TV Recommendation: Peacock's Killing It

Two broke Floridians, Craig (Craig Robinson) and Jillian (Claudia O’Doherty), team up for a contest to kill an invasive species of snakes. As the season goes on, the plot places its two protagonists within a web of the type of opportunist Floridian characters that originally showed up in Carl Hiassen or Dave Barry novels, and have now become meme-worthy.

Initially, the show seems like a pedestrian odd couple comedy with a standard hook, albeit one a bit squicky (fortunately, the serpentine death blows are mostly off screen). However, there’s a lot to appreciate with this show as the stakes increase.

Like “Superstore” or “Raising Hope”, the show aims to tell a story of the lower class, and does a superb job of translating the disparity between the haves and have-nots to solid comedy. Jillian, for instance, is an uber driver, task rabbit, snake killer, web cam star (she caters to perverts who want to watch her eat exotic foods), and rents out her cab for billboards while also helping control the snake population. In the premiere episode’s go-big-or-go-home comic set piece, Jillian tries to fulfill her Ubering and snake murdering duties at the same time while Craig is her passenger.

We also come to meet Brock (Scott MacArthur), who’s snake hunting is a side hustle to his main dream of getting YouTube famous in a Jackass sort of way.

The basis of crazy Florida stories is people getting creative in how they try to eke out a living, but perhaps there’s a deeper factor at play: These characters are painted into a corner and maybe that inequality is also the Florida way. A cursory look at the landscape when I’m in South Florida (half my family lives there) and my knowledge of the state’s tax structure, indicates a pretty individualistic society where capitalism reigns supreme.

Perhaps, the greatest strength of the series is how well the stars’ screen personas fit the story. Craig Robinson has always had a deadpan weariness that has been best exemplified in Judd Apatow comedies and “The Office” but takes it to the next level here. Despite being a little of a slacker, Daryl was someone to root for because the series splattered moments of the character’s thoughtfulness. This Craig Robinson is someone who you desperately want to give a hug.

The cleverest thing about Jillian is that she’s initially presented as so incompetent at life that she’d be classified by TV Tropes as The Load: A character that doesn’t provide any useful assets to their partners in crime like Carl Showalter in Fargo, Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars, Willie in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Buttercup in the Princess Bride, or Zaphod in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. She’s entirely unfocused on the task at hand and generally has terrible instincts. However, she comes to be a sympathetic character and even a useful person without ever appearing to fundamentally transform. A lot of it has to do with how O’Doherty simply shows us different sides of the same character.  

The baffling failure of Rutherford Falls

Once upon a time, Greg Daniels and his writer Mike Schur set out to adapt a show around a stubborn protagonist who lived in his own reality. That was Michael Scott and within six episodes, he was retooled into a more self-aware character. The show instantly became better when the character at its center was more empathic and relatable.

 

So why do they keep repeating the same mistake. Leslie Knope was nauseating in the first season of Parks and Recreation before they righted the shop and General Mark Naird suffers from much the same problem in the inaugural season of Space Force. Apparently, they haven’t learned their lesson with the character of Nathan Rutherford.  Played be Ed Helms, he’s a proprietor of a historical museum, a mayor (the kind that has no actual power), and descendant of a town’s first settler who is obsessed with his place in history. 

He’s seen as a harmless rube until a proposal comes up to move a statue of Rutherford’s namesake and town founder from a traffic circle where it is causing traffic accidents. When Nathan attempts to defend his position, he puts his foot in his mouth and shows an entitlement and privilege large enough to get him cancelled on an epic scale. Before one thing leads to another, Rutherford invokes the wrath of the local Native American tribe and gets his family embroiled in a law suit that tears through the town.

 

In an age where the country is sharply divided over the issue of whether any statues of white people should stand at all barring a demanding purity test, this seems like extremely risky territory to wade in to. It helps that the wide spectrum of attitudes of a statue (“I think they should make a statue about my grandmother instead”, “statues are boring”, “it’s a traffic hazard” etc.) beyond the typical “statues as symbols of hatred” are on display. But it’s an odd next project for as progressive a show runner as Michael Schur (who does enlist a Native American show-runner to be fair). I haven’t read any critics’ reviews but I watched the first episode thinking of all the ways that self-righteous bunch would be waiting to anoint this show with the Scarlett P (for “problematic”), even if the philosophy of the show hews more towards their values.

 
The show initially seems determined to make a strawman out of Rutherford—he’s exceedingly stubborn and so utterly resistant to change – that he’s basically what you’d get if Andy Bernard got educated by the Daughters of the Confederacy instead of Cornell. At the same time, the show is concurrently woke in almost every aspect outside of Nathan’s blindspot for protecting his heritage.  Nathan’s best friend is a Native American history obsessive and the two bond over shared history and he displays the appropriate sensitivity to microaggressions and intersectionality. When the two want to disqualify a white history fair candidate because he’s caught on tape using a patois, it’s the kind of societal overcorrection I wouldn’t be behind in real life but it might hit the social justice sweet spot for these viewers.

Similarly, Nathan’s intern/assistant/lackey is a Southeast Asian gay teen who he has a relationship based on mutual respect to the degree that doing drudge work for school credit isn’t considered exploitation for a high schooler of any race.

The problem again, is just the sheer oblivious of Nathan and the lack of character development until, perhaps, the last two episodes of the season.

This series dramatizes several issues like the value and profitability of nostalgia, how different oppressed peoples work together in the present, whether casinos are helpful or hurtful to Native tribes, if grievance is enough currency alone to accomplish objectives and more. These issues can spur thought-provoking conversations only if they involve characters that can be taken seriously.

The show has the potential to be better in the second season as things stand, but why take so long to set such elementary things into motion?

 

Six Observations from Rewatching First Two Seasons of “The Office”

The beauty of the Pam-Jim relationship is that Pam doesn’t comes across as more office hot than a bombshell. 

Whatever natural attractiveness she has (although admittedly this is subjective) is masked by an unattractive meekness. That Jim is into Pam is more about how he connects specifically with her than being a player who'll set his eyes on the most attractive girl in the Dunder-Mifflin office.

Jim might have been better cast as someone who's not as objectively good looking (he was, after all, a member of the handsome men’s club) but at the same time, Jon Krasinski played the part very well. As Krasinski started to accrue more good-looking girlfriends (Amy Adams I can buy, but then Rashida Jones?) the illusion that Jim wasn’t good with the ladies was broken a little.  

It’s likely deliberate that we know so little about Roy.

He plays into the stereotypes of blue collar workers and his language is a little blue but it’s not out of the question that he’s a more well-rounded individual if one were to look closer. We know that Roy gets along with Pam’s mom so he can’t be a complete rube.  

The sticking point here is that we see things from Jim's point of view and he's just the other guy. He might be a good guy for Pam, he might not, but it's not for Jim to know.

Holy crap, I forgot Michael Scott was a terrible person.

The writing staff had certain obligations to connect Michael Scott to David Brent so this could be considered a true spiritual spin-off. That included putting a pilot that was shot nearly line-for-line from the British pilot (a move that Greg Daniels would later regret). That episode includes the extremely thoughtless ruse of Michael Scott play firing Pam which crossed a line. Although the writers intended to gradually improve the character so that he’d have more longevity than David Brent (a man designed to be fired over the course of twelve episodes), they started from a pretty low point of awfulness. While it made good cringe-comedy, Michael was not just unsympathetic but just a terrible human being at first and I wouldn’t have blamed most viewers for quitting the show in the first season.

Even if the #metoo era hadn't come along, he should have been fired for the way he treats Pam and hits on Ryan (even if he isn't gay) and sends inappropriate content.  He also comes off as worse in today's era not just because of inappropriate behavior but he was a gaslighter before the term was coined. He denies truth whenever convenient and continually avoids responsibility for the things he says and promises.

Daryl is an undefined bully. 

 On two or three occasions in these two seasons, Darryl just tries to intimidate Michael physically which just made me plain uncomfortable.

In the basketball episode, it is somewhat justified considering Michael cheated but it also hints at a lack of definition in their relationship that no chain of command or authority is established between the two. When Michael gets back from vacation with Jan and Craig distributes pictures, there is no punishment. Michael is shown to be more lenient to people he thinks are “cool” but there’s almost no oversight between Michael and the warehouse and I’m chalking this up to a lack of world-building.

In a Season 2 episode where Darryl intimidates Michael to join a union, he comes off as worse, because he knows that Michael is weak-willed and wants to be popular and Darryl is consciously milking that weakness to get what he wants.

Toby is awful at his job

 
I would argue the biggest failure in Dunder-Mifflin is Toby. In “The Merger”, Michael repeatedly humiliates an overweight man, puts him in the uncomfortable position of explaining his grievances in front of a room full of colleagues, and then fires him after he clearly says he quit (more gaslighting). Toby is a witness to all this and does nothing. There’s also simply letting Michael’s alternative diversity sensitivity workshop to happen for more than 30 seconds or allowing Michael to talk about his relationships so publicly or give inappropriate awards at the Dundee’s multiple years in a row.

It’s understandable that Toby is too reticent to deal with Michael half the time because it paints his character well as a pushover but the early seasons needed a foil.  Occasionally, when Toby is on his game—Quite beautifully shooting down the idea of inviting boy scouts to casino night or confiscating inappropriate material in “Diwali”- the show is working much better as Michael has a substantive foil to react against.

The show does occasionally highlight being a leader is tough

It’s true that a lot of the disasters are Michael’s fault but he does get placed in a lot of unwinnable situations. In “The Alliance”, Oscar enlists him to donate to a fun run without properly informing him that his donation is per-mile and not a one-time fee. When Michael discovers the error, Oscar calls him distasteful for reneging on a pledge knowing full-well that Michael wants to look good in front of the cameras and that Oscar rushed the form in front of him. Nearly the exact same thing happens when Carol sells Michael an apartment as a condo with misleading information about whether he’s paying a one or a three-year mortgage.

In some instances, Michael just can’t win to start with. When Jan entrusts him to fire someone, it’s almost as if they want to torture him. Surely, they could just ask Michael for his feedback and make the trigger-pulling decision at the corporate level if they know that Michael doesn’t like firing people.

The perfect scenario is a mix of the two: In “Health Care” Michael makes the ill-fated decision to pass the buck on health care to Dwight (not a good choice), but as the employees’ demands on Dwight show, there’s no such thing as a health plan that would satisfy everyone.

"Special Correspondents" (2016) and Ricky Gervais's curious lowered bar in the filmic world

If there's one thing most people can agree on, it's that Ricky Gervais is a comic genius when it comes to making TV. The breadth of influence from his melancholy character creations on "The Office" and "Extras" has been seen all over the TV landscape.

What's curious is that a lot of this innovation is absent in Ricky Gervais's films. "Ghost Town", "Invention of Lying" and this film basically work through the age-old comic method of character and opposing concept like (off the top of my head) guy who wishes to grow up meets adulthood ("Big" or "13 on 30" in reverse), president wielding extraordinary power meets small-town politics ("Welcome to Mooseport"), thoughtless man with no appreciation for present meets eternal present ("Groundhog Day"), or powerless man meets eternal power ("Bruce Almighty") "Ghost Town" is a case of a guy who wishes to be left alone being forced to deal with the dead on top of the living people he wishes to avoid. "Invention of Lying" is a case of man without influence gets power over gullible society. "Special Correspondents" is a case of lazy news reporters meeting real news.

With the exception of "Invention of Lying" (which lends itself to home-run-hitting dialogue), none of these have the depth in their premise that could reach the same comic heights. As is, it's a decent film that works at the lower degree of difficulty set in by its script. The quieter moments of character development, though somewhat sitcom-llke, tend to work and the characters hit their notes.

Ricky Gervais is a news reporter who has accepted he's a schlub in life (much like his "Invention of Lying" character at the start) despite somehow managing to snag Vera Farminga as a wife. Gervais digs relatively deep although the tone of the supporting cast (Vera Farmiga is pretty arch, America Ferrera is "Latino comical" in a way that mirrors Sofia Vergara's "Modern Family" role) and the film's plot would pick a fight with any sense of pathos. Still, Gervais is likable and kind of sweet and his chemistry with love interest (though the two have an admirably platonic vibe).

Why Gervais is so stifled when he apparently has directorial control and is credited as a writer on these films is hard to figure out, but the film is what it is.

Don't hail Brooklyn Nine Nine as the future of comedy yet: Straight-Man-Funny Man Dichotomy

Brooklyn Nine Nine is starting to get a little bit of critical steam now that it won the Golden Globe for best comedy.

Erik Adams at the AV Club just posted an article: Brooklyn Nine-Nine isn't TV's best comedy---But It's Getting there. In an effort to stop the  critical Brooklyn Nine Nine train from turning into a massive bandwagon, I'm going to put my foot in the ring and caution other critics to praise it as the next big thing just yet. I previously included Brooklyn Nine Nine on my 2013 list of shows that didn't measure up and I'll expand upon it here.

First, let's talk about the Golden Globes:
Anyone who uses the Golden Globes as a barometer for critical temperature should note that the Hollywood Foreign Press is composed of some 90-odd part-time journalists who only have the illusion of importance. The only reason anyone pays attention to them is because they finangled their way to a TV deal with NBC in the early 1960's (a contract that was dropped from 1968-1972 when the FCC questioned their voting procedures). If they line up with other awards, it's largely coincidence if you look at it statistically and in the case that the Golden Globes does something idiosyncratic, it should be taken as a fluke.

The Golden Globe nominees in the comedy film category have included Patch Adams, There's Something About Mary, The Tourist, Alice in Wonderland (the Tim Burton version), Analyze This and Sydney Pollack's highly forgettable remake of Sabrina. No one else has followed suit in honoring any of those films and I suspect no one has even rented these films from Blockbuster..errr, I mean Netflix

Adams also points out that it's rare for a show to dominate critical buzz early, but it's worth pointing out that 30 Rock (which really was a juggernaut in its first season), Arrested Development, Modern Family all won in their first year of Emmys eligibility, and the Office won in its second season after a first season that was just six episodes.

Now, let's talk about Brooklyn Nine Nine:


The show makes sense from a dollars-and-sense perspective. Andy Samberg is pretty hot coming off a highly visible 7-year SNL run and Mike Schur (Brooklyn Nine Nine's co-creator) was able to custom-cater a hit smash to ex-SNL cast member Amy Poehler's comic persona with "Parks and Recreation."

The problem with trying to do the same for Andy Samberg is that Samberg was never a particularly capable live performer (a decent impressionist at times, I admit) and that capturing lightning in a bottle for Samberg would involve taking over a great deal of Samberg's highly off-beat wackiness with him. To try to  put Samberg into any sort of straight sitcom is problematic from the start.

On top of that, Schur chose to make Samberg a cop, and not just a cop, but a homicide detective. Why they picked the most clichéd setting in TV show history as a vehicle for a comic actor who no one would ever picture as a police detective is beyond me.

Samberg is wacky beyond compare here and lacks a straight man to balance him out.

A straight-funny man dichotomy requires someone grounded in reality which is ironic because Greg Daniels and Mike Schur's first two series (The Office and Parks and Recreation) were known for their hyper-reality.

Take the example of 30 Rock:
Liz Lemmon is the straight man to everyone except in episodes where Tina is going a little bit off the rails and then Pete Hornberger acts as her straight man. As evidence of this, in episodes that don't feature Liz's neuroses, Pete has noticeably less screen time.

30 Rock tends to isolate their demented characters (the ubervain Tracy/Jenna duo, the ubermoral country bumpkin Kenneth, and the ubersnob Jack) and play them off the straight man. That doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't plenty of Tracy/Kenneth interactions but it means that the form of bizarreness is happening in isolation. When Tracy and Jenna are being self-centered showbiz type, it's usually countered with a strong balance by Liz or Pete reacting to Tracy and Jenna as if they're behavior is bizarre. Similarly, Liz (especially in Season 1) is highly stressed out by Jack because he's a bizarre boss making bizarre requests (like that episode where he misleads her into thinking he needs a great joke that night because he's wearing a tuxedo) is another example of bizarreness in isolation played against a straight man. In short, the straight-man-funny-man dichotomy on 30 Rock is one of very sharp contrasts (from 3 different sources) which is used to good effect.

Back to Brooklyn Nine Nine:
In Brooklyn Nine Nine, we have one character acting really bizarrely for a police detective rather than having a sharp contrast between him and the rest of the world, various characters like Boyle cheering him on and adding one liners on top of the mix, and characters like Diaz and Santiago who  join in sometimes and are sometimes dismissive of him for being an immature man-child. Boyle, in particular, is troubled, because he occupies an odd middle ground between class clown wannabe, shy guy, and straight man.

In short, there isn't a good distinction between the clowns and the straight men in this cast. Andre Braughter's character, Ray Holt, is a very grave and stern man. He almost works but a straight man isn't about being gravely serious to the point that where your grave seriousness is a comic trait.
A straight man, rather, is about bouncing off the funny in a way that establishes a comic baseline. Even if Holt were a perfect foil, so many of the characters are wacky, that it doesn't work. If we were to take Holt seriously, he'd have fired well over half the staff by the third episode which runs into the problem that we'd no longer have a show. 

On top of that, we'd have Chelsea Peretti who's a brilliant cloud cuckoolander in that she's so bizarre but she doesn't mesh well with the rest of the cast. The upside is that Peretti would kill on any other show with that character and I look forward to seeing that happen if this show gets cancelled.

What's the net effect of this? Som might point out that even if there's not a good straight man, characters are still saying funny things and since we're all still laughing, isn't that the point of a comedy? I'd argue it renders any attempt at pathos or sentimentality ineffective because I'm taken out of the realism completely which keeps it from being a show who's characters I want to follow week in and week out.

Good bye to The Office but Not Yet

The Office is leaving the airwaves today and I'll try my best to be happy in a state of denial. I haven't watched the 30 Rock finale because, to me, if I haven't watched the end of a series, it technically hasn't happened. I will do the same  for The Office because I'm not ready to say goodbye to that show.

I first saw the British version in the Fall of 2004 when I had transferred to James Madison University as a junior and a suitemate showed me the DVDs. I instantly recognized it as a sharp piece of TV writing that could only exist in the world of British TV. Still at 12 episodes and a holiday special, it was a flash in the pan. Many might argue otherwise but I think that truly great TV coincides with longevity to some extent.

At this time, comedy on TV was in a little bit of a transitional wasteland as Frasier and Friends, the backbones of 90's comedy, had just concluded 10-year runs the past Spring and if you were female (or were unlucky enough to be romantically involved with a female who made you watch) you might also remember the Summer of 2004 as the year Sex and the City ended.

The two most popular shows left were Will and Grace and Everybody Loves Raymond. In other words, a nebbish sportswriter being bossed around by his adult parents and catty gay people (in comparison to Modern Family and Glee's more well-rounded portrayals of gays on TV)  were considered the two best options for entertainment. The next generation of shows like Entourage, Weeds and Curb Your Enthusiasm were starting to gain traction but were relegated to expensive pay-per-view channels. Arrested Development (aka the once and future savior of comedy television) was on but it was being aired at weird times (Friday nights) and it was actively being killed off by Fox. NBC clearly had so little optimism in the future of television that they're main push that Fall was the repackaged spin-off "Joey" and their only other show they had was a cheesy cartoon about lions called "Father of the Pride."

The biggest thing my friends watched was The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim which showed reruns of the newly cancelled shows Family Guy and Futurama. The biggest announcement of the year, in fact, was that that Family Guy was about to be resurrected because of it's Adult Swim popularity. Thus, the biggest TV news was a show being resurrected from the dead and not anything new.

One of the few shows I watched regularly during the 2004-2005 season was 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, not because it was novel but because it was one of the last remaining vestiges of the kind of family-oriented sitcoms I watched in my youth (plus who would have thought David Spade and James Garner would make a convincing comic duo)

When "The Office" premiered a few months later, my curiosity was piqued by Anchorman's scene-stealing Brick Tamland playing the Ricky Gervais role. The first season felt awkward, however, as Dwight was far more exaggerated than MacKenzie Crook's Garreth and Carrell's portrayal of Michael Scott came off as obnoxious. Michael Scott was wonderfully awkward but he was just too sad of a figure and the disconnect between him and The Office, who would generally shrug him off and snicker behind his back, was too great.

A couple moments showed promise and because it literally was one of the only halfway decent things on TV, I tuned into the second season the next fall. That's when something magical happened.

The plot of the second season premiere had Michael Scott giving the Dundee Awards at the local Chili's. Go back and watch the scene and it's cringe-inducingly awkward. Michael is telling jokes that no one's laughing at, he pisses off Stanley by announcing that the meals aren't comped, poor Ryan's feeling sexually harassed after winning the "sexy temp" award, Kelly isn't laughing (she would later be flanderized to be able to laugh at anything) at the inherent racism at being awarded the spicy curry award. In the first time anyone seriously stands up to Michael, Angela flat-out refuses to accept her  "the tight-ass" award, but the moment seems overly dramatic in context.

To make matters worse, Michael is getting heckled by bar patrons and some of the warehouse guys (including Pam's fiancee Roy) decide the awards are lame and take off. In a moment of poignantly sad self-awareness, Michael realizes when to hang them up and decides to prematurely end the ceremony before things get worse. He gives his last award and just when he's about to sit down in resignation, Pam feels for her boss (who she chastised for being a jerk in the pilot episode) and comes to his rescue. Maybe it's because she's inebriated or because she feels newly liberated from standing up to Roy, but she starts cheering Kevin and egging on Michael to give more awards. The crowd follows suit and even grumpy Stanley cracks a little joke when being awarded. Pam and Jim end the night exclaiming to the documentary crew that this was the best Dundees ever.

The Office had succeeded in being awkward but that was the first time, it succeeded at having heart. It showed Michael Scott had some meaning in the lives of his underlings and that would be the core of the show.  That was when I was hooked and, even as a busy college student, treated the show as must-see viewing each week.
 

The Office changed the way I and all of us viewed TV. Instead of analyzing the show, we would analyze the characters as if they were real people.When I wrote up this ranking of emotional intelligence of the Office characters in my early blog days and posted it to an IMDB message board, it was a subject of endless debate. We weren't debating whether the characters were written well but the actual characters and how well off they were. Psychology students said to me on more than one occasion that they liked to discuss the show's characters because they were so real.

The Office was also visceral. It wasn't just cringeworthy but physiologically affected you: My heart raced, I tensed up, I yelled at the screen, I jumped up and down in anticipation.

As I graduated college after the second season of the show, Dunder-Mifflin shaped my expectations for what I would hope for in a real world office setting. I was hoping for a place where you might be able to loosely call your coworkers your family.

When I got my first office job, I went out to lunch with my new coworkers on the first day and asked "Is this like the Office?" They reacted as if they'd heard that question before and immediately started joking about who would be Jim, who would be Kevin, who would be Dwight, and who would be Kelly Kapur (not the first or last time I've played this parlor game). One of the most welcoming signs that my new job would be at least partially grounded in my experiences watching the Dunder-Mifflin gang was that the head of the payroll had a Dwight Bobble Head doll on her desk.

Like any series, The Office has had its low and high points but I've never seen a show recover from the doldrums so well as when it gave us the Michael Scott Paper Company arc in the 5th season. At the time, Michael's leaps and bounds out of social awkwardness were getting smaller and less interesting, and if ever Michael did do something stupid, it felt somewhat cyclical and contrived because he had likely already made that same mistake before. That's when the show decided to push Michael down and hard out of his comfort zone by having him hastily quit his job and take Ryan and Pam with him. In a world lacking job security, Michael suddenly became relatable.

It was around this time that I started becoming disillusioned at the idea of the 9 to 5 job itself. I transitioned to part-time work and eventually become a freelancer (writing took off about a year later) in some form of other. Watching the Michael Scott Paper Company arc was a suddle reminder that the world needn't be constrained by the ideas of what a job was before I entered into the professional world.

Even in its blandest seasons (the Robert California one comes to mind), the show has always been capable of surprise which is why there was always good reason to keep watching after Michael Scott left. As film school rejects pointed out, the new developments this season as the Dunder-Mifflin staff learned about its fame made for good commentary about reality TV.
 
The internet and a number of major critics have been abuzz that The Office is not what it once was and its popularity has been greatly eclipsed by Parks and Recreations which has turned into somewhat of a critical darling. I'm thrilled that another Greg Daniels creation is finding an audience but I wouldn't call one ultimately better than the other.

Parks and Recreation and a number of great comedies have taken the airwaves at this point and many of them owe a debt to The Office. That doesn't make it easier to say goodbye to The Office. So enjoy the finale tonight, folks, I'm going to hold off a bit.  

Guest Star Update: The Office

It's time for another installment of guest stars. In this version, I will be looking at The Office. The way I do this is by looking at the cast lists from TVrage.com's printable version and writing down the name of every guest star that I recognize. Thus, it's a highly subjective list. An asterisk denotes a recurring role.

 

The Office:

Amy Adams*, Amy Ryan*, Amy Piitz, Armin Shimerman (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Conan O’Brian, Chip Esten (Whose Line Is it Anyway), Dan Castellenata (The Simpsons), David Koechner*, Georgia Engel, Idris Elba*, Jim Carrey, Jim Coleman, Joey Slotnick, Josh Groban, Kathy Bates*, Kevin McHale (Glee), Maura Tierney, Melora Hardin*, Nancy Walls*, Patrice O’Neal, Ray Romano, Ricky Gervais, Rob Huebel, Stephen Collins (7th Heaven), Tim Meadows, Timothy Olyphant, Warren Buffett, Will Arnett, Will Ferrell*, Zoe Jarman (The Mindy Project)

The Office has been relatively low key about guest stars in comparison to other NBC programs that previously anchored NBC’s Must See Thursday such Seinfeld, Friends, Will and Grace, and Frasier. Greg Daniel and Mike Schur have said in interviews that the show’s plan was to veer away from stunt casting in an effort to preserve the setting. A big name star, even if they weren’t playing themselves, would break the illusion that these people lived in a small town disconnected from the nation’s cultural centers. For instance,

the show was in talks with Carol Burnett to guest star in the fourth season but likely nixed the idea out of concerns that she was too famous.*

Perhaps, Conan O’Brian’s anti-climactic non-speaking cameo is a wink to this notion.

As Michael Scott is commenting on the greatness of New York, he doesn’t even notice Conan O’Brian walking by although its captured at the edge of the faux documentary shot.

In spite of this, the show has used bigger names in recurring roles (Kathy Bates, Amy Ryan, Timothy Olyphant and Irdis Ebra, and cast James Spader-initially a guest star) and they seemed to reverse course completely with a guest starring binge in the Season 7 finale with Warren Buffet, Ray Romano, James Spader, Jim Carrey, and Will Arnett all guesting as interviewees for the open position. It was also in this season that Will Ferrell was given a 3-episode arc that many found distracting. A possible explanation for this was network pressure being worried that the show would suffer upon Steve Carrell’s departure. Another possible explanation is that since they were all in the running to take over on the Office, the episode served as a proverbial test drive.

Before they were famous:

Kevin McHale-Artie on Glee showed us a nice functioning pair of legs when he played a pizza boy locked in the break room a couple years before he was cast on Glee.

Zoe Jarman-Jarman just got cast in “The Mindy Project” as a level-headed receptionist where Mindy works. She played a bubbly young missionary en route to Mexico in the “Christening”

Amy Adams-Although she had a scene-stealing role in Catch Me If You Can, it wasn’t until she got nominated for an Oscar for Junebug (an independent film few people saw) in early 2006 that she became a known commodity. Her Oscar nomination occurred on the same week as her last episode of the Office

Highlights:

Amy Ryan-One of the show’s greatest moments was when Ryan’s Holly Flax  reacted to Michael Scott’s awkward yoda impression with one of her own. It was then that we knew Holly was the ying to Michael’s yang and would root for the two of them to get together for the next three seasons.

Jim Coleman-Probably best known for his role on Heroes, Coleman plays a state senator who’s importance is inflated by wife Angela but taken at face value by everyone else. If that weren’t enough, a twist comes later that season when it’s revealed he’s gay. Being imbued with two jumping-off points for laughs makes him more well-rounded than some cast members.

Idris Elba-Elba’s Charles Miner really broke The Office out of its rut in Season 5 in the way that a great villain can breathe life into a superhero franchise. The Office’s tone veers toward realism but it skews a little towards the silly. Miner’s no-nonsense approach created a stark new contrast to not just Michael Scott but Dunder-Mifflin and the tone of the show in general. Without so much as cracking a smile, Miner established what seemed like a reign of terror although he’s probably not too far off from most workplace bosses.

Josh Groban-Maybe it’s just the novelty of seeing the opera singer do something different, but Groban was a lot of fun as Andy’s brother who can outsing him. Stephen Collins (pictured below) from 7^th Heaven played a variation of his dad-of-the-year role with some undertones of parental neglect.

Ricky Gervais-Since the show’s inception as a spin-off of the legendary British series, the original cast of the Office has been high on fan’s wish lists but the show has largely strayed away from any crossover between the universes of Dunder-Mifflin and Slough but in that anomaly of a seventh season, Gervais’ David Brent had a chance meeting with his American expy in the show’s cold open. It was largely inconsequential and blatantly pandering, but an undeniably fun couple of minutes.

Blink and you miss it:

Andy Daly-Ben Franklin in the bachelor party episode was played by stand-up comedian and Mad TV alum Andy Daly. In real life, Daly is a history buff and enjoyed improvising the scene with Rainn Wilson.

Patrice O’Neal-The late great comedian appeared as one of Daryl’s warehouse workers on three occasions.This is ironic because I actually thought that Daryl was played by Patrice O'Neal for a short while before Craig Robinson broke out in Judd Apatow's films.

Kevin McHale-As previously mentioned, Kevin McHale played the pizza delivery boy with an attitude who found himself locked in the Dunder-Mifflin conference room when he ticked off Michael Scott.

Playing GM of television: 2010-2011 Season

I saw this post by Andy Daglas the other day, in which he plays out a hypothetical scenario wherein he can trade TV characters from show to show as if he were a sports GM.
http://www.chicagonow.com/the-vast-wasteland/2011/12/hot-stove-tv/

1.    Sheila Shay (Ana Gasteyer) from Suburgatory to Revenge in exchange for Nolan Ross

Ana Gasteyer will fit right into the Hamptons and imbue the melodrama with a little bit of humor. Nolan Ross will move across the street in Sheila's place and give Tessa a more competent partner-in-crime than the overly affable Malick. Against the monotoned Dahlia and the Dahlia-like girls at her new school, Tessa needs all the help she can get.

2.      Tate (Evan Peters) from American Horror Story gets sent to In Treatment in exchange for Adele (Amy Ryan). Constance (Jessica Lange) gets loaned out.

Tate needs someone effective to help cure his problems. Ben (Dylan McDermott) clearly can’t do the trick and is secretly enabling Tate’s ghost-murdering ways. On Dr. Paul’s (Gabriel Bryne's) turf, Tate will finally get fixed and if you throw Constance in for a few guest spots, it’ll be a fun family session. 

In the meantime, Dr. Ben needs some help himself. The striking Adele will jump in and fix the damage and, yes, the two will probably either bang or have an emotional affair, but that's the best thing that can happen to him. His marriage to his wife is clearly in trouble. His first thought when his wife wanted to move because of possible ghost sightings was to throw her in an institutionalize her. 

 3.      Annie, Senor Chang, and Pierce get sent from Community to Glee in exchange for Sue Sylvester and Quinn Fabray (pre-wheelchair)

Abed and Troy need a more superficial and acerbic girl (possibly one who they might have more sexual tension with) to pal around with. With the temptation of Annie out of the way, Jeff doesn’t get the scarlett letter for bedding a barely legal coed, and Annie, as a peppy student assistant to Mr. Schu, gets better storylines to people closer her age. Plus, most of the guys will have crushes on her and the potential shipping combinations will be mind-boggling.

Meanwhile, Sue is getting tiring with her redundancy in trying to destroy the Glee club. As a pregnant P.E. teacher, she becomes the gang’s new nemesis, while Pierce boasts an attribute even deadlier than what Sue had: Crankiness. He won't even let Mr. Schu get through half a song without telling him to shut up, throwing some old-timey racist insult at one of his students, and boring them with stories. 

Lastly, Sr. Chang will be Michael’s crazy uncle who will have a Holly-Holliday-like 3-episode arc as Mr. Schu’s substitute upon a bad case of food poisoning. Chang gets fired once it’s discovered that he doesn’t have substitute teacher credentials but it will have been a fun ride.

4. 3-Way Trade: Jonothan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) of Bored to Death goes to Community, the rights to  John Goodman go to The Office, and Ryan Howard and Kevin Malone go to Bored to Death

Community needs a nerdy intellectual guy like Ames for a foil. A professor a few years younger then Jeff Winger who thinks he's six times smarter than him will irk Jeff. He'll also majorly crush on Britta and never ever get anywhere close to winning over her affections.

I don't want whatever character John Goodman plays to go over to The Office but just John Goodman and his comedic gifts and allow the Office writing staff the opportunity to mold a good character for him. I've never been in love with Goodman but I think with his bellowing, hefty frame, he could be a tough guy akin to Idris Elba's character and I could trust him to restrain the manic unpredictable energy that the writers have tried to infuse every manager with post-Michael Scott (Will Ferrell is an unusually bad example).

Lastly, maybe the only guy in the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin with a master's degree needs to figure out what to do with himself since he can't be a temp forever and still is too fearful of going to Thailand. So he moves to this hipster enclave of Brooklyn where people get him and works on writing a tell-all novel about his rise and fall from temp to CEO to temp again of the world's zaniest paper company. And the show goes all meta- because he will meet Steve Carell and Greg Daniels and try to persuade them to star in a TV show based on his book. Kevin Malone will also, by some coincidence too crazy for me to even come up with a plausible explanation for (although the Office writer's room will know how to handle this perfectly, transitions of power that make no sense seem to be their specialty lately), end up in Brooklyn too where he will reunite with long-lost brother Zach Galifianakis.

5. Twofer from 30 Rock gets traded to New Girl in exchange for Winston, Frank from 30 Rock gets traded to Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 in exchange for Eli

I'd hate to see Winston leave the gang, but realistically, the chemistry between the other three is strongest, and the fussy Twofer might bring in a little more of a clash with the other roommates. Can you imagine the hidden resentment a law school dropout like Nick would have for a guy with the command of the English language that Twofer has? Winston wouldn't be the complete antithesis of Tracy Jordan that Twofer was designed to be. He wouldn't be the polar opposite of Tracy, but he'd add a lot of life and personality to the 30 Rock writers room

Meanwhile, Frank was born to play the combination  tambourine-playing health-inspecting simultaneously-creepy-and-non-threatening guy next door that Eli currently inhabits and Eli is the perfect compliment to Jenna who needs a stalker on top of his game.

6. Free agent Josh (Lonny Ross) from 30 Rock gets picked up by Up All Night

I've only seen two episodes of Up All Night, but it's a show about a TV show and Josh and his sex addict of an agent need another crack at a television show, so Josh becomes faux-Oprah's sidekick

7. Howard and Raj get traded from Big Bang Theory to 2 Broke Girls in exchange for Oleg and Han Lee. Stuart will be signed to a full-season contract.

Two Broke Girls has two strong leads with two appalling secondary characters while Big Bang Theory has...er, well, basically the same thing, but what if we could take Howard and Raj and exchange them for walking stereotypes Oleg and Han-Lee. As Daglas pointed out when he made an almost idential trade, said, we need a Lenny and Squiggy for this Laverne and Shirley. I don't think Oleg, Han Lee, Howard or Raj combined could equal one Squiggy in terms of mating desirability, but Raj and Howard would be a massive improvement over Oleg and Han Lee. Raj would keep his mouth shut a lot more than Oleg, and Howard would come onto the girls plenty, but at least Max will know how to handle him. She'll probably punch his lights out, which is what Howard would need. The caveat, Howard has to break up with Bernadette (maybe temporarily).

In the meantime, Han Lee will put a face on the restaurant that the guys and Penny order their Chinese food every other night, while Oleg will serve as the pervy landlord super.

Because you'll need to round out the gang, comic book geek Stuart will return to school to get a higher degree and become a lab assistant and fill out the three's lunch table conversations.




 . 

A super-belated top 10 tv shows of 2011

Doing top ten lists in December is overrated. I half-worked on this in December, shelved it while working on a top 25 characters of the year. The lag in time has allowed me to make a better and more accurate list as I have a better idea which shows resonated with me in retrospect. This is true even if the show took a nose dive after the New Year as is the case with Parks and Recreation. Like any blogger who aspires to be a TV critic and doesn't possess superpowers to slow down time so he or she can watch everything, compromises had to be made in terms of what to watch and what not to watch. The pool of shows I selected this from is listed down below.

1. The Onion News Network, IFC, Seasons 1 and 2-Even though this is my #1 slot, I don’t have a whole lot to write here except that this is the program I was most blown away by week in and week out. I know it doesn’t score too many points for originality or risk as it is was basically an extension of their youtube channel, but that doesn’t mean the show’s not on the edge creatively. Both the first and second seasons came out this year and the show added a new level of complexity in the latter as the show became experimental and semi-serialized in the form of Brooke Alvarez’s rivalry with do-gooder news reporter Brady O’Shaw. Examples of episodic arcs included the broadcasting of the apocalypse, the computer becoming a sentient being and falling in love with Brooke, and the revealing that the icy Brooke was once a famous Russian cosmonaut as a baby. I imagine that in the same way hard core fans of The Daily Show and Colbert Report cling to those shows as a bastion of cutting edge satire, I see this as program as both the most funny and twistedly honest program on television. On second thought, maybe I do have a lot to write about it.     
2. Parks and Recreation, NBC, All of seasons 3, 1^st half of Season 4-No longer in the shadow of Office, Parks and Recreation has an incredibly strong cast that didn’t lose a beat with the arrival of Adam Scott as geeky outsider Ben Wyatt and Rob Lowe as hyperactive city manager Chris Traeger. The show hasn’t just created a strong sense of place and time, but it’s created an inviting one. Leslie Knope was originally an irritating opportunity for Amy Poehler to try out a leftover SNL impression. Now, she and her gang of government bureaucrats have become the best definition of a great ensemble: you see them less as actors and more as a group of friends we want to hang out with.

3.      Archer, FX, Season 2, 1^st 3 episodes of Season 3-The show isn't just another spy parody but a first-rate spy parody and a wacky office comedy to boot. The key to the show is that the characters are uniquely idiosyncratic creations rather than the means to and end for traditional parody.

More of my review can be found here

4. Hell on Wheels, AMC, Most of Season 1-The show is beautifully shot but doesn’t do the glamor of the West any favors. The railroad camps and the life of backbreaking labor is so hellish that only marked men would go there. The show interestingly contrasts that with two Irish brothers who think they can get a slice of the American dream with their picture show, a preacher who wants to open up a church, a whore with scars from her time as an Indian princess and a newly widowed fair-haired maiden who was told by another character that, not being a whore or Indian, she doesn’t beloing out there. It’s the traditional Western told through a lot of unique and diverse perspectives.  Note: In retrospect, I've learned that not a lot of other people liked this show because its inferior to Deadwood. I never saw Deadwood and proudly stand by it.

5.      Jimmy Kimmel Show-ABC-With his brilliant ambush of Jay Leno last year during the Late Night wars or his faux romance with Matt Damon among other things, Kimmel’s antics have made for viral sensations on quite a few occasions. Too bad only a few people know him as a consistent entity night in and night out. It’s ironic that he was previously known as the co-host of the unforgivably crude The Man Show, because I could argue that he's the classiest and most genuine host out there. Like Conan, he relies on a stable of cast and crew members as go-to sources of humor, but the difference is there’s a clear sense of affection that drives their interaction. This was most apparent in Kimmel’s teary-eyed TV eulogy to his Uncle Frank which marked a high-water mark of his series, if not Late Night Television. On top of that, he’s a pro at interviewing and a gifted comic. In short, a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant format.

6. Wilfred-FX-Season 1-It took me a couple episodes to get into this, but I loved it once I started seeing it as a drama rather than a gimmicky comedy. It has one of the most depressed characters on television, it doesn't treat his illness with kid gloves and it's a feel good story with no false moments which is a lot to say for a show with a talking dog in it. Read my review here.

7.      The Office-NBC-Back half of Season 7, front half of Season 8-In the post-Michael-Scott Era, The Office has provided easy fodder for Critics to show off their sophistication with analysis of just how and where the show fell from grace. I’ll happily take the opposite position and declare announcements of the show's demise to be premature. True, the show’s suffered at the top with Will Ferrell’s lacking in any identifiable characteristic and James Spader offering little to the mix other than creepy blankness, but come on, this is still The Office and the work of a writing staff that knows what it’s doing. As the Michael Scott storyline came to an end, the staff did an admirable job of steering the show through uncharted territory and twisted the storyline to revolve around Andy rather than Jim. Andy’s no force of nature like Michael Scott, but he’s a fully realized character and the writers haven’t betrayed his arc. The staff has also kept the momentum going with storylines and grown Daryl, Gabe, and Erin.

 8. Portlandia-IFC-Season 1-This sketch show’s backstory is almost as endearing as the show itself. It evolved around a platonic friendship between SNL star Fred Armisen and alt-rocker Carrie Bowenstein wanting to spend more time together and work on a project. Not only does the pair expertly skewer hipster culture, they help us articulate and define what it entails better than we would have ourselves had we never watched the show. A tangible chemistry between the two stars and a sketch show with a unique perspective are two good reasons for this show’s existence, which is two more than nearly every other sketch comedy on TV.

9. Once Upon a Time-ABC-First half of Season 1-Last year, I'm embarrassed to say, I somehow winded up with No Ordinary Family on my year-end list. I was a little bit too stubborn to get off that train and admit the horse I backed in the proverbial Fall Season derby was a dud. This year, I'm going to go with ABC's most ambitious production and again, I have a small fear that the show's reliance on a 10-year old to dictate the rules of its universe might wear a little thin. But at the end of the day, even if the show crashes and burns, it had a great opening run that set up the possibility of a great series. As hour-long entertainment, it's been solid and the show has gradually built up its world enough to arouse curiosity over what its future may bring. A full review can be found here.

10. American Dad-Fox-Front half of Season 7, Back half of Season 8-An under discussed animated entity, American Dad deserves mention for being consistently funny and inventive. Roger, that lovable extraterrestrial duex-es-machina, continues to lead the show in interesting directions signifying just how well the writer’s room has resisted the temptations to overextend his limitless personality. Unlike sister show, Family Guy, American Dad has distinctive characters which exist as more than just an excuse to get from point A to point B in the plot.

Honorable Mentions:

-It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-FX-A couple duds, but one of the most consistently hillarious shows on television over the last few years, deserves praise

-Mr. Sunshine, ABC-I thought Matt Perry had a fairly impressive hit on his hands and some of the side characters (particularly Nate Torrence, Allison Janney, and whomever played Heather the psycho seceretary) added a lot of color. Deserves more praise than it got. I think the score and some of its other tonal elements gave it a bad taste and I think Matt Perry's downer character wasn't necessarily appealing. I'm a fan of his type of comedy and would not have watched Friends for as long as it did.

-Terra Nova, FOX-I-Unlike Rowan Kaiser over at AV Club or James Ponziewichii P. (however you spell that guy's last name) at Time, I never thought this show took that big of a drop after its initial run. I can't deny it was exciting to see a universe with such wide open rules and I didn't see the cast.

-Sing-Off, NBC-A reality show with three great judges, a lot of great groups and an overall take-home message of synergy and harmony. Who know that you didn't need a British asshole and a dog-eat-dog environment to make a successful reality show? It might have made the top ten is I feel the show strained its format by running a couple episodes too long and I also felt the judging up to the final four was erratic.

-New Girl, Fox-Zooey Deschanel is ridiculous and implausibly weird. Even more surprisingly, I've slowly come to love her. She's so over the top and hammy, it's more of a send-up than a performance to be taken at face value. Schmidt started getting good storylines after the New Year which might have affected my rankings because it's now more of an ensemble comedy. 

-The Looney Tunes Show-Cartoon Network-Every time, I watch Looney Tunes reruns on TV, I've not only seen the skit before but I almost know the lines. In other words, I've been hungry for new Looney Tunes material for a while, so it's really good to see Bugs and Daffy back on the screen again. Then again, I wasn't expecting to see Bugs and Daffy cohabitating together in a household tackling mundane tasks like double dates, holding down a job, earning membership into a country club, being the star of a bowling league. Even worse, Yosemite Sam doesn't see Bugs and Daffy as hunting trophies, but roommates to mooch off of. Still, Kristen Wiig kills it as Lola and it does kind of make me happy to see Bugs and Daffy openly admit to being friends
-Revenge, ABC-A good twist on the high society soap opera: Having an infiltrator out to secretly destory everyone
-Web Therapy, Internet/Showtime-I did not expect to like this show because I'm not a Lisa Kudrow fan at all. This show was highly inventive in premise and execution and I was taken by surprise as its characters grew into an intertangled web with each other. Guest stars like Alan Cumming, Rashida Jones, Michael McDonald, Selma Blair and Molly Shannon all deserve great praise.


Just to let you all know what I saw this year:
2 Broke Girls, CBS, 2 and a Half Men, CBS, 30 Rock, NBC, Big Bang Theory, CBS, Bob's Burgers, Fox. Bored to Death, HBO, Burn Notice, USA, Community, NBC, Conan, TBS, Cougartown, ABC, Daily Show & Colbert Report, Comedy Central, Eastbound & Down, HBO (just one ep. but I hated it), Family Guy, FOX, Free Agents, NBC, Funny or Die Show, HBO, Futurama, NBC, Glee, Fox, Grimm, NBC, H8R, CW, Happy Endings, ABC, Ice Road Truckers, History Channel, In Plain Sight, USA, Last Man Standing, ABC, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC, Life and Times of Tim, HBO (or that might be 2010, not sure), Mad, Cartoon Network, Misfits, Hulu (Although the 3 episodes I saw were originally produced in 2009), Modern Family, ABC, Off the Map, ABC, Onion Sports Dome, Comedy Central, Outsourced, NBC, Pan Am, ABC, Playboy Club, NBC, Raising Hope, Fox, Retired at 35, TV Land, Ricky Gervais Show, HBO, Royal Pains, USA, Running Wilde, Fox, Saturday Night Live, NBC, S*$# my Dad Says, CBS, Sports Show with Norm McDonald, Comedy Central, Suburgatory, ABC; United States of Tara, Showtime, Waking Dead, AMC, Wipeout, ABC