This Week in Television - Dec. 4-9, 2011

Once Upon a Time
I really liked this episode, although I have trouble not rolling my eyes when someone pulls out the "secret twin sibling" twist. But I think it may have been the absence of Henry that made this one more enjoyable. Not that I dislike him, but it gets a little tiring to have him keep speaking in fairy tale terms every week while Emma and everyone else continue to be concerned for his sanity. And I do root for real world Charming and Snow White, not because they really have much of an emotional connection, but because it pisses off the mayor/queen. Bonus points for having both Mr. Widmore and a bottle of McCutcheon's Whiskey in this episode. I will never not love Lost references.

Glee
Not only has Sam never previously been described as having "star power", but after going to the trouble of recruiting him, they didn't even give him any solos at Sectionals, making his return totally unnecessary (though the one thing in this episode I liked was Santana's list of trouty mouth insults). Mr. Schue should've been arrested and fired for giving champagne to underage students on school grounds. Unless I missed somebody clarifying that it was non-alcoholic or something, which is possible because I was busy laughing at the illegality of it, but I doubt it. And, really, another song about a cup? Why didn't they just sing Brittany's version? I'm not even going to get into how annoyingly one-dimensional Quinn has been about her baby. About 98% of this episode sucked.

New Girl
I was surprised to see Schmidt get his own story where we see him at work, because we haven't really gone away from the apartment to isolate a character yet, and for some reason I wasn't expecting it to happen. But I don't like Schmidt enough to want to watch him independently of our regular cast. But Jess and Paul awkwardly trying to have sex was funny, because Jess being weird is always funny, and Zooey Deschanel in her underwear is always awesome.

Survivor: South Pacific
Not much happened this week. Just Brandon's dad showing up to boss everyone around and Edna complaining about being on the bottom. I'm not a fan of either Brandon or Edna, so I would've been fine whichever way the vote went.

Up All Night
I liked Ava's pronunciation of "diamonds" and Reagan's reaction to the bracelet. The Christmas decorations stuff and Chris' adventures at the mall have been done before, but I guess there are only so many Christmas stories you can do.

Suburgatory
Sorry, but this episode was lame. The gay principal's little arc at the party didn't seem to go anywhere or serve much of a purpose, Zoe's exaggerated reaction at finding out Noah was married seemed like something out of a bad children's movie, and Tessa realizing she'd made a mistake in inviting Zoe seemed like something out of a bad laughtrack sitcom - at that point I actually imagined a studio audience going "ooohhh", and even in my imagination I still hate studio audiences.

Community
The music didn't really wow me (though Alison Brie's Bettie Boop impression was accurate), but I'm always down for Community making fun of Glee, like the bearded piano player who randomly shows up in the music room and the overly wholesome sweater vest-wearing teacher. And Britta's song and dance at the end, terrible in true Britta fashion, was hilarious. Sadly, this was the last episode before Community's hiatus, which may last until Spring but hopefully it will be shorter than that - ideally in the opening of a timeslot after Whitney is canceled. Please cancel Whitney, NBC.

Parks and Recreation
For me, this was the best episode of any show all week, and a very strong contender for best Parks and Recreation episode of the season. Leslie's Christmas gifts to her friends and co-workers managed to be both funny and perfect, and it was an interesting flipside look at Leslie doing pretty much her usual job, but on the other side as a regular citizen. Plus it was bursting with loads of hilarious moments, like Marshmallow Ron Swanson (including both April's explanation of it and Ron trying not to show how incredibly pleased with it he was); the guy at the PCP meeting who tried unsuccessfully to start up a "her daughter is an idiot!" chant; Leslie warning Ann not to touch her pickles at the restaurant; Dennis Feinstein's scapegoating of Eddie the accountant at Ben's interview; and to top it all off, an appearance by one of my favourite guest characters, Jean-Ralphio, whose hair seems to get bigger every time he shows up. I found myself getting a little teary-eyed by the ending, too. I'm starting to love these characters almost as much as the cast of Community.

The Office
The show has been using the Jim/Dwight pranks a little less often than they used to, but I like that they found something new to do with it by having Andy place a "no pranking" rule on them, leading to the two of them trying to frame each other. Andy is still coming off too much like Michael - "my ex is meeting my sex", for example, is totally a Michael line. It's like the writers are just continuing to use stories and/or jokes they had planned for Michael rather than write new stuff that is more suited to Andy. But I did enjoy this episode. The gift-opening montage was fun, though not as awesome as Parks and Recreation's gift-opening montage.

Hero of the Week: Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation, for her truly uncanny gift-giving ability. It's not easy to make Ron Swanson emotional!

Douchebag of the Week: The evil queen/mayor from Once Upon a Time. Since when is the mayor of a town allowed to tell someone who they can't fall in love with?