Tue, September 28, 2010

Way too many new shows last week – I nearly reviewed Outsourced sight-unseen – but I definitely didn't have time to watch every episode of my returning shows, so there are a few things I'm catching up on, now that the schedule has settled down a little bit.

Community

I can't believe nobody called me on it when I completely misremembered the ending of last season. Jeff didn't end up with Britta or Slater. His kiss with Annie nearly satisfied the romantic ending I demanded, but obviously it isn't like they ended up together. (As satisfying as that would be, it would obviously never work.) Fortunately the new episode supported my memory better than the actual episode my memory was based on. And then was awesome in, like, 26 new ways.

30 Rock

I think I'm going to forget about Amy Ryan's Holly pretty soon if Matt Damon's Carol keeps sticking around. He's unbelievably fun (and, guys, you should've seen his brief appearance on Entourage a couple of seasons ago – I completely understand if you take a lot of pride in not watching that show, and if it weren't for Piven's fantastic work, and the fact that smug pricks like Seth Rogen take a lot of pride in not watching that show, I'd be right there with you, but the Damon scenes were ...mmm! magnifique!). Excellent Jack/Liz stuff this week. Even a good Jenna story, which is rare. Good all around, but still +2 Melonis for a throwaway line about wig costs in a budget meeting – isn't the parent company still Sheinhardt Wig, at least until the buyout?

Eastbound & Down

Reading this epic article about the upcoming season, you get the impression that the show's creators are so busy sucking each other's dicks and celebrating how much funnier they are than everyone else who's made a movie since 1970 that they don't have any time to make a TV show. But fortunately, the Eastbound & Down season premiere speaks for itself: Deep Roy being a tiny little badass as only he can; McBride as jacked-up and un-self-aware as humanly possible; and a spicy latina singing a Spanish-language version of Bob Seger's "Night Moves" in a Mexican dive bar. Maybe those guys are right about how awesome they are.

Hellcats

The third episode has worked the Star Trek Kobayashi Maru test into a tertiary story line. This is now the best show of the new season. (I'm not going to pretend I had any idea what Kobayashi Maru was before reading some geek's write-up of last year's Abrams Star Trek movie, but fitting it into a cheerleading show is still a stroke of genius.)

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret

Has been renamed Todd Margaret, apparently. It still begins at 10pm on Wednesday. My theory holds that the zanier the title, the unfunnier the show, so this should be a good change – but I don't know if that kind of adjustment can be effective a week before broadcast. We'll see!