This Week in Television - Jan. 15-20, 2012

Once Upon a Time
Oh, Hansel, you dope. How many times did they tell you not to eat anything in the witch's house? Decent episode, though. The orphan storyline finally got Emma to admit how much she cares about Henry, but the ending was more interesting.

Napoleon Dynamite
I'm a fan of the movie, but I'm not sure what to make of these first two episodes of the new animated series because it doesn't really resemble the film. It's more like the director wanted to make an animated series and, as an excuse to garner some initial attention ratings, used the characters and settings from his most successful project. The humour is not the same as in the movie - it's more like season five of Futurama, as in mildly amusing but never laugh out loud hilarious and probably would have been funnier about 15 years ago. The cartoon medium completely changes the tone into something more blatantly wacky and fast paced, and I understand that it's just how animation works, but that's not what the movie was. The movie was more lethargic and quiet, full of moments with Napoleon silently gawking at things because he wasn't a big conversationalist. He does a lot more talking in the cartoon because Jon Heder needs something to do. However, that is this show's biggest strength: all of the actors from the movie came back to do the voices. Given how strange and unique all of those voices are, it would have been way too noticeable had the roles been recast. But there's still one thing to nitpick there, and that is Uncle Rico. It's still the same actor playing him, but he's either completely forgotten the role since doing the movie or they asked him to exaggerate the southern accent so the character would sound more...cartoony. It definitely threw me off because he didn't sound like Uncle Rico, but all of the other voices were perfect. Also, this show doesn't seem to be canon with the film, as Lafawnduh is nowhere in sight even though Kip married her in the movie. I don't think I'll bother to keep watching.

Glee
I can imagine how many fangirls squealed when Finn proposed to Rachel, but I was laughing at what a terrible gimmick it is. And being that their characters are only about 17-18, it makes me think even less of them for even thinking about marriage that young. Though Rachel didn't respond yet, but supposedly they kind of stole that ending from one of the Twilight movies, which is the least surprising thing ever. I don't like how they used that musical number with the girls in black dresses singing about their loved ones to try and imply that those relationships are as meaningful as the adult one between Mr. Schue and Emma, when we know they'll probably all be dating different people by next season. And then they took it even further by having them come to tears while singing it, and then even further by having Mercedes remark afterward how beautiful and moving it was. Nope. I'm somewhat easily moved, and that had zero effect on me. I also found it offensive when they had Becky's voiceover voiced by Helen Mirren, as if they were trying to make a sarcastic joke by making her inner voice classy and intelligent. And offense #3: all of the stuff about Emma's OCD - which was already exaggerated - and how the general opinion was that she is unable to function as a normal human being and for some reason it means she shouldn't get married, except that Mr. Schue is a hero and he'll be there to rescue her. Yes, Glee, that's exactly what OCD is like, thanks. When Artie wheeled himself into the pool during Mr. Schue's ridiculous over the top proposal (the walking on water was definitely too much; it doesn't say "I love you", it says "I'm so awesome I'm doing something Christlike, wanna marry me? Yeah, course you do."), I was like "Well, he's dead," and then he magically reappeared on an inflatable chair. But seriously, how did he get over there? Because doggy paddling doesn't work for humans when your legs are dead weight. And apparently Mr. Schue has literally no friends whatsoever outside of the high school, because that's the only reason I can think of why a grown man would choose Finn to be the best man at his wedding (but really it's because they want an excuse to have the glee club perform a song during the inevitable wedding episode). This was one of the kitschiest Glee episodes ever, but I laughed at a couple of the one-liners in this episode, such as Sue calling Coach Beiste "Michael Chiklis in a wig" and Becky telling Artie that her mom says she has "get down syndrome".

New Girl
Sometimes it feels like this show is too Schmidt-centric, but that may be because of his large personality. Surprisingly, this episode had a character who was even douchier than Schmidt, and got what he deserved from Lizzy Caplan; I was puzzled when Nick was horrified by it, because I'm all for douchebags getting beat up. Does that make me a bad person? And why did they send that white dude if Jess asked for an Asian stripper? I like how offended Nick was by Schmidt's toolish hat and tanktop outfit. I wouldn't want to be associated with someone wearing that, either. The douchebag jar is fun, but if it was meant to deter Schmidt from acting the way he does, it doesn't seem to be working. There's gotta be like a thousand dollars in there by now.

30 Rock
There we go. Much better than last week's episode. Tracy's offensive comments on the show were a lot less offensive than what he said in real life (I believe it was something to the effect of "if I had a gay son, I'd shoot myself"), but I think this episode poking fun at it was a fair punishment and was handled well. It sort of managed to chastize and condescend to Tracy while also apologizing to the public and reminding everyone that Tracy's not the kind of dude who would mean it, it was just a bad joke in bad taste. Basically, it hit all the bases while still being funny so as not to waste our time getting caught up in the show's own politics. Kenneth and Jenna's simple lightbulb-changing plot escalated quickly and became funny (those two are often funnier playing off each other than on their own), and the ending when they called Kelsey Grammer was one of those moments where you know it's going to be him because he was in the beginning of the episode, and then when it's him you just go "Yesss!" I loved the tag with his James Bond-like theme song - probably the highlight of the episode. Well, that and the pie chart about TGS's viewers, because every time Jack pulls out a pie chart, the segments on it represent hilarious things.

Parks and Recreation
You know, out of all of NBC's Thursday night comedies, Parks and Recreation is the one that is the most consistently funny. Another solid, hilarious episode this week. Loved Ben, Jerry, and Tom trying to do sinister voiceover voices, every single thing Andy said and did (especially his extremely wide hammering attempt), Chris thwarting Ron's automatic door-closer by slipping in before the shut-out, and Leslie's campaign commercial with the very long list of things she supports. Also, I've always found attack ads funny because they're so dramatic in their accusations, so it was fun to see it here, and cute to see how little Leslie has changed since she was 10 years old.

The Office
This was probably the first episode of the whole season where Andy felt like Andy and not Michael. Maybe because they were outside of the office for a reason not driven by him, so for the writers this episode didn't need a Michael in it. It wasn't one of the funnier episodes, though. I can't recall any jokes that stood out, though the cold opening with Dwight and Stanley "turning the tables" on Jim for free meatballs was such a weird and unexpected ending to that prank that it was kind of funny for that reason.

Up All Night
Megan Mullally has been appearing on almost every comedy show out there, and lately it's been fun to see her, but so far Up All Night hasn't really been putting their guest stars to great use. But I do like the subject of idea stealing, whether coincidental or otherwise, because that sort of thing does happen in the entertainment industry; usually with two very similar movies coming out around the same time, or a few instances I've pointed out on this blog where some TV shows make the same joke in the same week. I don't suspect plagiarism when that happens, but it's fascinating when two seperate people can have the same idea at the same time, and I can imagine how it might make them feel, not being able to prove or disprove intent. But this episode didn't go down that road anyway, as sneakiness is more interesting than coincidence. I'm not sure if I agree with "emotional cheating" being a real thing, though. I understand it, but the only thing that makes it emotional cheating is gender. No one ever calls it that when a dude is having a night out with a male friend.

Fringe
This week's episode had some very cool scenes. Notably the one where Peter was freaking out Jones in the interrogation room, however short-lived that may have been once Jones' contacts came to his rescue. And it was cool to see both sides finally working together, and Walter reuniting with Walternate's wife, although the problem is that all of that theoretically goes away when Peter returns to his timeline. We're into Lost season 6 territory right now, where we're not sure if and why this world we're seeing is going to be relevant, and that makes viewers cautious about getting invested.

Hero of the Week: Julia (Lizzy Caplan) from New Girl, for taking down the douche and generally being a cool date.

Douchebag of the Week: Schmidt's friend Benjamin from New Girl. As he played Todd on Community earlier this season, I think he might be the first actor to win Douchebag for two different roles.