This Week in Television - Mar. 4-9, 2012

Once Upon a Time
It felt a little like a rehashing of the tremendous Beauty and the Beast episode, only not as good but still better than most episodes. I have to say it wasn't easy to take that actor seriously as a dwarf in love when I remember him as the angry guy who tried to steal George's parking space on Seinfeld. I don't think his infatuation was subtle enough. Having Emilie de Ravin show up again made it slightly better, but when I saw her name in the beginning credits I was hoping we'd see the locked up Storybrook version of her.

New Girl
Another enjoyable episode, except for the part with the singing and rapping, and the fact that Winston not wanting to let go of his crappy van felt way more like a Nick story. Maybe it actually was written originally for Nick, but Nick already had something to do and Winston didn't, so they threw it in. Speaking of Nick, "I can taste my spine" was one of those brilliantly simple lines that worked better than any other joke in that scene. I didn't think it was possible for Zooey Deschanel to be even more adorable, but then she did the Daffy Duck lisp. Well played, Zooey.

Survivor: One World
That was just insulting at the reward challenge when they made the tiles glow so we could see how they lined up when it was already the most obvious thing in the world. I know reality shows regularly insult viewer intelligence, but wow, that was even worse than Americans putting a blue dot on the puck during televised hockey games. And the tribal council was so stupid. Colton is a spoiled, self-centered prick and none of his reasons for hating Bill were even valid, but for some reason Bill is so unbearable that it warrants giving up immunity just to get him out as soon as possible? No. Everything Bill said was reasonable and sensible. The only person who requires that kind of emergency boot is Colton himself. Between that and Probst unnecessarily rubbing in the womens' immunity loss both during and after the challenge, I'm not sure which one of them should win Douchebag of the Week. ...Okay, yes I am.

30 Rock
Jack always seems to underestimate his nemeses and get easily duped by them. It was obvious Kaylie was lying even before Liz suggested it to Jack, because she did it in her previous appearance, and similar things have been done with Devon Banks. But you can't be disappointed with a preface like "Jack vs. Kaylie Round 2: No Subtitle Necessary." Or a silly Mrs. Doubtfire style ending tag with Liz trying to keep up the male persona she invented when comforting Kenneth in the bathroom.

Parks and Recreation
I was actually thinking about Andy's Women's Studies class not too long ago and wondering if they would ever get back to that. Glad to see that they did. I like that April is becoming like this quiet little guardian angel who secretly likes cheering people up. Her explanation about Chris leaving her alone if he gets a girlfriend may have been in part what motivated her, but I think the other half is that she knows how much it sucks to be in that heartbroken position because she went through it with Andy. It was perhaps a step in the right direction that Tom was so focused on not breaking up with Ann again, and it was nice to see them not fighting for a bit even if they felt more like friends than anything more, but then it was two steps back when he presented her with flavoured condoms. Oh, Tom, you lovable douche.

The Office
This felt like one of those transition episodes where nothing is really great about it because it's too busy setting up for a (hopefully) more promising follow-up episode. There were only a couple of little gems this week, like Dwight's treasure trap at the beginning and Kevin thinking that Toby bangs hot supermodels (and Toby subsequently letting him by neither confirming nor denying it). I think Toby's glasses, which I don't recall having seen him wear before, added to his dweeby loser look and thus enhanced any jokes directed at him. I have always found Toby's bored, dissatisfied facial expressions funny but the glasses somehow made him even more hilariously pitiful. Actually, a season or two ago they also had Ryan suddenly wearing similar glasses out of the blue, but because it's Ryan I immediately understood that he was doing it as part of nerd chic. Toby either actually needs them or is jumping on the bandwagon too late because he's Toby. An interesting subtlety if it's the latter.

Up All Night
Comedically unsatisfying, but I enjoyed watching Chris and Reagan with their new friends, accepting the double-edged sword that is spending time with someone who is exactly like you, and then falling out over parenting conflicts. But they were completely right. Way too many parents have no clue how to properly discipline their children, yet think they do. The stuff with Ava and the new boss was boring, though. I'm not sure if her quips during the poker game were supposed to be funny-funny or ironic-funny, but for me they were neither.

Awake
Interesting. In some ways, this was like the reverse of the pilot: last week, Mike solved his cases by using clues from opposite universes; this week, he was able to slightly improve his family life by using that technique at home, but only one case got solved at work. There's no way of knowing why someone would have wanted to destroy his family and not just him, but I've realized that if Mike only seems to switch over when he goes to sleep, meaning he spends a day at a time in each universe rather than the same day both times, and no one ever says "Why were you missing for a whole day?", then that could quite possibly prove that one of them actually is a dream. Hmm...

Hero of the Week: April from Parks and Recreation, for secretly caring.

Douchebag of the Week: Colton from Survivor. He's not a Russell Hantz or a Johnny Fairplay. He's just a horrible human being.