This Week in Television - Jan. 22-27, 2012

Once Upon a Time
Man, the whole bit with two characters bumping into each other and dropping their stuff is such a cliche. It feels like a really lazy way to either reveal something about a character, or to make two characters meet and/or fall in love. Funny that there was an eighth dwarf called Stealthy, and that he was killed when he made the mistake of not being stealthy. But after this episode I think I'm finally on board with the Mary Margaret and David relationship.

30 Rock
This episode was full of win. Devon vs. Jack, which always wins; Kelsey Grammer, Jenna, and Kenneth's elaborate cover-up plan that played like a parody of an accidental murder movie; Kathy Geiss in a box... Hilarious stuff. I also found it funny that after watching Tracy's offensive stand-up routine and being disgusted by it, Jack later told one of Tracy's jokes to Devon.

Parks and Recreation
Tom whining about his finger and bowling between his legs like a five year-old was really funny stuff. I'm not sure whether it was supposed to be a joke that almost every ball rolled in the episode produced a strike, but it was amusing that it happened so frequently. I love that this show can do things like have a shot that is just Ron beaming over the bowling alley restaurant's menu (hot dogs, hamburgers, nothing else) and it works as a joke. April was awesome for giving the movie tickets to Chris, but there are too many candidates for Hero of the Week this week for her to win it.

30 Rock
Not as good as the 8:00 episode, but that was a very hard one to follow anyway. The Martin Luther King Day trailer was funny, but would have been funnier if SNL hadn't already done basically the same joke using The Apocolypse as its holiday. 30 Rock also sort of already did the thing with characters realizing they need each other, but that was Jack and Liz, and it was interesting seeing them demonstrate why Liz and Jenna, and Jack and Kenneth need each other as well. I actually had been wondering about Jenna and Liz, because they were supposed to be best friends but the show doesn't really go there all that often and at times it does seem like they have no reason to be friends.

Fringe
The precog who draws predictions has been done, but we have't really seen the human side of it before and the effects it can have on a person, so I liked that part of it. Some of the earlier scenes with the girl's family felt really generic and blandly written, though. But I like that they tied it into the continuing story of Olivia worrying over her own impending death - and that is something we, too, need to worry about because I don't think the Observer was referring solely to this version of Olivia.

Hero of the Week: Liz from 30 Rock, for her speech to the press about idiots that reflected a lot of the things wrong with our culture. Unfortunately, people who watch 30 Rock are not idiots so it was just preaching to the choir.

Douchebag of the Week: That guy from Parks and Recreation who called Leslie her "second least favourite word for a woman," because Leslie is awesome and you don't call her that, ever.