The Thursday Night Goods, for The Most Part

Well it was yet again another well done Thursday night of comedy as pretty much every show on NBC’s line up performed fairly decently.   Sadly I can’t go so far as to say they are all performing decently in the ratings and it leaves me a bit ticked off.   The only one of the shows doing well is The Office.   I don’t know what it is but people still love them some Office.   I can’t say the same for its counter part show Parks and Recreation, which I always find to be the highlight of the night, as this season has only been able to draw in about half of the Office’s audience and is facing a possible cancellation.   Even 30 Rock, which has won the best comedy Emmy yet again, has lower ratings so far this year than from the previous one.

And even though I’m not a huge fan of Community, though it is growing on me, it too can’t hold down decent numbers but I guess is fairing decently for an NBC show.   I don’t know what it is but people seem to have an adverse reaction when they tune in to NBC.   Its always struggling along and can’t really find any shows that click with people anymore.   Sadly shows that are clicking with people are overly wrought procedurals and some of the dumbest reality shows known to man.   I will give it to NBC that they do keep up their credibility with far more engaging and plot driven shows.   But enough about all that unpleasantness, lets discuss the shows.

As far as Community goes, as stated above, it’s growing on me only from a sense that they have fine tuned their comedy from the dregs that was the first episode.   The gags are getting a lot cleverer and the characters are getting deeper personalities and not just your usual plot filler.   This episode was pretty good as we saw Jeff trying to convince Troy to join the lackluster community college football team, I do believe one of the players is full on pregnant, because he didn’t want the dean to send out flyers for the college with his face all over them.   Through this we got some good back story on Anna which has been lacking in the past and the Arab buy was mostly absent from this episode which I liked because I don’t find him a particularly appealing character.   There were also some decent moments with Chevy Chase and the dean trying to come up with a mascot in a very warped way and also Brita not quite understanding the whole women going to the bathroom together thing.   All in all not a bad time spent.

As for Parks and Recreation and The Office, Parks episode wasn’t as funny as last weeks, but how could it be with Fred Armisen’s guest appearance one of the funniest I’ve seen this year, but The Office’s was definitely much better than the rather week one that was given to us last week.   In Parks we had Leslie trying to fill the pit after an inspirational building crew called Kaboom! built a play ground in a day.   Sadly as it’s getting filled they dump dirt all over Andy who is still living in it and he plans to sue the city.   Luckily things get all worked out and we get closer to getting that park done from last season.   On The Office, its revealed that Michael is dating Pam’s mom and it pretty much destroys Pam, which is to be expected.   There are some great moments in this episode as when Dwight tries to bug Jim’s office with a wooden mallard and I thought Ryan’s whole shtick with a fedora was pretty inspired.

30 Rock’s episodes so far this year, I will admit, haven’t been performing as well as I thought they would.   They are pretty funny but they aren’t as bust a gut funny as so many of the last seasons have been, though I did really enjoy Jenna going to Iceland to film a werewolf movie only for it to be sabotaged with a sun that won’t set.   Also Liz finally gets her book out on the shelves which causes men all over the office to attack her verbally, physically, and with a torrent of garbage.   Even Tracy ends up having to move in with Liz and as can be expected is about the worst house guest you could ever have.   Not a bad episode but not even the guest appearance of Will Arnett as the gay Devon was as good as his previous appearances.   But I know the show will start to pick up because it really is one of the funniest shows on TV right now and they always pull through with some pretty hilarious bits.