Hey everyone!  Thursday nights are officially fun again (although I’m back to avoiding Vampire Diaries spoilers like the plague, but I’ll live).  NBC returned with a full slate last night, well, except for Perfect Couples, which finished its run last week with Vance and Amy’s non-wedding that I didn’t bother writing about.  Instead, they aired the pilot episode of Paul Reiser’s new show which I must confess I have not yet seen, so you will not find it amongst the reviews below.  Was it good?  I have a feeling it wasn’t good, even though I know the awesome Larry David had a cameo.  I’ll catch it over the weekend and decide if I’ll be adding it to the Thursday posts, but do let me know your thoughts on the matter, if you choose to have any.

Overall, the shows were all pretty good tonight, but the big love goes out to Parks and Recreation for an episode that should have been called ‘Awesomesauce’, and The Office (is this a controversial opinion?  I feel like it might be, but I don’t care because I really loved it).  So, everyone form a trust circle around me, and let’s dig into our emotions about last night:

Community

Oh my god, you guys.  If I could have taken a course analyzing the intricacies of ‘Who’s The Boss’ I would have been valedictorian of my university, for realz.  I could teach a course just on the changing hairstyles and fashions of Samantha Micelli alone.  Of course, the entire class from what we saw was a philosophical excersice in determining who WAS the boss.  While the prof thought there was no definitive answer, Abed convinced everyone that empirically, the boss was in fact Angela Bower (damn straight – she didn’t slave away at Wallace & McQuaid all those years and then form The Bower Agency for nothing). 

This was an okay episode of Community (which is still streets ahead of most other shows on tv), but it laid some interesting new groundwork, particularly in the Troy and Britta sense – she may have been hung up on Jeff in the past, but it looks like both Britta and Troy might be touching each other’s no-no places sometime in the future, and I’m cool with that.  Donald Glover is so super dreamy (you are all listening to Childish Gambino, right?); I was actually a bit (a lot) jealous of Britta when she got to kiss him.

The stuff with Pierce didn’t work as much for me (shocker, I know) – it just seemed kind of shoved in and wasn’t super funny.  But, so, is he going to be dating this Red Dragon chick now?  It felt very much like a one-shot story, but who knows – maybe Pierce will find love with his moist wipe nemesis (is there a more disgusting name for a product than ‘moist wipe’, by the way?  Fucking ew).  Whatever – it’s hard for me to really care too much about his life frankly.  All I know is that between Shirley having her baby and Modern Warfare II, the end of the season is shaping up to be pretty epic and I can’t wait.

• My uncle put his finger in my no-no.
• He refused to drink pinot noir because he thought it was French for ‘black penis’.
• I always carry some spare apps in case the wait staff’s racist.
• I’m auditioning for Professor Garrity’s all-black production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’.  It’s called ‘Fiddler, Please!’
• It’s hard to be Jewish in Russia, yo.

The Office

Of course I knew that Will Ferrell would be joining the show for the last few episodes of the season, and I thought that my brain had processed that.  But I’m telling you – the pure joy I felt in that opening scene between Michael and new boss Deangelo Vickers (amazing name) was insane.  And that feeling pretty much carried through the entire episode.  I was a little worried they’d have Ferrell be balls-to-the-wall crazy because he’s great at playing that, but they smartly went with the more subtle and reigned-in Ferrell Lite, which is always a treat.  I felt like you could see it in the faces of the rest of the cast, too, like the shift in dynamic re-invigorated everyone.  This makes me really optimistic for next year.  Mind you, I saw that at least a part of the always-angry internet was pissed off and hated life after watching the show, and maybe you share those emotions.  Don’t be afraid to tell me how you really feel.  But I for one, was really happy with it.

I loved everything, from the fact that every member of the staff instantly admired and respected the new manager (or at least pretended to in order to rest their noses squarely in his ass) to Deangelo’s random moments of dickishness that his awesomeness let him get away with.  I think it’s because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to tell someone to shut it already about their baby.  I get it – you produced the next messiah, now can we please talk about important shit like ANYTHING ELSE?

It’s funny; I’ve been watching The Office since the pilot and like a lot of fans of the show, I felt it had become frequently disappointing in the last couple of seasons.  Not bad, but definitely less good than it had been.  And for the most part, my complaints were about Michael.  He became not just sporadically incompetent and socially awkward but like, an official psychotic lunatic.  In a show like this that finds humor in the mundane, you need to keep somewhat grounded to reality.  But Michael was such a spazz that there is no way he would have maintained his position for as long as he did, and that bugged the shit out of me.  There was no subtlety either – I rolled many an eye many a time.  But now, after a very solid seventh season, I’m feeling a lot of anxiety about him leaving.  I’m really going to miss the dumbass, you know?  But for now, I will take joy in the presence of Deangelo Vickers and try not to cry (yeah right) when Michael leaves for good.

• “What are you going to miss the most about Scranton?”  “Oh, you know, the mountains…where things are…”.
• “Thanks for meeting me.”  “Are you kidding?  I’d come anywhere to see a turtle.”
• Now I’m going to have to go online and look at turtles, or I’m going to be off the whole day.
• Shave me.
• “Michael, can you stop talking now?  I have to do your lips.”  “Don’t shave my lips.”
• So, I guess this is my life now.
• I missed the O.J. verdict.  I had to read about it in the newspaper like an idiot.
• That baby could be the star of a show called ‘Babies I Don’t Care About’.

Parks and Recreation

So cute it should be illegal

So…intrigue!  Do any of you guys remember the hullabaloo from a couple of months ago around the Ron and Tammy II episode when NBC showed a promo for a wedding registry for April and Andy?  And everyone freaked out and NBC issued a statement saying it was a mistake and then put up a quick Ron and Tammy registry that looked totally budget like they threw it together in five minutes?  Well, I’d bet DJ Roomba that someone got fired for letting the cat out of the bag WAY early, because April and Andy are now legally adorable together!

It was a great night for love in Pawnee, Indiana.  Not only did Pawnee’s most awe-inducing couple tie the knot (in what has to be the best tv wedding since Jim and Pam in a completely different way), but Ben and Leslie are edging closer to admitting that they “like like” each other.  Ben had an opportunity to go back to his old job in Indiana or stay and work for Chris in Pawnee and asked Leslie what he should do (aka the ‘do you want me to stay’ test).  Leslie played it cool at first ’cause she’s gangsta, but eventually, inspired by young love, admitted she wanted him to stay.  But it was too late, because he already decided to anyway.  I swear on any other show you could get a cavity from so much sweetness, but P&R does it right – they manage to stay totally funny even in moments of blatant loving emotion. 

Also, Donna and Ann make a great team – more of them please.  I think this was the most story Donna’s ever had and I would like to see more – bitch is hilarious.  Another big moment from last night’s ep – we have discovered Rob Lowe’s flaw!  He may be hilarious, he may be a media tycoon and he may have sold his soul to the devil to eternally look 28 years old, but the man cannot dance for shit.  Unless of course, he was ACTING like a bad dancer, in which case, fuck you Rob Lowe for being so perfect.  In keeping with my promise to post shirtless pictures of hot guys when it fits, behold Lowe’s 47 year old self on the cover of the current Vanity Fair:

It's hard out there for a pimp.

• So not only does this thing exist, but you have deprived everyone of cake.
• It took me four years to find the right hairdresser, and we still fight all the time!
• Did you grow up in the woods?  Are you Nell?
• You relax.  You relax all the way home and get into bed.  You need to go to bed.

30 Rock

I picked up Tina Fey’s new book ‘Bossypants’ on Saturday and read it within a day, because it’s so fucking good (also it’s not like, Infinite Jest or anything – reading it in a day is very doable).  The girlcrush that I’ve harbored for Fey over the years is officially at its peak right now – she’s so badass.  In the book she talks about 30 Rock and how it always has terrible ratings because it’s too weird for the mainstream.  Tonight was no exception, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Where else but 30 Rock will you see an actress filming a pro-Connecticut torture porn movie sponsored by Wal-Mart and co-starring the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond and a muppet?  If that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.  The show finally got it’s Tracy back, who I’ve missed like crazy – I mean, this is a guy who hosts parties at the Waldof Astoria for his lizard’s birthday.  And his lizard is named Jeremy.  How can you not love that?

• There’s a chance he may call tomorrow, because it’s his lizard’s birthday.
• Listen up 5’s, a 10 is speaking.
• Can we order lunch from Ikea?
• Should ‘vaginatorium’ be capitalized?
• Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize my college futon with its trademark absence of sex stains?
• Sean Penn wanted me to go to Haiti with him and I’m not strong enough for the pain and human misery of a 3-hour plane ride with Sean Penn.

So, that does it for me you guys – I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Did anyone hate The Office?  Did you love it as much as I did?  All opinions are welcome (unless you hated Parks and Rec, which is just not allowed because you are patently wrong).  Did you watch Reiser’s show?  If so, did you like it?   If you liked it, is that just because you’re desperate for Curb to come back?  Be honest.  Talk to me in the comments!