This Week in Television - May 13-18, 2012

Once Upon a Time
Goddamn, that was awesome.  Being a big fan of the Beauty and the Beast episode, I loved their reunion (been waiting half the season for it), and juxtaposed with Henry's "death" scene all of the actors played the hell out of those moments.  Plus we got a handgun being fired at a fire-breathing dragon!  I didn't know where the show was going to go if they were already lifting the curse at the end of season one, but then the purple cloud of magic rolled in.  That is a WILD direction to take it next season.  Several months ago I wasn't expecting to be saying this, but I'm super excited for season two now.  Well played, Once Upon a Time.


Survivor: One World (Sunday Finale)
Very relieved and proud of Kim for not only doing the right thing in voting out Alicia and Christina, but for winning the game.  At the final tribal council, I actually thought Chelsea's opening speech and responses were the best and that she might win because of it, but she turned out to be the one who got zero votes, and Kim deserved it most anyway.  It was also unusual that half the jury didn't even ask anything, instead taking the opportunity to just talk about themselves - the worst not surprisingly being Alicia, who did nothing but brag obnoxiously about how awesome she thinks she is.  Her tearful apology at the reunion was not sufficient.  I mean I do believe she was sorry about her offensive comment regarding special ed students, but that's not something you apologize for; instead, you just don't say it in the first place.  Kat's reel showing how crazy she is was misguided, because it was just footage of her doing weird dances and physical stuff like that, when it should have focused on the dumb things she's said.  They didn't even have the technical proficiency to give it background music, or any audio at all.  An interesting concept for next season, bringing back three people who left for medical reasons, but it's surprising because Survivor usually only likes to bring back popular and/or memorable players, and I don't know that anyone who was medi-vacced can be considered part of that category.


Glee
So Tina is one of the most ignored characters on the show, and their way of correcting this problem is to turn her into Rachel for a few minutes and then have her accept that she belongs in the background?  Way to do the character justice, Glee.  And you're going to refer to Lindsay Lohan as "America's sweetheart" and Perez Hilton as a "Hollywood gossip legend"?  Um, exaggerate much?  Speaking of exaggeration, I think it was overkill to fix EVERY single character's problems in these two episodes.  I thought this was the season finale but apparently that's next week.  How the hell are they going to squeeze out another episode with no conflict left whatsoever?  You don't tie up all of your storylines in the second last episode of a season.  You gotta leave something open.  Even if that had been the season finale, it would've been baffling, because it felt instead like a series finale, and Glee is not one of those shows that even needed to make a "just in case we're canceled" episode.


Community
I don't know if there was a specific video game they were referencing, but it was awesome either way.  Annie and Shirley murdering the shopkeeper's family was really funny, and weirdly it makes sense that Abed would fall in love with a digital woman with encyclopedic knowledge.  And I don't know why Troy kept trying to jump into Old Man Hawthorne's mouth, but it was funny.  I think it shows some character growth from Pierce, not only accepting a non-white half brother but allowing him to keep a large sum of money.


30 Rock
Hmm, even though Elizabeth Banks was never going to become a series regular, I still wasn't expecting a Jack/Avery divorce.  I liked the jokes about Kim Jong Il being the greatest waiter ever, bailing on Smash (I only made it about three episodes), and the little joke about Lorne Michaels as his name popped up at the end of the show.


Community
Heist movies are a genre I'm kind of sick of, but the parody was fun here.  The plans are always so complicated and ridiculous - especially when disguises are involved - that I think comedies should be the only place for crazy heists.  But it's nice to know the Dean loves the entire study group, not just Jeff.


Community
The finale was somewhat reflective of the show itself.  Community was in the darkest timeline, approaching possible cancellation, and like a few other series this year, this episode was produced to serve as a series finale if it had to be, because the show's future was uncertain.  You could say Evil Abed was representing network executives, coming from a place where conditions are grim (NBC) and trying to ruin the show by transforming it into something more similar to everything else on TV.  But it wasn't NBC that recently fired Dan Harmon from his own show, it was Sony.  So I have no clue what season four is going to be like, but there is now a chance that it won't be good, and that's even more depressing than cancellation, because if this season had been the last, at least it would have ended without deteriorating in quality.  Six seasons and a movie will probably never happen, but maybe we can get four seasons and a movie if Dan Harmon wants to end it properly in a theater.  P.S. the funniest thing about Star-Burns having faked his death is that he still has the star-burns, as if a wig will hide his one distinguishing feature.


Awake
Another cool episode, though I can't help worrying for Mike, because if he investigates his accident too deeply, he may ultimately find out which world is real and lose his wife or son.  It was interesting when the deaths of Bird and Hawkins mirrored each other between the two worlds, though.  Also nice to see the green therapist getting a bit of screen time this week, as the red guy has been getting more exposure than her.


Hero of the Week: Kim from Survivor, for winning the right way.  On a hilarious side note, she apparently gave the idol she never had to use to Troyzan after the show, and he told her it was more valuable knowing it had been in her crotch.


Douchebag of the Week: Whoever it was that removed Dan Harmon from Community, his own show, without even telling him, because the show was too awesomely creative to have a large audience.  Not cool, man.