This Week in Television - Dec. 4-9, 2011

Once Upon a Time
I really liked this episode, although I have trouble not rolling my eyes when someone pulls out the "secret twin sibling" twist. But I think it may have been the absence of Henry that made this one more enjoyable. Not that I dislike him, but it gets a little tiring to have him keep speaking in fairy tale terms every week while Emma and everyone else continue to be concerned for his sanity. And I do root for real world Charming and Snow White, not because they really have much of an emotional connection, but because it pisses off the mayor/queen. Bonus points for having both Mr. Widmore and a bottle of McCutcheon's Whiskey in this episode. I will never not love Lost references.

Glee
Not only has Sam never previously been described as having "star power", but after going to the trouble of recruiting him, they didn't even give him any solos at Sectionals, making his return totally unnecessary (though the one thing in this episode I liked was Santana's list of trouty mouth insults). Mr. Schue should've been arrested and fired for giving champagne to underage students on school grounds. Unless I missed somebody clarifying that it was non-alcoholic or something, which is possible because I was busy laughing at the illegality of it, but I doubt it. And, really, another song about a cup? Why didn't they just sing Brittany's version? I'm not even going to get into how annoyingly one-dimensional Quinn has been about her baby. About 98% of this episode sucked.

New Girl
I was surprised to see Schmidt get his own story where we see him at work, because we haven't really gone away from the apartment to isolate a character yet, and for some reason I wasn't expecting it to happen. But I don't like Schmidt enough to want to watch him independently of our regular cast. But Jess and Paul awkwardly trying to have sex was funny, because Jess being weird is always funny, and Zooey Deschanel in her underwear is always awesome.

Survivor: South Pacific
Not much happened this week. Just Brandon's dad showing up to boss everyone around and Edna complaining about being on the bottom. I'm not a fan of either Brandon or Edna, so I would've been fine whichever way the vote went.

Up All Night
I liked Ava's pronunciation of "diamonds" and Reagan's reaction to the bracelet. The Christmas decorations stuff and Chris' adventures at the mall have been done before, but I guess there are only so many Christmas stories you can do.

Suburgatory
Sorry, but this episode was lame. The gay principal's little arc at the party didn't seem to go anywhere or serve much of a purpose, Zoe's exaggerated reaction at finding out Noah was married seemed like something out of a bad children's movie, and Tessa realizing she'd made a mistake in inviting Zoe seemed like something out of a bad laughtrack sitcom - at that point I actually imagined a studio audience going "ooohhh", and even in my imagination I still hate studio audiences.

Community
The music didn't really wow me (though Alison Brie's Bettie Boop impression was accurate), but I'm always down for Community making fun of Glee, like the bearded piano player who randomly shows up in the music room and the overly wholesome sweater vest-wearing teacher. And Britta's song and dance at the end, terrible in true Britta fashion, was hilarious. Sadly, this was the last episode before Community's hiatus, which may last until Spring but hopefully it will be shorter than that - ideally in the opening of a timeslot after Whitney is canceled. Please cancel Whitney, NBC.

Parks and Recreation
For me, this was the best episode of any show all week, and a very strong contender for best Parks and Recreation episode of the season. Leslie's Christmas gifts to her friends and co-workers managed to be both funny and perfect, and it was an interesting flipside look at Leslie doing pretty much her usual job, but on the other side as a regular citizen. Plus it was bursting with loads of hilarious moments, like Marshmallow Ron Swanson (including both April's explanation of it and Ron trying not to show how incredibly pleased with it he was); the guy at the PCP meeting who tried unsuccessfully to start up a "her daughter is an idiot!" chant; Leslie warning Ann not to touch her pickles at the restaurant; Dennis Feinstein's scapegoating of Eddie the accountant at Ben's interview; and to top it all off, an appearance by one of my favourite guest characters, Jean-Ralphio, whose hair seems to get bigger every time he shows up. I found myself getting a little teary-eyed by the ending, too. I'm starting to love these characters almost as much as the cast of Community.

The Office
The show has been using the Jim/Dwight pranks a little less often than they used to, but I like that they found something new to do with it by having Andy place a "no pranking" rule on them, leading to the two of them trying to frame each other. Andy is still coming off too much like Michael - "my ex is meeting my sex", for example, is totally a Michael line. It's like the writers are just continuing to use stories and/or jokes they had planned for Michael rather than write new stuff that is more suited to Andy. But I did enjoy this episode. The gift-opening montage was fun, though not as awesome as Parks and Recreation's gift-opening montage.

Hero of the Week: Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation, for her truly uncanny gift-giving ability. It's not easy to make Ron Swanson emotional!

Douchebag of the Week: The evil queen/mayor from Once Upon a Time. Since when is the mayor of a town allowed to tell someone who they can't fall in love with?

This Week in Television - Nov. 21-25, 2011

Last year during the short American Thanksgiving week, I supplemented the post by watching some pilots for shows I hadn't seen. I think I'll continue that this week and make it an annual tradition.

Survivor: South Pacific
Recap this week.

Up All Night
Jason Lee doing the Will Arnett voice was great because it reminded me of the classic Arnett vs. Baldwin "talking like this" contest on the first season of 30 Rock. But the rest of the episode was kind of forgettable, and the revised opening credits are stupid; they were relevant last week because they contained shots of scenes from that episode, but to continue using it in every episode that isn't that one makes no sense to me. In particular, the shot of Chris playing hockey might give the impression to newcomers that he is a professional hockey player, or even that he plays hockey regularly, when so far it has been specific only to that one episode.

Suburgatory
The only funny part of this episode was Ryan's description of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because still referring to Jim Carrey as "Ace Ventura" nearly 20 years after the fact is even funnier than continuing to call Mark Wahlberg "Marky Mark". This show's situational humour tends to be pretty bland, the best example in this episode being Lisa's nakedness. I felt like they could have done more to make that funny, but apparently the writers felt that Lisa being naked was funny enough on its own. It also feels like they want to keep having parties in order to shoehorn Dalia's relevance to the plot into each episode. She's still a useless character; all she did this week was yell at the dog, which was another missed opportunity for jokes because instead of some sort of funny one-liners, the writers chose to go with the likes of, "Oh my god, shut up, I hate you!" To be fair, that's probably about as creative as a character like Dalia could come up with, but still, it only proves how little she adds to the show.

The Wire (Pilot Episode)
Normally I would have walked right by this show, as crime shows don't really interest me, but it seems to be widely regarded as one of the best TV series ever made, so I decided to give it a shot. My reason for shunning crime procedurals is because they tend to be formulaic, cookie-cutter, case-of-the-week type deals and that doesn't appeal to me. Being an HBO series and not a mass market network show, The Wire is different. It doesn't need to use action or murder mysteries to garner attention; in fact, it's more about the legal, bureaucratic aspect of police work, but it's not a courtroom drama, either. More of a legal thriller, only it ingeniously lets the viewer figure out why it's thrilling instead of laying it out on screen. It's not for dumb people - it's intelligent and can be dense and hard to follow if you're not concentrating (as Michael Scott once said, "Been watching The Wire recently. I don't understand a word of it.") - and it's probably also not for people who bore easily, because this whole pilot episode was mostly just a lot of talking. But I was interested in the story of Detective McNulty (Dominic West) creating a hiccup in his department when he informs a judge that a drug kingpin may have gotten as many as 10 murders overturned in court by intimidating witnesses and working the system. And it was cool to see Lance Reddick and Idris Elba in the cast, because they have intense screen presences. There was no actual "wire" used in the first episode, but there was talk of using one, and according to Wikipedia it appears that every season has a different setting. Consider me intrigued.

Deadwood (Pilot Episode)
I think Deadwood is mostly famous for its cursing (and the only word used as commonly as the f-word is "cocksucker"), but I came into it looking for some badass characters plotting against each other. There's a little bit of that, but it turns out most of the profanity is not even used in anger, it's just indicative of the crude, daily speech patterns in a town with no laws. I'm not sure yet if I like it enough to want to watch three seasons of it, but it does have a large number of familiar faces in it, and I've always had a soft spot for ensemble casts, so I might watch more at some point.

Boss (Pilot Episode)
Boss is a new series this season, one I probably would've never heard of if Alan Sepinwall hadn't reviewed it on his Hitfix blog. Right at the top of the pilot, we find out Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammer) is coming down with a disease that is like a horrible mix of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Then we find out he's the mayor of Chicago. The kind of mayor who is all smiles and jokes and friendly gestures in front of the cameras, but a tyrannical douchebag when there's no reporters around. Grammer was a natural choice for the role, as he has that deep, authoritative voice that can be kind of scary when he wants it to be, and even though he might be more famous for comedy, he is the kind of actor able to pull off that emotional weight when necessary. Anyway, Kane hides his newly discovered condition from as many people as possible, including his own wife and daughter, though he makes some miniscule efforts to reconnect with them after they've grown distant. As I'm going through Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Weeds, I'm realizing I find it interesting when a character has a huge secret he or she is trying to hide, so I really, really enjoyed this pilot. I'm looking forward to more, but I think I'll be waiting a while for a DVD/Blu-ray release. Hopefully not too long, though: the season one finale airs in about two weeks.

Hero of the Week: Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) from Deadwood, for rescuing a survivor after Indians killed her family, and because he was born in the same town as me (Etobicoke). Represent, cocksucker!

Douchebag of the Week: Tom Kane from Boss. Boy do I love watching him, but what a dick.

This Week in Television - Nov. 13-18, 2011

Once Upon a Time
I like that this show takes old fairy tales in a new direction. Pregnant Cinderella (or any other fairy tale character) is something you'd never see, probably because then parents would have to explain to their kids how pregnancy happens. And while I like the continuing battle between Emma and the evil queen, it was a nice change to have the latter downplayed this week so that Rumpelstiltskin could be the main villain, as he has lurked in the last couple of episodes but hasn't really been in the spotlight.

Glee
In real life, Brittany would win the school election by a landslide since high school is first and foremost a popularity contest, but since the writers of Glee don't care about real life and know nothing about high school, I'm betting it will probably end up being Kurt. As for the other elections, Sue's smear campaigns against Burt were fun, but I'm not sure which part of the resulting ad outing Santana was more offensive: the idea of embarrassing someone by outing them before they're ready, or the even more conservative idea that you shouldn't vote for a high school coach who has a lesbian on their squad.

New Girl
Glad to see the douchebag jar get a mention, although an episode too late, as Schmidt's little joke was way less douchey than his behaviour last week. I found the scenes with Schmidt and Cece to be funny, or at least Schmidt's reactions to getting potatoes on his nose and Cece's hand in the pudding. The holiday turkey being ruined is kind of another cliche, but there were enough other things going on in the episode that I didn't mind, plus putting it in a clothes dryer might be a new one. I think Winston is becoming my favourite of Jess' roommates. I just enjoyed the manner in which he grew to like Paul, and his crack about referring to Black Friday as just Friday. I really liked this episode - in fact it might be my favourite so far - but the one downside is that I think Jess was, for once, the most underused character in the episode. But I suppose that's a plus for everyone who complains that she is annoying.

Survivor: South Pacific
Coach clearly is leading if he scared Cochran and Albert into voting straight. That rice bowl challenge looked like a tricky one. I imagine it probably took much longer than the editing made it seem. Ozzy is getting arrogant, but Dawn may have a shot at beating him at Redemption.

Up All Night
Except for the ending tag, it felt unnecessary to actually show Chris playing hockey, as there was no joke in it, and what little character development it provided could just have easily been established by him coming home and saying "I had a great time playing hockey," which he did do afterwards. I didn't feel that anything used in this episode made for funny stories, in fact, and Molly Shannon was another wasted guest star - she played the part well, it just wasn't a funny part.

Suburgatory
I haven't been finding Suburgatory very funny - maybe some light chuckles, but it seems it's generally not my humour - but I keep watching because I like George and Tessa, and sometimes Noah, because he's Alan Tudyk. But the other characters tend to be annoying (I know I've said that before), especially Dallas and Dalia, who have been getting more screen time. Or it feels like it, anyway. Dalia is particularly a one joke character, so it's not really a good idea to have a storyline rely so heavily on her and that one joke. That half of the episode was a bust, but I liked George's brief Misery-inspired parody.

Community
For me, the highlight of the episode was Jeff's hilarious Dean Pelton impression (and later, when the real Dean was in a tank top and ordering him to remove the bald cap, it seemed Pelton was doing a Jeff impression). As soon as I saw that the Dean wasn't even going to play himself in the school commercial, I knew it wasn't going to end well. Looks like the Troy/Britta chemistry is continuing, but this time Abed has become the first character outside of them to notice it, giving our camera the appropriate look of confusion (or was it concern?). Also props to Luis Guzman for doing the episode. I mean he kind of had to after they erected a statue of him in season one.

Parks and Recreation
Putting Andy in a school setting is a comedy goldmine, and I hope we get more of it. Well, Andy doing anything is usually a comedy goldmine, but yes. Ron telling the professor that she "would make an excellent brunette" was also hilarious because it was so completely unexpected, and such a forward thing to say to a stranger. Amy Poehler KILLED it in the final scene. You could really see the nervousness and excitement in her performance as she laid out her feelings for Ben, and the scene was all the more effective for it. Although I realized after the fact that Ben had already told Chris he wanted to be reassigned. Hopefully that will be easy to undo. Since the parks department logo was the same as the Parks and Recreation logo, I wonder if we're going to get Tom's new retro logo on the cover of the season four DVD now. For the sake of packaging continuity I wouldn't want that, but for the sake of the show referencing itself and keeping with its own continuity, I would.

The Office
Hey, one of the few times they actually made use of Gabe. It was mildly amusing when he was mistaken for an Abraham Lincoln impersonator and then just rolled with it, but then it got funny in a creepy way when he seemed to be accessing his own interior demons as a sad, lonely man. The "Battle of Schrute Farms" argument was funny when Erin was in the middle flip-flopping between believing Dwight and Oscar, and then even funnier when they discovered the truth and Oscar ended up enjoying it as a piece of gay history. Robert spending a day with the "losers" of the office was an excellent idea, though Ryan is still too annoyingly arrogant to think he belongs in that group. I think this was one of the better post-Carell episodes, except for Andy's Gettysburg tour, because pretty much every episode this season has been about him trying too hard, and it's getting old.

Fringe
I'm not sure if Peter building a new machine is a good idea, but I suppose there aren't a lot of options, and at least it will produce some kind of result. It totally kills any dramatic potential when Peter tells Lincoln "she's not my Olivia", essentially giving him permission to date her. I mean it's true, but now we won't get an angry jealousy subplot, which would've invested some emotion into this alt world where most of the characters seem kind of indifferent to each other. The invisible albino thing was interesting. One of the few "weekly case" characters who actually got a happy ending (he did die, but happily). And it was a nice touch that, after he died, the elevator was at floor 14 right before cutting to commercial, when the 14th floor seemed to have some sort of significance earlier in the episode. No idea what Nina is doing to Olivia, but since her first appearance on the show I've had difficulty trusting her, even if this one is a different iteration and is supposed to have emotional ties to Olivia. But we'll have to wait a while to find out, as this is the last Fringe episode until 2012.

Hero of the Week: Leslie from Parks and Recreation, for taking a big risk and saying "screw it."

Douchebag of the Week: Ryan from The Office, because his tiresome elitism lacks foundation.

This Week in Television - Oct. 30-Nov. 4, 2011

Once Upon a Time
I'm enjoying the war between Emma and the evil queen. I think I actually find it more interesting than the fantasy flashback segments, though Robert Carlyle is fun as Rumplestiltskin. Glad that Henry did show Emma the book pages this week, though he should have done it last week. I'm not sure how I feel about them showing that the evil queen does care about something, because fairy tale characters are usually black and white, but then I don't think you can get that far with a TV show featuring such two-dimensional characters, so they had to make her more complex.

Glee
I'm not really a fan of pregnancy/baby storylines, and the reason for that is because they sometimes lead to soap opera crap like Quinn trying to get back her baby that she gave up for adoption by sabotaging the foster mom. And I don't know if we were supposed to find the new Irish kid charming, but to me he was just devious in taking advantage of Brittany, and knowing Brittany she probably would have given him an actual pot of gold and not sex like he was hoping. I would like to root for Sue in her quest to take down the arts, but Kurt's dad is also cool. Dammit. Although it seems like they've been using the "Sue cut our budget!" storyline way too often.

New Girl
This episode might have worked as the pilot, because I feel it was the best so far at character development, and one of the funniest. Well, the cold opening and ending tag weren't so great, but the middle was. The "accidentally seeing a friend naked" thing is an old sitcom staple used on almost every show out there, but how it affected everyone was what created the funny moments, like Jess attempting to say "penis" and Schmidt attempting to look at one. And Lake Bell was a funny guest star with her hard to read half-sarcasm-but-possibly-not-joking shtick.

Survivor: South Pacific
I've watched every season of Survivor, and I like it, but I can't say that it has a lot of great episodes. This week's was a great episode. For one it actually surprised me in providing moments where I respected, of all people, Coach and Brandon. Coach for accurately assessing the other tribe's scheme and telling the whole thing to Cochran's face, and Brandon for finally saying something sensible, when Jim called Cochran a coward and Brandon told him "Don't talk to him like that. That's what you get for talking to people like that in the first place." Cochran's been making some good moves, but Probst will completely ignore that and push for Ozzy to win just because he loves the challenge dominators and has no respect for strategic players. It's unfortunate that Christine had to be a casualty of Ozzy's plan. She had a nice winning streak going and I was looking forward to seeing her back.

Up All Night
The "my parents are visiting but they make me uncomfortable!" storyline is another sitcom staple, and I don't think Reagan's parents were funny enough characters to warrant using it, though it worked for the sake of Reagan's back story. The big laugh I got out of this episode was actually the payoff to the Ava story about the dead sound man, when they aired the video tribute featuring one repeated photo of him and the form clearly displaying his home address and social security number.

Suburgatory
What's starting to bother me about this show is that when the suburban townsfolk aren't funny, they're annoying. I found the school charity thing to be predictable, and everyone's superficiality and ignorance just bothered me rather than make me laugh. However, this show becomes more interesting if you think of Suburbia as an allegory for the United States of America, and George and Tessa as Canadians. Ponder that, non-existent people who aren't reading this!

Community
This week's episode had a weirdness to it with the combination of Pierce's eccentric father and the air conditioning annex, though it wasn't a bad weird and was still funny. I liked the use of the astronaut making paninis and "Black Hitler" in order to make the truth unbelievable should anyone try to spoil the secret. This episode was good at making use of past episodes, with references to Troy's plumbing abilities, Hawthorne wipes, both Jeff and Pierce's daddy issues, and newer things from this season like Britta's Psych class, Inspector Space-Time, and of course the Vice Dean. More of a return to form after the last two episodes, but a solid one in terms of humour.

Parks and Recreation
It was interesting seeing how the characters reacted to a possible apocalypse, even though none of them really thought it was coming. It felt appropriate that Ron would take advantage of the Zorpies, Chris would take an interest in reincarnation, Tom and Jean-Ralphio would throw a big party, and April and Andy would work on Andy's bucket list just in case (but mostly for fun, which clearly is what Andy values most given the nature of the items on said list). The Ben and Leslie stuff was kind of heartbreaking, but made sense. Neither of them dislike their jobs enough to quit. A nice surprise seeing Lucy stop by Tom's party. Totally unexpected, and while I doubt we'll see her back as soon as the next episode, I think it was a reminder to us from the writers that she'll still be relevant in the future.

The Office
I liked the callback to Stanley's new "Shove it up your butt" catchphrase (which people on the internet thought was out of character for him and believed we'd never hear again), because they gave it a few episodes so that I forgot about it and was able to laugh when it came up this week. I don't think it is out of character for him, though. Yes, he is generally grumpy and dislikes having fun at work, but we've also seen that he enjoys insult humour. Anyway, I'm not really sure why Andy couldn't just order Dwight to stop the "doomsday device", as he is still the manager no matter how much power goes to Dwight's head. Maybe they just both knew it wouldn't work because Dwight isn't intimidated by Andy.

Fringe
Wasn't too into the "monster of the week" B story, as this is probably at least the fourth time we've had an episode about shape-shifters, but the scenes with Peter were interesting. When he told Broyles about how the new shape-shifters are almost indistinguishable from humans and could be anyone, I almost expected Broyles to accuse him of being one, but then I realized that wouldn't make sense because, not knowing Peter at the moment, they don't entirely trust him and that would be crappy camouflage for the shape-shifter. Interesting tidbit that Nina was Olivia's foster mom in this timeline. It makes that scene with Peter and Olivia meeting as children more relevant.

Hero of the Week: Andy from Parks and Recreation. His bucket list, while simple, was fun to watch. "Looks like this Siberian husky is going to be Russian...OFF TO JAIL."

Douchebag of the Week: The entire school on Suburgatory. Face brushes? Really?

This Week in Television - Oct. 23-28, 2011

Once Upon a Time
Hmm, I'll need more time to figure out whether I like this show, but after the pilot I'm leaning toward the positive. It does have too much of a glossy look, as TV shows with high budget special effects sometimes do, and I felt that some of the moments fell flat. For example, when the evil queen barged in on Snow White and Prince Charming's wedding, I didn't get the proper sense of intimidation from her because that was a scene that would have normally happened at the end of another story, where they would have already established how scary she is. But to amend that thought, the character worked a little better later in the episode when we had more time to watch her being evil. One moment I really liked was the way Emma rested her chin on the counter while watching the birthday candle on her little cupcake, because I did get the sense of loneliness from that, and it had a childlike quality that made her seem even more vulnerable. One thing that bothered me: if Emma is having difficulty believing that she is inside Henry's fairy tale book, why wouldn't he just open it up and show her? Ultimately she ended up staying in town anyway, but I think it was for his sake, not because she believed him.

Wilfred
CityTV was doing a special preview of FX shows this week, so I checked out Wilfred, about a depressed suicidal man who inexplicably sees his neighbour's dog as an Australian man in a dog suit. I found it interesting the way Wilfred (the dog) was portrayed, because he embodies both human and dog qualities. He talks (to our protagonist, anyway), eats human food, and smokes, but he also chases motorcycles, pees outdoors, digs in the yard, has an incredible sense of smell, and jumps on strangers; one of the funniest scenes had him motorboating a waitress and then humping her leg, which of course would be sexual harassment if he were really human, but Wilfred gets away with it - gleefully - because he's a dog. I enjoyed the pilot because it was so unique and felt different from most things on television, but it felt more like a movie than a TV show episode. By the end of the episode, Wilfred had already helped Ryan to learn to enjoy his life more and make his own decisions, so it feels like there is no need for more episodes. That being said, I want to keep watching if I am able to (I'm not sure yet if FX Canada is automatically going to show up in one of my satellite packages, as new channels sometimes do, or if it will be part of a package I don't have. Hopefully the former, because Louie is on FX too and I dig that show.)

Survivor: South Pacific
I knew Coach's team was going to win when they started praying. Not because I believed God would help them, but because I believed the show would love to make it look like God helped them. I wouldn't have pegged Coach for an Adam Sandler fan, though they could have also told him to say that to promote the movie. Ozzy made an extremely bold move, but from their visits to witness the Redemption Island duels, they should know that Christine is not a fan of Coach and is likely to side with them, so there is no reason for them to want to beat her. If not for that, it might have almost been a smart move.

Suburgatory
That was a good idea for a Halloween episode, though it may have been a little far-fetched for Lisa and Malik to think Tessa was possessed, as they are among the more sane characters on this show. But I enjoyed watching George delight in all of his Halloween antics.

Community
Another cool episode. I like how everyone's stories reflected their personalities: Britta's being lazy on the details and highlighting chauvenism, as well as failing to make her look smarter than she is by having her read a book titled "Warren Piece"; Abed's being very robotic and facts-based; Annie's being classy and romantic before showing a dark and disturbing side; Troy's being the most childlike and imaginative; Pierce's self-aggrandizing image of himself 30 years younger, beating up the guys and having orgies with the girls; Shirley's being religious and judgmental of everyone (including a bit that proves she clearly doesn't know how marijuana is used); and Jeff's story showing that maybe all of his "Winger speeches" and their ability to bring the group together have gone to his head. As for the ending, Abed being the most sane person in the group makes sense when you think about it, because even though he's technically the only one with a mental disorder, it also pretty much makes him incapable of rage and homicidal thoughts.

Parks and Recreation
The subplot with Chris and Jerry's daughter didn't really work this time around because it was the exact same joke, only this time happening right in front of Jerry. The one funny thing that came of it was April turning Jerry's Mr. Potato Head smile upside down. But I liked seeing Ron and Ann working together, and more over-the-top craziness from Entertainment 720. But I guess Tom will be trudging back to his government job now that the company has tanked.

The Office
It almost seemed like they were recycling the storyline from the garden party episode, but with Erin trying to impress the bosses with her party instead of Andy. Being a Halloween episode disguised it somewhat, though. Robert learning everyone's fears and then incorporating them into a scary story was fun, and so was Dwight bonding with Robert's son over Starcraft (or Starcraft 2, by the looks of the monitors, although - nerdy observation - realistically, Dunder Mifflin probably wouldn't have computers in the office that are capable of running such a recent game.) I'm not sure I believe that Kelly and Toby would team up for matching costumes, because it seems like such a random pairing and there has never been any indication that they are friends, but I do believe that weird, lonely Gabe would invite himself in on the action.

Hero of the Week: Prince Charming from Once Upon a Time, because sword fighting while holding a baby in one arm is both funny and gutsy.

Douchebag of the Week: Gabe from The Office, because that video (and his laugh when he thought of it) he made was just weird, gross, and creepy.

HALLOWEEN BONUS - Best Costumes: Tessa from Suburgatory as Zombie Amelia Earheart (in a flashback), Dwight from The Office as Kerrigan from Starcraft, Creed from The Office as Osama bin Laden, and Erin from The Office as Wendy from Wendy's.

This Week in Television - Oct. 17-21, 2011

Short week this week, but Halloween episodes next week!

Survivor: South Pacific
Ozzy was being overly emotional and childish. Right now it looks like Coach has a better chance of winning the game than he does. As for Brandon, allow me to quote a Mr. John Locke: "Crazy people don't know their going crazy. They think they're getting saner."

Up All Night
Cool to see a flashback episode, though I didn't laugh at it much. Hopefully this show is not already becoming less funny as it goes on. I don't feel that they really did anything new with either the "bad haircut" or "birthing is painful and gross!" jokes. Both have already been done to death in other shows and movies, so if you're going to do them, do them in a new way.

Suburgatory
The story was a good one, but again I didn't really find it that funny. Dallas and Dalia were just more annoying than anything else, and the Shirley Temple dolls, while fine for Sheila's character development, didn't really make for a funny concept. If anything it just made me pity her for seeming so sad and lonely without them.

Hero of the Week: Nobody stood out, but I suppose I'll say George from Suburgatory, for standing up to Dallas and calling his daughter's bluff on the doll-stealing claim.

Douchebag of the Week: Dallas from Suburgatory, because you don't come into someone else's house and then tell them how to run it.

This Week in Television - Oct. 10-14, 2011

Tuesday night FOX programming is on hiatus until November.

Survivor: South Pacific
I didn't even get most of what Stacey was saying at the duel, but every season has that crazy person who rambles. I got what Cochran was saying about Ozzy's arrogant laziness even before he said it, and I think it was a good move to take out his ally. Coach's enthusiasm about finding the idol - and the claim that even his parents call him Coach - was just plain funny.

Up All Night
Probably the weakest episode so far, but I did enjoy the slight creepiness of the peek-a-boos at the beginning, and Reagan destroying the stroller with "Kayla's mom". Might have been a little too much exposition from Ava's assistant in the limo, though.

Suburgatory
To me, this episode felt a little cartoony in a Glee sort of way. However, Suburgatory has at least established that the whole suburban town is kooky, so they can do something unrealistic - like students waiting in the bathroom to save Tessa the best stall - and have it sort of make sense within the world of the show. But yeah, I liked last week's episode better. Kimantha is a funny name though, because it's so awful. Please, nobody name their daughter Kimantha.

Community
Wow, that was tons of fun. I know it's still early, but this episode is the one to beat for best episode of the season. It was genius how everything just fit together so well, like things being hinted at in one timeline and then revealed in another - especially the "Troy gets the pizzas" timeline, where everything - the boulder, Annie's gun, Britta's smoking, Jeff hitting his head, the creepy troll - worked together to create a crazy disaster comedy, and when Troy returned to observe the chaos I was reminded of the third room in Four Rooms. It also makes it true to character when many of the same things continue to happen in most timelines, like Britta's pizza dance and Pierce's bragging about banging Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom. And, like last week, I knew there were seven characters and a die with only six sides, so someone was going to have to point out that Jeff technically wasn't eligible to get the pizzas. The "dark timeline" in the tag was really funny, and I'm pretty sure the show Troy and Abed were watching in their pajamas was "Inspector Space-Time".

Parks and Recreation
Ron's Pawnee Rangers club would have been more successful if it were for adults. Or soldiers. Kids (and Andy) need fun too much. The "treat yo'self" day was funny, and made for an interesting group in Ben, Tom, and Donna. As with April and Andy, and then Tom and Jean-Ralphio, it is a proven successful formula to have level-headed Ben reacting to the craziness of others. The Batman costume making Ben's face look oddly fat only added to the humour of him crying in it. Chris' behaviour regarding Jerry's daughter was douchy, but funny because it's Jerry. Had it been anyone else, I might have considered naming Chris douchebag of the week.

The Office
The best part about Jim's fake garden party book is that the author's name was "James Trickington". Hilarious that Robert would be interested in hippo steaks and giraffe burgers, and that Dwight still thinks Jim and Pam's daughter is named Peepee. Andy created too much awkwardness though, and not in the same way that Michael would, because Michael was usually hilarious in doing so. Andy was just painful to watch here. Nice to see the return of both Mose Schrute and Kevin's toupee. And Darryl was totally right about Rosebud.

Fringe
This week's episode was really cool. I guess we'll have to wait on exactly how Peter was doing that funky warp thing, but I had already guessed it was him from the opening scene, so I was not surprised when he appeared at the end of the episode. I also knew Olivia wasn't going to send Walter back to the asylum. Actually this episode was predictable now that I think about it, but I still really enjoyed it anyway. Interesting to note that in this Peter-free timeline, Olivia has not met any other Cortexiphan patients. And is it just me, or did Peter's reaction to Olivia at the end of the episode seem a little distant and underwhelming? I mean he did smile, but for someone he's supposed to be in love with, hasn't seen in a while, and would have been worried that he might never see her again, all she gets is a smile and a greeting that doesn't have much emotion behind it? Maybe he doesn't remember anything from when he was stuck in between reality and nothingness (or wherever he was), and to him no time has passed at all since he disappeared?

Hero of the Week: Britta from Community, because "Roxanne" is a good song.

Douchebag of the Week: Andy from The Office. Don't try so hard, dude.

This Week in Television - Oct. 3-7, 2011

The Playboy Club
Well, The Playboy Club was canceled this week. I don't know why this one got the axe and Charlie's Angels is still going, because I caught a few minutes of the latter and it was awful in a way that should have been left in an earlier TV era. Different networks, though. Speaking of different networks, it looks like CityTV will air the remaining episodes in Canada, and Bravo may or may not be choosing to continue the series, so we're not done just yet. Anyway, last week's was probably the best episode of these first three. It feels like they're not sure what pace to go at regarding the murder thing, as they spent the first two episodes with it lurking in the background, then this week they almost blew everything wide open, and then they put it back down to just the mob boss' son being pretty much the only person left who is suspicious of Maureen. And it may have been overkill to add a third woman for Nick, putting him in a crazy love quadrangle - even if the third woman is a closet lesbian. We get it, he's a womanizer, that doesn't mean he has to have 50 regular girlfriends.

Glee
This episode was all about everyone worrying that they're not good enough, and then recycling the show's old "be happy with yourself and like who you are" theme. In other words, another after school special episode. It was funny when Mike's father suggested he was on drugs, and then we got the scenes of Mike dancing and hallucinating his father and Tina, and I was like "maybe he's on drugs after all!" Then I hoped his backup dancers in the audition were also hallucinated, because I didn't buy that he would bring them, or need them. McKinley must be a top of the line Catholic high school, because the production values on every single thing they do there are way too high for high school students. And Sue's very brief cameo in the bleachers during Brittany's performance seemed unnecessary and a lazy excuse to squeeze Jane Lynch into the episode because they didn't have anything else for her to do. Might as well have just left her out entirely, it wouldn't have made a difference to anything whatsoever in the episode. I'm glad Mr. Schue kicked Mercedes out of the glee club, because she's been spoiled since day one and no one has ever really acknowledged it. I mean what she said about Rachel might be true, and Rachel is also full of herself, but not really in an aggressive way that is destructive to others like Mercedes. P.S. Coach Beiste stuffing her face with spaghetti was kind of funny but didn't do any favours for her, or spaghetti.

New Girl
I think the storyline with Schmidt aiming too high in his conquests could have been used later on in the series as a way for him to realize that maybe he can get better women if he stops being a douche and trying so hard. Instead it just kind of resulted in him pitying himself for going home with Natasha Lyonne and having no apparent epiphanies about it, but I did enjoy the scene in the bathroom with Jess cutting off her underwear and being misinterpreted by Katie Cassidy as crazy and threatening. However, it's going to get old soon if every episode ends with the guys joining Jess in making fools of themselves.

Survivor: South Pacific
Good job at the challenge, Dawn. She was the underdog but somehow she won it. Stacey probably shouldn't have been voted out, but it was funny when Coach tried to hug her and she refused. Why is everyone always so arrogant about Redemption Island? Unless you're the very last person voted out, you don't just have to win one challenge to get back in the game, you have to win a bunch in a row without losing. What part of that sounds easy?

Up All Night
Nothing against Maya Rudolph, but I don't find her character as funny or interesting as Reagan and Chris, and Nick Cannon is even more useless, but then I've never seen him make a valuable contribution to anything. But I really enjoyed the stuff with the A-Team van and them thinking the Native guy turned into a bird. I'm liking this show, but I would like it more without the Ava B-stories.

Suburgatory
Missed the premiere last week because it screwed up when I tried to tape it, so I'm coming in on episode 2. I liked the bright, sterile atmosphere and quirky suburban lifestyle this show seems to be developing. I don't know if ALL of the humour is my thing, but I did get a big laugh out of Ryan saying he would want to have dinner with a dead Scarlett Johansson. I'm not entirely sure yet if I like this show, but I'll keep watching for now.

Community
I enjoy episodes like this, that are about the group dealing with their own politics. Interesting to note that Pierce already rose in popularity after being at the bottom a short time ago, although the rankings were based on who everyone would want to be partners with for class projects, not necessarily who everyone likes best. But I knew the group had 7 characters, so as soon as they campaigned the teacher to let them pick their own partners, someone was going to get left out. Chang's film noir story was hilarious, if only because he was acting so insane and I am amused by things that make no sense. The biology teacher's speech about Legos was true, too. Can you even buy a set of just plain Lego bricks anymore?

Parks and Recreation
I recall the "patriotic person secretly not born in the town they love" story being used for Hank on King of the Hill, but since that show was more hit and miss and the stakes are higher for Leslie, I think it worked better here. Also, it's awesome that this episode was about Leslie's book, because for those who don't know, it is a real book. It's sitting in my room right now. According to multiple forewords, Leslie wrote the entire thing from memory and finished it in a 55-hour marathon without sleep and hopped up on energy drinks. Anyway, another very fun episode - loved the stuff with drunk Joan, Andy being Burt Macklin again (which never gets old), Tom spraying himself with cologne (he just kept spraying and spraying!), and Ann trying to figure out how to get the two most antisocial people she knows to talk to her.

The Office
This wasn't one of the funnier episodes because it spent a lot of time on Darryl being depressed and didn't have Robert California, who I feel is a more entertaining Michael Scott void-filler than Andy. I found some laughs in the little things, though, like the applicant who ate Stanley's lunch, and Oscar's delivery of the line about the guy who "got fixated on his calves, and his triceps went to hell".

Fringe
I thought Peter wasn't supposed to exist, but I guess it was just adult Peter that got erased, as both child Peters kicked the bucket in this new timeline. The psychic link made the spore thing more interesting, because spores by themselves would have been boring, and Walter spending time with the lonely kid worked as a transition to finally moving towards finding Peter as he acknowledges the hole in his life. Maybe he'll build some crazy machine that will allow Peter to stabilize long enough to convey the message he's been trying to send.

Hero of the Week: Ann from Parks and Recreation, for finally figuring out how to get Ron and April's attention (not an easy thing to do).

Douchebag of the Week: Todd from Community. No offense, Todd.