idol. Even if nobody wants to join, I'm sure they would at least want to watch them perform. And being a high school, I don't think they would reward Mercedes' spoiled behaviour by giving in to her demands. The teachers would discipline her or boot her out of the club. More game shows should have categories like "Hermaphrodite Nazi Sympathizers".

Survivor: Redemption Island
Even if Phillip's accusations of racism were legitimate (they weren't), he says sexist things all the time, and to me there's not much difference. I also find it funny that he apparently has trouble remembering/pronouncing big words, and that Ralph probably has never spelled a single name correctly when voting at Tribal Council. I mean, really, an "E" on the end of "Phil"? Even spelling it "Fill" would have made him look less uneducated.

Community
See, this is the kind of thing I love about Community: a clip show that does not induce eye-rolling or waste viewer time, because it's full of clips and "memories" that we've never seen (and, in some cases, look more fun than what we've seen). It's kind of playing a joke on the people who haven't been watching, because they'll think they were from actual episodes, while the rest of us laugh at those tearing their hair out and screaming, "Why can't I find the St. Patrick's Day rafting adventure episode?!" My favourite part, though, was the Jeff/Annie Youtube fan video parody, followed by a Pierce/Abed video using the exact same song. No, wait, Dean Pelton's animated short, in which he did all the voices and wrote a one-sided script based on his fantasies, was also crazy hilarious. Some episodes of this show fall more toward cool than funny, but this week it was both.

The Office
We only saw one Dundees ceremony back in season two, so I was glad to see another one because that was a fun episode. I loved Michael's take on the standard Academy Awards intro, and his terrible but hilarious impressions of some of his co-workers. Will Ferrell was a lot funnier this week than last week, a good sign if he's going to be around for a few episodes without Steve Carell, though Deangelo of course doesn't have the same energy as Michael Scott. Erin breaking up with Gabe in her acceptance speech was also really funny in a cringe-worthy way. Those two never felt right to me anyway because they don't seem like they have anything at all in common, much like Roy and Pam if you subscribe to the "Erin and Andy are Jim and Pam 2.0" theory.

Parks and Recreation
Everyone's actions in the health food store were a lot of fun, even if they were technically predictable due to being perfectly in line with their established personalities: Chris being excited about good health, Andy looking at everything with childlike wonder, Ron looking at everything with contempt and throwing the bacon substitute in the trash, and April throwing the bacon substitute in the trash simply because she enjoys that kind of behaviour. Leslie's attempt at a date with Tom was also good stuff. For the record, Point Break would be a better movie if Tom Haverford played both roles.

30 Rock
It's slightly unfortunate that we got two clip shows on the same night, but it went well because Community's clips were 90% new footage, and 30 Rock's were short and not too frequent. I especially like the gag about Danny not "seeing" the flashbacks because he wasn't there, and then the payoff at the end of the episode where he thinks he was there after all, but the montage is all clips of Josh. I believe this is 30 Rock's very first one-hour episode, and it was a joy to see what they did with twice the length. Great stuff from guest stars Michael Keaton and Tom Hanks, and a bit of meta humour with Jenna wanting a baby (Jane Krakowski was pregnant during the filming of that episode) and Jack's speech about respected actors going into television that seemed to describe Alec Baldwin. Also Tracy's backfiring attempts to throw himself under the bus were funny and seemed to be in true Tracy Jordan fashion, though I think in real life the media jumps at any chance they get to damage a celebrity's reputation. Also nice to see the little throwbacks to season one, like the blue man, Alan Gargle, and Jack's policy on tuxedos after six.

Fringe
I'm thinking that the doomsday machine can only be controlled/powered by Peter when it's in the other universe. While we've seen them do a lot of studying and building, I think we only saw the device react to Peter when he was over there; I could be wrong, though. I like the idea of the "events" coming more frequently, accelerating things as we move toward the finale.

Hero of the Week: Dean Pelton from Community, for his cartoon in the tag. It may have been completely wrong and crazy, but it was hilarious. Runner up: Tom Hanks on 30 Rock, because that scene was also amazing.

Douchebag of the Week: Sandy (A.K.A. "the Pink Dagger") from Glee, because his love of Aretha Franklin ruined Sue Sylvester's plan to take down the glee club. YOU JUST GOT POKED, SANDY! POKED BY THE DAGGER!