Tag Archives: NBC

December 16, 2010 · 11:00 am

Top 10 Episodes of 2010: “Modern Warfare” (Community)

“Modern Warfare”

Aired: May 6th, 2010

[Cultural Learnings’ Top 10 Episodes of 2010 are in no particular order, and are purely subjective – for more information, and the complete list as it goes up, click here.]

I liked episodes of Community more than I liked “Modern Warfare.”

When I first watched the episode it couldn’t live up to the mountain of hype, and my general lack of emotional connection with the specific films being referenced meant that I didn’t have the same thrill that others might have found in the episode. I enjoyed it, as I’ve enjoyed most if not all of Community’s first and second seasons, but the episode was not as life-changing as it seemed to be for others.

And yet there was no single episode of Community more important than “Modern Warfare” this year. It was evidence that this was a world which could sustain these flights of fancy, that Greendale could become a paintball battleground without losing that which made the show tenable. It was indulgent and self-reflexive without being reflexively self-indulgent, never stepping back from the parody and yet never allowing that parody to swallow or bastardize the character arcs caught up in this conflict.

The show achieved higher highs, and perhaps even took greater risks as the year went on, but I feel pretty confident that none of it would have worked as well were it not for the confidence and goodwill gained from the day that Greendale went to war.

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December 13, 2010 · 9:00 pm

Top 10 Episodes of 2010: “Sweetums” (Parks and Recreation)

“Sweetums”

Aired: February 4th, 2010

[Cultural Learnings’ Top 10 Episodes of 2010 are in no particular order, and are purely subjective – for more information, and the complete list as it goes up, click here.]

When choosing between great episodes of great shows in order to make it on this list, Parks and Recreation probably posed the biggest challenge. The show’s second season was a revelation, and its back half had numerous highlights, and choosing between them was more difficult than I had imagined. In most similar instances, I had a gut instinct that drove me in one direction, something in particular I wanted to be able to recognize about that show or that episode over the course of the past year.

With Parks and Recreation, there are simply so many options – I recently watched through the entire second season on Netflix, and admittedly have also seen the first six episodes of season three, and the sheer bounty of greatness made this decision difficult even while disqualifying the Season Three episodes which won’t air until early next year (one of which would definitely be a contender).

I ended up choosing “Sweetums” because it does a number of things which were key to the season’s success. While “Telethon” is the best individual vehicle for Amy Poehler and perhaps the best reflection of the entire ensemble, “Sweetums” highlights the wonderful, complicated relationship between Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope, a relationship which helped set Season Two apart from the show’s earlier episodes. Their tete-a-tete over Ron’s ability to drive after drinking brings out the best in both characters, whether it’s Ron’s whiskey-fueled harp building or Leslie’s “O Captain, my Captain: Ron Swanson, A Swan Song” eulogy; at the heart of their friendship is a sort of begrudging respect for the other’s fundamentally different approach to their life, and “Sweetums” laid the groundwork for Ron’s belief later in the season that even if Pawnee could use less government, it could not exist without Leslie Knope.

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December 10, 2010 · 2:27 am

Community – “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”

“Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”

December 9th, 2010

As if Community weren’t meta enough, my immediate response to “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” was a desire to sit Dan Harmon down in a study room and journey into his mind in search of the meaning of Community.

I say this not because the episode undermined or threatened pre-existing notions of the series, but after the episode I wasn’t sure if what I’d seen was the very embodiment of the series’ general approach to comedy or something completely unique. Because it looked decidedly unique, I first leaned towards the latter category, but then it was put into context with the sense of generic parody that Daniel T. Walters wrote about this week, and even Abed’s general trend of seeing the world through pop culture that friend of the blog Cory Barker wrote about on his publicly-available term paper.

The episode was lovingly crafted, comically inspired, and willing to delve into some darker emotional territory, but I ended up feeling that this ended up in a liminal space between what Community wants to be and what I often fear it will become. It was sort of like I was Ebenezer Scrooge, and the episode manifested as ghosts of Community Past, Present and Future all at once.

And I don’t know whether to be extremely excited or mildly concerned.

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November 28, 2010 · 12:17 pm

Cultural Catchup-Lite: Parenthood, Doctor Who, Community

Cultural Catchup-Lite: Parenthood, Doctor Who, Community

November 28th, 2010

While I had quite a bit of grading to do over this holiday weekend, my lack of family commitments (being Canadian, and all) meant that the holiday was also a chance to catch up on various things related more to the blog.

First, I’ve finally created a link to my Master’s thesis, which has been “available” via PDF for a while now on Acadia’s library website. Perhaps I just wanted to create some distance between the project and my new endeavor south of the border, but I have been remiss in adding the link to the “About” page. In short form, the thesis is an investigation of national identity in fictional representations of the Canadian small town, with chapters on Canadian television series Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie. You can find the Abstract for the thesis on this page, while you can directly download the PDF here. Also, if you’re new and never visit my “About” page, my undergrad thesis on medieval Romance and Battlestar Galactica is available here if you are so inclined.

Second, I got to some of my viewing backlog, which means I’ve got some brief thoughts about some of those series. While you’ve already read my thoughts on the conclusion of Angel’s second season, I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the second season of Parenthood, Doctor Who’s “The Girl in the Fireplace,” the third and fourth episodes of The Walking Dead, as well as the first season of FX’s Archer.

I also asked my Twitter followers what else they might want to hear more about, and so will dutifully comment on Community (although in less detail, for the sake of my productivity); I’ll be saving thoughts on Fringe’s third season (which has been really good, and structurally fascinating) and Terriers’ first season for later (and by later I mean Wednesday in the case of Terriers, as I’ve seen the finale and will be writing about it and the season at that time).

Similarly, I will probably keep the Walking Dead thoughts for a brief review of tonight’s episode (which I have not seen yet), and might wait to review Archer S1 when the DVD hits on December 28th (I was watching on Netflix); however, thoughts on Parenthood, “The Girl in the Fireplace,” and Community after the jump.

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November 9, 2010 · 12:59 am

Who is Conan‘s Conan?: A Personal Response to TBS’ Conan

Who is Conan‘s Conan?: A Personal Response

November 8th, 2010

Watching Conan was a bit of a bizarre experience. Admittedly, I am not a regular viewer of Late Night, but Conan O’ Brien is probably the host that I enjoy the most, and so I was curious (if not necessarily outright excited) for him to return to the airwaves. And so I tuned into TBS for the debut of his new series, a debut which stems from a ridiculous and controversial transition at NBC, and…it was a bit weird.

It’s especially weird coming out of a period where the idea of Conan O’Brien, which is frankly what I would call myself a fan of, was all we had: with just a Twitter feed to sustain us, the mythology of Conan in the “Team Coco” era actually seemed to get a bit out of control. Once a cult favorite among younger demographics, stuck at 12:30, Conan has become a national symbol of the downtrodden despite becoming filthy rich in the process. As a result, while I am glad that Conan is back on television, I no longer have that sense that he exists as a counter to the establishment, as an odd duck who does what Leno does with a subversive edge that sets him apart.

Instead, Conan’s difference has become a commodity, and the result is a premiere which relies so heavily on recent history that it obscures what precipitated his rise to folk heroism in such a way that boils his act down to the past year of his career.

Which results in a funny hour of late night television, but one which fits more comfortably into broader public discourse than Conan’s history would suggest. The following is not a judgment of the series, impossible since it has aired only a single episode, but an effort to understand why I responded to the premiere in this way.

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October 31, 2010 · 2:31 am

On Zombies: Community and The Walking Dead

On Zombies: Community and The Walking Dead

October 31st, 2010

I’ve already written enough about Halloween episodes (both in my review of The Office at The A.V. Club and in my piece on Halloween-themed TV episodes at Antenna) that writing a review of Community’s “Epidemiology” in that context seems like a waste of time. In fact, part of me feels as if it’s too late to really add anything new to the discourse.

However, having now watched the first two hours of AMC’s The Walking Dead – which premieres tonight at 10/9c with a special 90-minute opener – I think that I want to talk about zombies, and their function as genre. In a movie, zombies are easy: you introduce zombies, chaos ensues, heroes emerge, a conclusion is reached (which is either the heroes proving themselves capable of subsisting within a zombie-infested nation or the zombie outbreak being contained, presuming a happy ending is desired). Admittedly, I’ve only watched a handful of zombie movies thanks to being largely averse to suspense, but the point I want to get across here is that there’s a clear timeline. There is a situation, there is a conclusion, and you move on from there.

When you move this notion into television, however, you’re forced to live in that space, which is a problem that The Walking Dead will have to face should it join the rest of AMC’s lineup. Community, of course, is a very different situation, but it is nonetheless interesting to note that seriality plays a pretty substantial role in how their zombie story is told, and so I think tackling them both simultaneously will speak to some of the things which impressed me about Community and some of what concerns me about The Walking Dead.

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September 24, 2010 · 9:54 pm

Season Premiere: Community – “Anthropology 101”

“Anthropology 101”

September 23rd, 2010

In the interest of complete disclosure, I do not know if I was exactly “excited” for Community to begin its second season.

Mind you, I do think that if I had gotten a screener, I probably would have immediately popped it into my DVD player and consumed it. However, I feel as if I would have done so because I was expected to, not necessarily because I wanted to. This does not show a dislike or even a disinterest with the series, but rather the fact that Community’s first season was something I enjoyed, not something that I truly loved. The show is unquestionably funny, and there are individual episodes, moments, and characters that really stuck with me (and continue to make me laugh), but there was also something about the show which kept me at a distance.

When I would sit down to review the show, I would find myself in a self-aware state where I was writing to service the fan culture surrounding the series instead of actually writing what I was observing – this was no clearer than in “Contemporary American Poultry,” which I think is a brilliant piece of writing but which I did not “get” to the degree that others have thanks to my lack of experience with the source material. I am not one of those who is turned off by the level of pop cultural humour in the series, but I do think that its presence is part of why approaching the series critically has been somewhat of a challenge.

This is a long opening spiel to lead up to the fact that “Anthropology 101” was a cleverly organized premiere which successfully paid off the more traditional dramatic conflict created by last season’s (honestly unsatisfying) finale while indulging (or, perhaps more accurately, engaging) with the series’ signature referentiality, successfully kick-starting a season which will be an important test for the series.

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September 23, 2010 · 11:02 pm

The Office @ The A.V. Club – “Nepotism”

“Nepotism”

September 23rd, 2010

As discussed earlier this week, I’ll be covering The Office at The A.V. Club this season, and my thoughts on the season premiere, “Nepotism,” are now up.

The Office – “Nepotism” [The A.V. Club]

…I went into “Nepotism” more curious than expectant: this season is going to be fascinating whether it falls apart or whether it rises to the occasion, and as a critic either option works for me. It would certainly be convenient if the premiere were to answer this question definitively, but the show is clearly not interested in offering a clear path to Carell’s exit. Instead, the episode is like a restaurant sign reassuring customers that they are still open for business during construction: change may be coming, but the series’ commitment to outlandish comedy and charming characters remains.

And, for at least tonight’s premiere, it’s even in pretty solid form.

If you want to find my previous Office reviews here at Cultural Learnings, click here.

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September 23, 2010 · 2:55 pm

Review: NBC’s Outsourced Lives Down to the Anti-Hype

Review: NBC’s Outsourced

September 23rd, 2010

Considering how terrible Outsourced – debuting tonight at 9:30/8:30c on NBC – is, we need to ask ourselves the question: where did this go wrong?

While it awfulness perhaps pushes us to suggest that it was simply a terrible idea from the very beginning, I think there was comedy to be mined here. I think, for example, there is potential in the idea of setting a comedy within an Indian call center which deals with American customers, investigating how the Americanization of their workplace influences their cultural heritage. There’s also theoretical potential in looking at how an outsider struggles to adapt to Indian culture after being shipped there against his will.

Outsourced lives up to none of this potential, however, largely because there is not an ounce of depth within its characters or its narrative. It is, like Mid America Novelties itself, interested in novelty and little else, sacrificing any of the complexities of this situation in favour to getting down to what really matters: feces, broad stereotypes, and cultural imperialism.

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September 22, 2010 · 3:04 pm

Review: NBC’s Undercovers Can’t Hide from J.J. Abrams’ Reputation

“Pilot”

September 22nd, 2010

In the future, I think J.J. Abrams should operate under a pseudonym (or go undercover, if you prefer the pun).

If it were not for his presence, I think I’d be able to write a review saying that Undercovers (debuting tonight at 8/7c on NBC) is a show with a decent premise, a stylish pilot, and a strong cast; instead, all I want to do is talk about how none of what makes – or perhaps made – Abrams a distinctive voice in television seems to be present. The pilot has no sense of surprise and little sense of mystery, and yet because we associate these things with Abrams it feels like a disappointment even when, objectively speaking, this is an average pilot for an average premise, and Abrams was only a co-creator and co-writer (with Josh Reims).

And yet, we desire – and perhaps even demand – something beyond average, which is why Undercovers fails to resonate beyond its attractiveness.

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