This Week in Television - Apr. 1-6, 2012

Once Upon a Time
I'm not sure why they want us to sympathize with Regina, but it doesn't work. She's already been too horrible for me to feel sorry for her. This episode might have worked better than the one earlier in the season where she lost her father, except wanting vengeance on someone who wronged you inadvertently because they don't know any better isn't exactly a just cause. But it turned out to be brilliant casting, having the little girl from Bridge to Terabithia play young Snow White. Her resemblance to Ginnifer Goodwin in her facial expressions and performance was eerie.

New Girl
Winston's monologue at the end of the episode was worthy of applause, clearing people out and fixing everything just so he could enjoy his weekend. Nick's highly disturbed and disgusted reaction to Schmidt and Cece was also a highlight, in a different way than Winston's was last week. And I enjoyed the cameo by David Wain, who directed this episode, as a runner in the marathon. But I have to say it: can't blame the guys for thinking about Jess when they go solo.

Survivor: One World
Kim was the star of this episode, and seems to be the smartest person left in the game, so I am rooting for her. Although I don't like the idea of Alicia being carried by that alliance.

Community
While I had some minor problems with last week's episode, I wasn't expecting part two to arbitrarily be a parody of a Civil War documentary. The awesomeness of that makes me more forgiving of last week's outing because it was a set-up for this. It was done so perfectly. They even added the PBS telethon at the end, which was a nice touch, and snuck in a little Dan Harmon cameo in one of the "historical" paintings.

30 Rock
30 Rock has more or less already done versions of the stories in this episode (remember when Jack got Pete to wear a hairpiece to instill confidence, Jenna got revenge on the writers by locking them on the roof naked, and Tracy became more responsible at his job when he and Liz switched minority roles?), and perhaps last week's episode about repetition was a way for them to sneakily get away with this week's plot recycling, but the important thing is that it was funny. 30 Rock usually puts jokes above story and character, anyway, and that's fine with me. I think my favourite was Dr. Spaceman's line as he inserted the mini troll pencil topper into Tracy's nose: "Goodbye, only evidence tying me to my ex-wife's disappearance."

Up All Night
The one thing I chuckled at this time was Fred Armisen as Ava's physical trainer, inexplicably using Don Henley as a motivator for her. But otherwise it was mostly going for the easy, predictable jokes, as this show often does. On an unrelated side note, why did NBC feel they had to put Parks and Recreation on hiatus when The Office hasn't aired a new episode in a month? The whole reason they took it off was because there were too many Thursday comedies and not enough timeslots, but they just wasted four weeks of opportunity (okay, three, because 30 Rock had a double in there). Ah well, Up All Night finishes next week and then Parks is back.

Awake
That was one of the most entertaining episodes yet, and highly thought-provoking throughout, thanks to Mike's confusion and hallucinations. Being injected into unconsciousness in the red world made the green world, once again, seem like the dream, because it just feels more logical to go into a dream from that rather than wake up from it, live a whole day in the green world, then go back to sleep and continue right where you left off. The penguin, in my opinion, is meant to be a red herring. It appears in both worlds, but it showed up in green first and then, also in green, we learned where it came from. Seeing as it is a hallucination either way, it doesn't really matter where it came from. Being in both worlds just makes green's reality a little more deceptively plausible due to the uncertainty of the penguin's genesis - i.e. it is as equally possible that Mike pulled it out of the dream as it is that he put it into the dream, because the penguin book exists in his memory. Hallucinating Dr. Lee in the hospital, however, is different. If the green world turns out to be real then Lee is a major clue, because if Mike can imagine Lee and his stock of psychological advice whenever he wants, who's to say he isn't always imagining Dr. Lee? But it is for this reason that Lee may also be a red herring if the red world is real. The fact that Dr. Lee never made an appearance in the green world may also be significant. My brain is hurting now.

Fringe
I'm actually kind of surprised that Lincoln became a big enough character to have an episode centered on him, because to me he's always felt somewhat insignificant to the show. I mean he's important to the Fringe team, but to the show itself, he's just kind of there not being noticed by Olivia. But he was used very well here to demonstrate why the current iteration of our universe, which had gotten along without an adult Peter until recently, is slightly different than we remember it. It's not just the absence of Peter, because the alt-world was always Peterless; that this iteration had no Peter in either universe, yet they still differ from each other, lends credence to free will and the idea that if you kept resetting the world, it would play out a little differently every time. But not 100% different; there are still certain time landmarks that will always happen and can be used by the observers as checkpoints. Or something.

Hero of the Week: Winston from New Girl, for his awesomely funny and effective monologue that was topped off by having a bowl of cereal.

Douchebag of the Week: Regina/Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time, because she apparently doesn't understand when vengeance is justified.