Sitcoms Part 2...and some other stuff

Community, 8pm on NBC
I seem to be the odd man out compared to the rest of the internet this morning, but I did not think this was among the strongest episodes of this series.  I always love scenes where Abed tries to make everyone live life like a movie, so the slow-motion march to the space shuttle made me laugh, but there were only a couple of other big moments in the episode for me.  The best was probably Troy threatening to kill Annie, which was delivered with the same tone as the choloform scene from a couple of episodes, which was a series highlight.  And of course, the self-aware KFC advertising was pretty great, and well-established in NBC's wheelhouse.

30 Rock, 8:30pm on NBC
All I want to do is refer to last night's live episodes of 30 Rock as "much ballyhooed," but that is lame, and I am cool.  I was really impressed with the fact that the cast performed two live versions of the show, for the East Coast and West Coast broadcasts, and I have to say that watching the episode made me feel like I was part of a television event, which is not a mood that's easy to create in this post-TiVo world.  The pacing and camera work was weird, but this was a live staging of a show that we are not used to watching with an audience's laugh track, so no big deal there.  Chris Parnell seemed the most comfortable of the main cast members, but the highlight was definitely Jon Hamm, whose amorous hand (West Coast feed) had me laughing for a solid five minutes.  That he is so good at this kind of comedy, but is also Don Draper, makes me love him even more.  It was a very smartly written episode, and the live show within a live show added protection from any number of mishaps Tracy Morgan outbursts.  The way that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was used was perfect and clever (remember Tina Fey's Emmy speech?), and any reference to young hot Alec Baldwin is great.

The Office, 9pm on NBC
Just like the 'lip dub' cold open that kicked off the season, this episode was a great contribution to send off Steve Carrell.  Melora Hardin's brief scene made me desperately miss the time when she was a series regular, but I am definitely looking forward to Amy Ryan's upcoming guest-starring run.  While the Michael storyline was definitely the heart of the episode, I absolutely loved Andy getting to use his Cornell RA skills to teach his officemates about sexual health and acceptance.  He is so clearly someone whose happiness and power peaked in college, and it is so sad to watch that play out.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 10pm on FX
This was a great episode.  I love the battle between Team Dee/Dennis and Team Mac/Charlie, and it was great to finally have that battle distilled down to a class war.  Everything about Charlie thinking his jean cutoffs were not white trash, and Dee/Dennis/Frank at the public pool was hilarious.  The more absurd of a character Frank becomes, the more he adds to the mix.

Jersey Shore, 10pm on MTV
Well, it's happened.  Jersey Shore fatigue.  I will watch the season finale next week, but I can't see caring about these awful people for one more season.  "The Situation" in particular makes me want to jump off a cliff, but DJ Pauly D, Vinny, Ronni, and Sammi are only marginally better.  Now, if Snooki and J-WOWW were to get their own show, I could see watching that.

Grey's Anatomy, 9pm on ABC
This episode had actual admirable character development, which was a nice surprise.  And Dr. Altman was rapidly becoming one of my least favorite characters on the show, but at least she finally told off Dr. Avery for flirting with her.  Oh, Dr. Avery - or as I remember him, the Hotness Monster from Greek - so glad he finally had his shirt off.  Though really when do new doctors have the time to get so ripped?

Thursday night comedy rundown

Community, 8pm on NBC
This show was completely uninteresting to me when it began, but as I let the jokes wash over me it has grown into one of the funniest and most surprising shows on TV.  I could watch Troy and Abed for hours, and their scene where they got caught breaking into Rob Corddry's office was amazing.  One after another, I could not stop laughing when Annie chloroformed the bartender from Grey's Anatomy, Troy skipped over his body while in distress, they decided to pretend to have been chloroformed, Annie chloroformed him again, and then Troy stumbled over him while they ran away.  What a ridiculous and amazing scene.

30 Rock, 8:30pm on NBC
Taking a big step up in comedy from last week's season premiere, there were three majorly awesome running gags and a cameo by Paul Giamatti, so it was definitely an episode to remember.  While Liz's newfound attractiveness following from her being in a happy relationship led to great moments of Tina Fey acting the hyper-confident nerd in a KISS FM cowboy hat, I was a little surprised by how the character reacted to all the male attention.  Tracy on Cash Cab was the most perfect Slumdog Millionaire send-up, and followed from a great line: "He had two very good reasons for missing the births of his children: baking a french bread pizza, and forgot."  But Alec Baldwin's taped advice videos for his unborn son were the episode highlight, and I hope that more are released on the DVD.  "In school I was voted 'Most.'"

The Office, 9pm on NBC
The episode's cold open had me chuckling my face off for about ten minutes straight.  Any time Dwight's cousin Mose is on hand, it is usually awesome, and the supply closet daycare offered by the Schrute men was perfectly off-the-wall.  The ICP poster as decoration, with "Insane" and "Posse" crossed out was the best.  I didn't care for Pam's promotion stunt, but the Dwight Pretty Woman makeover was a fun diversion.  Scenes with Michael and Toby were excellent, and could have been played out more to add a little more weight to the relationship, and the upcoming departure of Michael Scott.  He's such an angry, sad man, and I'd like to see a little bit more of David Brent in him, even still.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 10pm on FX
Episodes where the gang does something completely stupid and unrelated to Paddy's tend to be my favorites, so them buying a decrepit houseboat with the intention of racing, shrimp fishing, and throwing P. Diddy -style parties, was perfect.  I loved the scenes of Dee dancing along with the inflatable green man, and Charlie going on about a "horse massacre from the revolution times" was pure Charlie.  Given the lingering disappointment about last week's rape joke on 30 Rock, it was particularly amazing for Dennis and Mac to repeatedly argue about implied consent on Always Sunny.  Mac is a terrible person, but even he recognizes that Dennis planning to force women to have sex with him because they're afraid of saying no is monstrous, and it was so satisfying to watch that conversation play out.

Jersey Shore, 10pm on MTV
This episode was lame and I'm glad Angelina's gone or whatever.

(Borrowed from a Videogum commenter)

NBC Thursday comedy block premieres

Premiere week brought us new episodes of The Office, 30 Rock, and Community last night, as well as the pilot of Outsourced, a holdover until Parks and Recreation's midseason return (so placed due to Amy Poehler's pregnancy).

Community, 8pm
This show premiered its second season in fine form last night, though it would have been impossible for anyone who didn't watch last year to really understand what was going on.  The meta-references worked really well for me, with a running gag about an "Old White Man Says" twitter page being a great dig at CBS' new show (update: this exists).  Also, my friend Bill pointed out that actor Don Glover wears a Spiderman t-shirt in his first scene in the episode, calling out to the online rallying there had been for his casting as Peter Parker.  I think this episode got a lot of the relationship mumbo-jumbo out of the way for now, which is excellent as no one cares nearly as much about it as we do about Abed and the other supporting characters.

30 Rock, 8:30pm
The season five premiere was a rather mediocre episode with a lot of awesome jokes, and one terrible one.  There was a lot of reliance on what the show does really well, which is make insider jokes about NBC Universal and the television writing process.  Also Matt Damon returned as Liz Lemon's long-distance pilot boyfriend, which was great.  Liz's boyfriends have probably been my favorite characters on the show, now that I think about it.  Judah Friedlander's lines got the most laughs out of me, but I can't help that "Would You Rather..." jokes are right up my alley.  A protracted visual rape joke regarding Pete and his wife was completely tasteless and out of place for what is usually such a smart show.  That was troubling.

The Office, 9pm
It's hard to believe that this show is at its seventh season.  Mark me as one of the fans that thinks this show should have wrapped up three seasons ago (the original Office's format should have taught us all a lesson in success), but this was as solid of an episode as we've gotten for the past couple of years.  The "lip dub" cold open, in which the office mates attempted to create a single-take viral video, was a fun and sweet way to kick off Steve Carrell's last season.  It had a little bit of everything we love about each character.  Now that the wedding/baby storylines are out of the way for Jim and Pam, it seems like they might be back to the sweet hijinks of season two, and Dwight was as good as ever.  Mindy Kaling - who should shine even more on this show than she already does, because she's amazing - had a great arc as new super-smart Kelly.  My favorite line of the night went to bit player Evan Peters, as Michael's nephew Luke, who said, "I love cinema.  My favorite movies are Citizen Kane and The Boondock Saints."

Outsourced, 9:30pm
UGH.  This is a show which wants to pretend that it's in on the joke, making fun of American excess and perceived cultural ignorance, but in reality it was just pandering to the lowest common denominator.  I thought of a summer show I loved, ABC Family's Huge, in which people underrepresented on scripted television were given a show where their characters had depth and were compelling, and their difference to what we usually see on TV was not lampooned.  On Outsourced, dozens of actors of South Asian descent participate in a trite run-through of almost every stereotype someone could think of.  No thank you.

it's been swedish...i mean, sweet-ish

As a very meager attempt to atone for how remiss I've been at posting these past few months, I just wanted to post an abbreviated review of this past season of TV shows that I've been watching. I haven't been able to follow all of them as religiously as I usually try to, but it's been an interesting post-strike stretch of episodes, that's for sure.

Gossip Girl (The CW)
Sometime between telling my then-uninitiated roommate that gossip girl "isn't a character, it's an entity," and haranguing Josh Schwartz on the picket lines about Rufus' backstory, Gossip Girl became one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Sadly, The CW stopped making the episodes available online, as it was more popular as digital media than its Nielsen ratings would indicate. So I've missed about three installments of the first season, which I lament more than you can know. However, Serena's juicy backstory reveal (I CALLED IT ALL ALONG!)*, the entanglement between Lily and Rufus, and for the love of god Blair and Chuck, all of these elements have come together in a show that is actually titillating and still makes me laugh. When a friend recently asked a carload of GG-obsessed girls what the big deal was, I think we held court talking about it for about 45 minutes. Choicest dialogue (paraphrasing):
(Serena is embarassed to tell her friends about her secret shame)
Nate: We've all done things we're ashamed of, Serena. I had sex with you!
Blair: (indicating Chuck) I had sex with him in the back of a limo. Twice!
Chuck: (pause) I'm Chuck Bass.

30 Rock (NBC)
This second season of Tina Fey's pet project managed to be even funnier and more ridiculous than the first, and has really become one of the smartest shows on the networks. In one recent episode alone, they managed to reference both the uncanny valley and the Mozart-Salieri conflict. The season finale ended on a couple of cliffhangers, which is a useful tool for a sitcom, as proven by The Office, but one of them was about Liz Lemon planning to have a baby, by hook or by crook. I've put the brakes on my eyes rolling, but just until proven wrong about season three having "buy Baby Mama on DVD Tuesday" tie-ins every five minutes.

The Office (NBC)
Bluntly put: while remaining one of the funniest shows on American television, the fourth season signalled a decline in quality that is troubling for fans. Jim and Pam seem cemented in their relationship, which moves their romance from the A storyline, but I could see the show breaking them up at some point, just to drag things out and elicit groans from everybody. Michael and Jan had reached a peak of awkwardness - so we thought - until the season finale shocker. There have been some unusual changes in Michael's character, whereby he seems to swing from lovable buffoon Michael Scott to harmful idiot David Brent tendencies, and I don't think that makes it easy for the audience to side with him. (Did the show jump the shark when Michael drove his car into a lake?) Ryan as a cokehead with no business ethics is no surprise, but seems like more of a gag than a character arc to tug at our heartstrings. The Dwight-Angela-Andy triangle, then, seems to be the most compelling storyline, but without a little more insight into Angela's state of mind, I don't know where to stand on that. If showrunner Greg Daniels is devoting time to both The Office and its unnamed spinoff next season, then I forsee bad things happening to the show. I stopped watching Alias when J.J. started working on LOST (though, thank god, because LOST is so much better!)**, I stopped watching Grey's Anatomy when Shonda started Private Practice (also when Izzie and George got ridiculous), and I hope I won't have to do the same for The Office.

Other shows, like Grey's Anatomy and America's Next Top Model, I have basically stopped watching. I've checked in on ANTM from time to time, and was very happy to see this season's winner be a plus sized model, but Tyra is so obnoxious that I can barely stand the clips of her they show on E!'s The Soup. I do watch Ugly Betty and LOST, but the latter's season finale hasn't aired yet so I'm reserving a post to discuss it then, and I'm in the midst of catching up with the last few episodes of Betty online before I do the same.

* (SPOILER) Really, anything too dark for her to tell Blair about in the first place had to be murder. But the show would never want our heroine to be so unrelatable, so I knew it would be either someone-was-going-to-be-sexually-assaulted OR Serena-was-a-party-to-an-accidental-drug-overdose. Imagine my surprise when it was both! (END SPOILER)

** To be fair, I started watching LOST on DVD two years ago, and only started watching Alias on DVD two months ago. But when I got to the season 4 Alias DVDs, which is the point in the show which aired concurrently with season 1 of LOST, I stopped caring about Sydney Bristow and stopped watching.

season premieres!

It is far past time for me to organize my thoughts about this season's new and returning offerings of primetime TV! So far, the one show that seems to have found itself on the cutting block is ANTM, which I just haven't been able to find the time for. The great thing about that show is that it has two "cycles" each season, so I don't have to wait a whole year to catch a new crop of skinny bitches. Also, I have to wait until February for more LOST, but at least there won't be a mid-season hiatus this time around.

Heroes
Mondays at 9pm on NBC
So far, I have been greatly impressed by the reintroduction to the Heroes-verse. Unfortunately, there was about a month last season when I really had trouble keeping interested in some of the show's many plotlines, so I feel like I keep missing out on some backstory now and again, but I feel like I'll catch up. As far as the Nakamura family is concerned, I'm sad to see George Takei go, but I am thrilled with the interaction between Hiro and Takezo Kensei. Not only does it reinforce how amazing of a hero Hiro really is, but it's nice to get a totally different perspective on the super powers. As far as Peter Petrelli is concerned, I like how much of a total badass he is, but I hope they just don't make him omnipotent and take the humanity out of him. That said, he looks a lot hotter this season. Claire is getting less annoying now that she's not a cheerleader any more, but I have to wonder how far they are going to take her abilities.

I Love New York 2
Mondays at 9pm on Vh1
So, my dear friend Evan and I became obsessed with Tiffany Patterson's search for love on the first season of I Love New York, and were sad to see that she didn't find it with Tango (personally, I think Mr. Boston would have been her best shot). So of course we more than eagerly tuned in to see the premiere of this second season. So far, it looks promising - plenty of fame-hungry 'mos looking for a shot to hook up with the living Bratz doll that has been on Flav. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Tiffany is great. I just think it's funny how these guys claim they've been in love with her ever since they tuned in to Flavor of Love for the first time. So far, no particular standout suitors, but I really hope Vh1's lawyers get Sister Patterson to stop being so hateful to self-named "Midget Mac."

Pushing Daisies
Wednesdays at 8pm on ABC
I'd heard good things about this show, which had gotten some buzz in recent months, but the advertising and word-of-mouth never really stuck with me. On a whim, I watched the pilot on abc.com last week, and became totally smitten! Lee Pace, from the late, great series Wonderfalls, and the beautiful Anna Friel (see The Land Girls if you ever get a chance) have extremely charming chemistry, made sweeter by the fact that they cannot touch. The character interactions are reminiscent of those on Dead Like Me, though there is less cynicism, and the show is so well-produced that it is like watching a high-budget movie fairy tale each week. Always a gem, Kristin Chenoweth is able to be physically comic and sing on the show, which I am very grateful for!

30 Rock
Thursdays at 8:30pm on NBC
The first two episodes of the season thus far have not been as hilarious as much of last season was, but I fully expect that the show will start delivering in a few weeks. It took me a few episodes to really get into the show when I started watching, and I'm sure it just needs to get back into the swing of things. That said, there have already been a couple of jokes which keep me giggling at inappropriate moments ("Oh no! Did a Korean person die?" and "Boys becoming men; men becoming wolves!"), and I just hope that the show doesn't start to rely on cameos and fat jokes for season two.



The Office
Thursdays at 9pm on NBC
With one major exception, I have been pleasantly surprised by everything that season four of this show has given its viewers. At first, I was really worried that a premature resolution of the Jim/Pam storyline would siphon all of the magic out of the show, but so far that hasn't happened. The Dwangela storyline seems to be filling its shoes quite nicely, and I look forward to Angela's character being given more room to breathe. The first four episodes of this season are hour-long, and so far that has worked sometimes, but last night's episode felt stretched too thin. The main problem I'm having with this season is that Michael's character has changed from a well-meaning idiot to a completely unrealistic buffoon. I can't really sympathize with him anymore because the things he does seem to be stupid for stupid's sake, like driving into a lake. It's almost Brentian. Hopefully things right themselves, because my impulse purchase of the first three seasons on DVD really made me fall even more in love with the show.

Grey's Anatomy
Thursdays at 9pm on ABC
Nah, not really. I hate to say it, but this show has really lost a lot of its charm. I couldn't justify spending the money on the season 3 DVDs because of the sour turn that the show took during the second half of the season, and so far season 4 has yet to draw me back in. I've decided that The Office gets my viewership on Thursday nights, and I will watch Grey's online when I have time, in the hopes that the writers can find a way to get back on the right track, but at this point I really don't even care what happens to the characters. I wish I could be as gung-ho about this show as I was for seasons 1 and 2, especially as a minority female hoping to become a writer someday, but it has gotten...boring. Characters making too many stupid mistakes and not getting out of their ruts is just...not doing it for me.

So, hopefully I'll have a chance to catch up on ANTM, Private Practice, and Gossip Girl (which I'm sure I'd love), but as I'm writing a first-semester thesis, that just doesn't seem too likely. Fingers crossed!

~Kat

boob tube

Being a student at a pretty rowdy party school, I go out fairly often, and though Thursday is generally a very busy night, I didn't feel like putting in the effort yesterday. However, I wasn't abandoning a big party on the penultimate weekend before finals because I was planning on studying or something (pshaw)...it was primarily because I had a date with my television. A few yards away from my dorm, girls were wrestling in jello with little people who'd been hired for the occasion (I shit you not - disgusting), while I curled up in bed with primetime.

Some may scoff at the third parent of America's children, but I think television's value is ineffable. So without even attempting to explain why I carve so much time out of my schedule to watch tune in, here's a brief overview of my must-see TV shows. One small disclaimer - there are quite a few quality TV shows on cable, but I just don't have that at college. Some, like Showtime's Dexter, I find a way to watch "on demand" when visiting my parents' house, but for the most part, my cable TV viewing is on hiatus until I move out of the dorms.

HEROES
Mondays at 9pm on NBC
My appreciation for this show could be described as sinusoidal. I started watching it because it had gotten so much hype, and at first I was unimpressed. The first few episodes, however, got me telling people about how it was at least much better than most of the crap that gets picked up for networks nowadays, and isn't that really the best endorsement a fledgling series can get? As the season went on, I got more and more hooked. Some of the characters, like Hiro and Claire and Matt, are pretty interesting. Hiro, of course, is the most original, but those three capture my attention far more than the others. Peter's powers are, frankly, bitchin', but as a character he's kind of boring. Then there's someone like Niki/Jessica whose storyline has taken too long to be explained, and as such I lost interest in figuring her out or paying much attention after a few episodes. In terms of the storyline, though, Heroes wins at creating suspense and adrenaline for a series which, at first, stole too much from X-Men to be that exciting. At times there are a few too many things going on and an episode will thin out too much, but there is almost always a great cliffhanger at the end of each one, and it keeps me tuning in every week! The mid-season hiatus isn't something I'm pleased about when it comes to a show's first season, however, and I admit I've been a little forgetful by the time these last couple of episodes have aired, but I look forward to the new developments of season two.

America's Next Top Model
Wednesdays at 8pm on The CW
When ANTM came out, I never would have expected to want to see it once, let alone weekly, year after year. I started watching about halfway through Cycle 2, then forgot about it for a couple of years. But Yoanna's great face, and Shandi's boyfriend drama were better than a lot of scripted TV (yeah, I get that "reality" TV is as scripted as anything else, but I plan to devote a whole post to that eventually...). When I got to college, I finally had less homework and more free time, eventually found a group of Top Model Enthusiasts, and I am more than glad to have reentered their ranks. You see...the "skinny bitches show," as my dad calls it, is completely addictive. Though I generally couldn't care less about the modeling industry, somehow this show sucks me in. I can't really explain it. I went to all girls' school for nine years, so you'd think I'd have had my fill of girl-drama, but these hungry women make me nostalgic, I guess. And when the judges critique their posing or walking, I just eat it up. "Oh yeah," I'll say, "she needs to be a lot more fierce. She's hiding her neck, and has dead eyes." Perhaps it's because I'm waaaay too short to ever entertain the possibility of modeling, but I get such a feral kick out of criticizing these poor girls. I think if I were a fashion photographer and a model was being too timid on set, I'd pull out a conch and yell, "Sucks to your ass-mar!" Perhaps most importantly, though, I really don't like Tyra Banks. I am far too tired of the girls squealing every time they see her, I hate how "helpful" she is all the time, and 75% of the time she makes herself look like shit even though she's gorgeous. I love this show in spite of Tyra. That's a pretty big deal.

LOST
Wednesdays at 10pm on ABC
Last summer I rented season 1 of this show, in the wake of The Lost Experience, which made me feel as if I'd missed out. Having been in some sort of bubble, I really didn't know what to expect at all. But I specifically remember being completely surprised by the tense mood that the pilot put me in. It was pretty damn cool. I ate up the entire season on DVD, and spent way too many hours during my boring summer office job scouring the internet for LOST theories, explanations, and recaps. Season 2 came out on DVD right before the premiere of season 3, and it was a very tense race to the finish line for me, but thank god I made it. Season 2 was really spectacular, and though the current season has not exceeded it in suspense, I don't think it's gone that far downhill. The only characters I actually care about are Hurley, Jin, Sun, and Sawyer, but dammit I want to know the WHY of the island! This is where the show's creators really did it right. They had a good formula with flashbacks, and a good concept, but in the first few episodes they set up a system whereby they can always keep the audience waiting for answers. And I will keep watching until it gets explained. For the record, the episodes since the mid-season hiatus this year have been far superior to the first few of the season (barring the excellent premiere).

The Office
Thursdays at 8:30pm on NBC
For far too long, I was determined to dislike this show. Mostly, the advertising just never drew me in, and I have too many traces of Anglophilia holding over from my days as a teenage Janeite to want to buy into the Americanization of what I'd heard to be superb British comedy. So, I set some time aside within one of my favorite pastimes - watching whole seasons of TV shows on DVD in one or two sittings - to watch the entire UK version, followed by the first two seasons of the US show, which were available on DVD at the time. By the end of the Christmas special of the UK version, tears of joy in my eyes, my resolve to hate the US version was firmly in place. What Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Martin Freeman, Lucy Davis, and Mackenzie Crook did was magical. And I can still watch the show on DVD over and over again and be entertained. Then I watched season one of the US version, and was disgusted. Frankly, I still feel like the first season is entirely not worth watching for fans of the original. I've come to realize this is because the humor and energy of the writers and actors was being stifled by their unreasonable attempt to poorly imitate the dry genius of their predecessors. Seasons 2 and 3, however, have completely won my respect and admiration. I feel that the actors have finally been given an opportunity to breathe life into their quirky characters, and I am very glad that Steve Carell is not in a show that I at first thought was below him. There is only one thing about this new iteration of the WernhamDunder-HoggMifflin universe that irks me, which is that the pacing of the original is incompatible with the US version's desire to stay on as long as is financially possible. Let's face it - Tim and Dawn only worked as a couple because we had to wait until the last possible moment for them to get together. The Jim and Pam relationship has already gotten stagnant and recycled too many times, and I just hope the show doesn't go too far, too fast.

Grey's Anatomy
Thursdays at 9pm on ABC
This was another show that I didn't watch during its time slot until having rented the first two seasons on DVD. To be honest, I don't have too much to say about this show's substance. I think Shonda Rimes & co. do a fantastic job of unrealistically witty banter that women love, and I'm okay with buying into it. I got obsessed with this show as soon as I started watching it, and it's nice to have a show which has made me cry (heart-wrenching medical emergencies), laugh (oh, that droll Cristina Yang!), and think (ew, I hope I'm not too much like Meredith). Plus, there's a ton of hot hot hotties on it. I suppose on a slightly deeper level, I appreciate the show's treatment of multiracial coupling and families - not making a big deal or very special episode out of a Jewish Korean-American dating an African-American, or portraying a Hispanic woman as being the more powerful, wealthy, and intelligent in her marriage with a white man. I attribute this to the impressive diversity among the writing team, and as an aspiring screenwriter myself, it's nice to see a minority female doing so well in this field. I know the blind casting on this show is unrealistic, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a show like this. Also, Sara Ramirez, Katherine Heigl, and Kate Walsh are just goooorgeous. I'd watch them sitting around making quilts for an hour... I mean, come on!

30 Rock
Thursdays at 9pm on NBC
I only just started watching the episodes of this show which were on the network's website, so I can't really say anything comprehensive, except that the absurdist comedy works so perfectly to balance the outlandishness of the Tracy Jordan and Jack Donaghy characters with the awkward realism of Liz Lemon. I am very much looking forward to watching the whole 1st season on DVD, as I've had to relegate my viewership to catching up online as a result of my previously existing appointment with Grey's. Also, it's nice to have a Tracy Morgan fix that isn't watching Brian Fellow clips on the internet. For the record, Tina Fey is also my idol. She's funnier than I could hope to be, and she champions hotness for bespectacled brunettes everywhere!
ETA: Since the season finale, NBC has put the entire series of 30 Rock online. I totally watched the whole thing when I was procrastinating, and I recommend it as a way to put off doing anything useful!