Photos
Well would you look at that, The Office wins the night! In your face, other highly enjoyable and definitively successful big-budget major network comedy shows!!! The only loser of the night was Community. That’s OK. Community is great. One of the best. And hats off, I’m sure, to them for being very ambitious in a Thursday night sitcom. But last night’s episode just didn’t work, at least for me. It felt bloated and unfunny and super unrealistic in a way that goes well beyond the obvious unrealism of a big-budget major network comedy show that is itself a weekly meta-commentary on big-budget major network comedy shows. 30 Rock was great last night in a lot of ways, and I think that Jack’s line about how he experienced erectile dysfunction when he was sleeping with Greta Van Sustern “before her head transplant surgery” is probably the funniest thing I have heard on television so far this season. Maybe because I feel like I have made jokes about head transplant surgery? 30 Rock is not a witch. 30 Rock is me. And we all know how much we all love to the same degree a good joke about a short-con. And if the joke evolves into a joke about a long-con, even better. And if that joke about a long-con involves Kelsey Grammer, EVEN MORE EVEN BETTER. But it’s a classic rule of entertainment that in the rock, paper, scissors of TV, Timothy Olyphant crushes EVERYTHING. “No, that’s a male model.” Perfect. Do you guys ever sit around for hours thinking how unfair it is that the second season of Justified doesn’t start until February? “But that’s one of the best shows on TV, so I want to watch it now, not later. Are you there, God, it’s me, GRUMPY!” Agreed.
As a sidenote, I haven’t watched Outsourced since the premiere. Is it still horrifyingly racist trash? Cool. CHIT CHAT TIME!
 |
 |
Perhaps my favorite line of the night:
“I need to get to the airport but I can’t get a cab because Greece is playing Pakistan in soccer.”
- Liz Lemon
My favorite line also came from Liz Lemon:
“If I could push a button and five people in the world would die, but I’d get free cable for life, I’d do it.”
Liz Lemon gets me so well.
After the series of flashbacks showing things that Liz wasn’t shy about talking about, there was an awkward pause in the TeacherFriday household. “Not. A. Word.” I warned him.
#mylifeislizlemon
My favorite non Liz Lemon line goes to Dwight
“that’s the biggest penis I’ve ever seen, that’s why I took you to the penis museum where tickets cost $1000″
My favorite has to be:
“This isn’t a construction site or all of Italy where you just go around treating people like meat!” – Michael Scott
with “I find you absolutely ribbet-ing!” – Darell
You’re Liz Lemon, damnit. In certain lights, you’re an 8. Using East Coast-over-35 standards. Excluding Miami
Definitely one of my favorite moments ever in 30 Rock. I ‘ship Lack.
I just want it to be known that thisismynightmare CONFIRMED that she would indeed kill of 5 people if she got free cable for life, even if one of those 5 were me. But only if it included DVR. imsonotexcited.
DVR and movie channels!
At least my life hasn’t been discounted to the likes of basic cable.
Just want to say I just got your username/avy combo so in addition to the upvote you received for your your comment I want to upvote you for referencing one of my favorite thing
Everyone loves a dance hit by Hot Sundae!
Judging by Community’s anthropology class, it looks like I’m going to have to start auditing Videogum.
As someone with an Anthropology degree, let me just say that in hindsight my time would have been better spent watching Youtube videos than learning about rites of passage and bones. Alas, it was the 90′s and Youtube didn’t exist yet.
Autotune God of Farts!
Concert Addict,
I have a 30 Rock gif request for the Best Friends Gang toasting each other.
I love you always,
Thisismynighmare
I’ll find it.. Here’s one to tide you over till then:
While I think she actually said “first gray knuckle hair,” I like the idea of “first grade knuckle hair” even more.
Here it is in non-gif form at least
What about the Kelsey and Jenna preparing to beat Kenneth out of the best friends club? Classic.
I seem to have failed.
You still earned a Bappy Hirthday Gremlin cake in my eye concert_addict
Bappy Hirthday Gremlin is what I will post on all of the Facebook walls on bdays.
I still love you!
I had to move out of Florida because of all the damn Hipsters.
Sorry Gabe, I’m a diehard Office fan, but it was nowhere near 30 Rock last night…I think my love of The Office will flame out soon, if the quality doesn’t improve.
Best Friends Club for LIFE!!! I never knew Frasier could make me laugh- that was one of the best, irreverent subplots they’ve had.
Dina Lohan=owned!
I hope she takes Lindsay’s lead and sues for $100 million!
Sorry sorry sorry, Best Friends GANG! Typos, blerg
i recently quit the office – didn’t even finish last season. i dont really know why. sometimes you just have to flush the goldfish i guess. but all this talk makes me thing that i pre-maturely flushed it, and i should watch it swimming around in the sewers before it mutates and kills me.
so, should i?
You could always take that half hour to read a chapter of a book or build a ship in a bottle?
the office just confused me. like the season finale of madmen, i wasn’t sure what was real. Like why were they Dunder Mifflin again? What happened to Sabre? Don’t they sell printers now? I was waiting to see if Erin and Gabe were on the show, to see if it was supposed to be in the past. But no, Jim and Pam had a baby, Dwight owned the building, Daryl had an office. It was like a Lost multiverse thing. I found it so distracting.
It’s meta because that’s the way I felt throughout the entire episode.
Childish Gambino!
ALWAYS
I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I’m excited that it had the word “we” in it!
Was last night’s episode of Community (which was one of the only duds that show has ever had) feature less Jeff than any other episode in its short history? I felt like he was on screen for about 2 minutes.
How can you call Community a loser?
This is probs one of my favourite Community episodes ever. Though I understand what your saying, I guess.
Charlie Kaufman references Abed’s world folding in on itself, the cute ongoing gag with Brita and Jeff as mom and dad, c’mon!
who’s with me?
they didn’t SHOW or parody anything charlie kaufman-esque they just talked about how they did. and it made little to no sense. a rare and severe miss from my favorite show of the thursday night line up.
I know but I felt like they were parodying our post-post modern world and how we are drowning in complexity, self-referentiality and a need to be seen as original. Charlie Kaufman is part of that, so is Inception for example (no offence to either of those of course).
I thought the fact that there was nothing really Charlie Kaufman-esque about Abed’s movie was part of the gag. Charlie Kaufman is just everyone’s example of an arty filmmaker, a name people throw out to feel smart. If Abed’s film had been Kaufman-esque then it wouldn’t have been such a huge piece of shit.
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
BONK! Do not pass Go!
I am with you! I thought it was awesome, so well-done. I was afraid, however, that that would not be the consensus among other fans.
Seriously? “You humble me.” I nearly cried!
Agreed (not surprisingly!) with Baby Friday. Was Community crazy funny last night? No. Was it sweet and intelligent and surprisingly challenging for a major network television show that comes on at 8:00 on a Thursday night? Absotively!
I’m on board with Bill the Butcher in that I thought it was one of the best episodes of that show yet. Scoot over, Bill, I’m climbing aboard! I said scootch, Bill! Fine, I’ll take the next one.
I thought Community and 30 Rock were The Best but I only laughed occasionally at The Office. I think if The Office had been the first in the line-up I might have found it funnier, but after the two-laughs-a-second of 30 Rock, The Office just seemed really slow.
I thought Pierce hanging out with the “hipsters” was hilarious.
I’m *definitely* team community this week. I was slightly disappointed at first, but I realized that’s just because it came after three intensely hilarious non-stop-laughs episodes. There would be s step down in intensity, and I’m glad they did something conceptually interesting, if just not as intensely hilarious.
Then again, maybe I just laughed because “Charlie Kaufman”.
I thought the episode was great. I loved when Jeff had to go “bail out” Pierce and then he told him to go wait in the car.
Favorite line: “Ok, open your books because Abed has just broken the internet.”
Troy’s rap won me over: “Dogs love cats there. Cats love mice.”
“Everyone eats ice cream and it doesn’t go on your thighs”
Critter! Where have you been?!
Australia, mate ! Don’t worry, I’ve been catching up on my upvotes for you !
I’m pretty sure Shirley actually wrote the rap, Troy just performed it. It was soooo good.
I thought Community was actually pretty great. I know the whole Abed-as-messiah thing was a stretch, but uh the whole series is a stretch.
Exactly. At the beginning of every episode I always ask myself “What do they do for income when they’re not at school? Why is a gang of old people enrolled in community college?” Which is weird because that second question only really applied to this one episode.
As an aside, I enjoyed Danny Pudi’s performance. Seeing him as Abed the Jesus filmmaker was refreshing change from Abed as Abed. There’s a lot of potential for the show in Pudi/Abed and I hope they give him more opportunities to “in-while-out of character” episodes.
I hope they give him more opportunities to wear wigs.
I’m with you bill. I just think that Abed is better as comic relief than being a main plot point maybe. That said he is probably my favorite character on television.
“I don’t believe in God, but I love me some Abed.”
If I wrote for The Office, Dwight would show up next week rocking a Seth Bullock stache
30 Rock won the night for me (we all rank the Thursday night comedy line up, right?). Although, I did miss It’s Always Sunny (my Mayor McCheese costume isn’t going to make itself, you know?), how was it?
I was into it! Mac and Charlie tried to get their moms to move in together in a Golden Girls scenario.
Sunny was excellent! Apparently it’s the underrated show of the season because I have been digging it. It needs a Dicktowel.com episode to put it back on the map.
Sunny was pretty damn great.
@Superglue Correction! Mac and Charlie DID get their moms to move in together in a Golden Girls scenario. A bonded-by-mutual -bigotry Golden Girls.
Dennis is A Fixer.
Mac’s dog is the shit. Just make sure you keep tabs on his loose eye. He’s this season’s equivalent of Special Agent Jack Bauer. I hope we see him again…
the Office was good. 30 Rock was great. and the League continues to shine.
anyone else notice the overlap in jokes/plot lines in comedy shows this week?
- both the Office and 30 Rock referenced the Sting
- both Modern Family and the League had guys needing to switch fantasy players, but not allowed to use the internet
- both the League and How I Met Your Mother did “you adopt your girfriends interests” gags
found that funny.
…both Outsourced and The Bill OReily show were racist
Hahahaha, WHYYYYYY have I never seen this?
If anyone is not following Videogum on Twitter, Gabe is going toe-to-toe with some media blogger who doesn’t think Outsourced is racist: http://twitter.com/videogum/statuses/28418730272
Ugh. I have accidentally watched every episode of Outsourced so far, due to a combination of television masochism and being too lazy to find the remote, and I think it’s actually gotten MORE racist — which is kind of impressive, but mostly infuriating.
I don’t watch Outsourced for two reasons:
1. Out of protest. How DARE nbc push Parks & Recreation out of the rotation for a winter premiere. This is my main reason. I won’t give a Nielsen nickel to a show that was crowbarred into P&R’s spot; a spot P&R earned with FIVE GOLD STARS last season.
2. Not interested. Watched the premiere, thought it was terrible. I hope for the people actually watching this show that the writing and the characters and the stories get better, but I will never know firsthand if they will. I spend that half hour reading a chapter of one of my leather-bound books and then I work on my ship in a bottle, waiting for Always Sunny to come on.
I don’t really see how Outsourced is more racist than some of things on other shows, like the Liz Lemon comment about not being able to get a cab because there’s a soccer game between Pakistan and Greece. And I find it interesting how people ignore the fact that the show makes white Americans look like idiots. I’m not saying that Videogum commenters are ignoring that fact; just critics of the show in general.
I’m also not arguing that the show isn’t culturally offensive; it totally is. The only upside of the show is that it give people of South Asian descent something they can relate to, like the vague head shake, which is really particular and makes me think that the writers at least know some real live South Asians! But jokes like how hard it is to find a hamburger, in MUMBAI no less, makes me think that these writers do not have the pleasure of knowing any real live South Asians. Surely they would consult South Asian friends about the cultural accuracy of their show. The hamburger and beef thing just doesn’t make sense. There are a lot of cow eaters in India, especially in Mumbai.
I was hoping Outsourced could be something good for American South Asians, especially after the birth of M. Night, which even the likes of Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari and Maulik Pancholy can’t even cancel out. Unfortunately, the writing is super lazy and I can’t believe the movie has such a high rating on Netflix?
You know that guy who gets offended and walks out toward the beginning of every episode? I think that is a pretty good gag so I take his cue and turn off the TV.
Maybe Gabe should have directed this tool to the UK comedy ‘Mumbai Calling’
Two throwaway gems from 30 Rock:
“I have to talk to Rachel Maddow. Only one of us can have this haircut.”
“I should throw some tossed salad and scrambled eggs at you,” which I was GUFFAWING at on the floor
Yes! The tossed salad and scrambled eggs line: MERCY.
The second he said Rachel Maddow, I was like “here comes a hair joke!”
Poor Michael C.
OMG! I was crying. I felt so bad for him. I wish he would have went to Fashion Week instead of Gretchen. I hate that girl!
Same here. I feel like his troubles in life are very real, while Gretchen seems to be something of a self-sabotager. Plus, her clothes were pretty awful, I thought. Oh well. I guess it’ll be easier for Mondo to win now!
I am on board with everything you just said.
That aside is anyone else bothered by the fact they Project Runways still acts as if only the top three will show at fashion week when it’s really like the top 6 that get to show at fashion week?
I think it’s more like the top 10 at this point? I also have been annoyed by that. I think they should try to re-align their seasons with Fashion Week (Weeks?) so that they don’t have to have as many decoy collections.
I too dislike Gretchen’s personality and her clothes, but I don’t think that Michael is a very good designer, he seems like he’s been skating through all season mostly because he’s a good drama producer. I felt kind of heartless for not giving a shit when he was crying. April should have gotten his spot in the top 4. Basically, though, I only care about Mondo so I don’t care what happens to the rest of them. Besides that weird Target Junior’s section bathing suit he made that one time I think he has been miles above the other designers this season. Plus, bravery and humility and all that.
i couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction. on the runway it was just “show serious face. show serious face.” and then he turned into a 6 year old girl when he went back in the room. and then tim gunn said 3 things to him and he was smiling and laughing.
he has a really strange, detached personality and none of his reactions -whether finding out he lost, or Tim’s “design diarrhea” comment – just seem so fake and forced to me, almost sociopathic.
and yes, gretchen is an awful human being and mondo is the exact opposite. he’s going to win quite easily.
YES, I feel the exact same way! His mugging for the camera has been driving me nuts, and last night his reaction was the equivalent of a small child throwing themselves on the floor and having a tantrum. Are you a grown man? Would you like the judges and other designers to see you as a peer instead of a child?
Just ugh.
I hate Gretchen too!
I was hugely annoyed by her “I’m poor” and “I’m homeless” shtick. Listen lady, like me you chose an arts field. So you either need to suck it up and work for someone, support yourself with second jobs, or be ridiculously poor. You were obviously well off enough to go to college, you made your choice now stop whining about it.
Sorry, I’ve been holding that rant in since last night.
UWWWAAAAAAGGGGAGAAAHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHAAAAAAATTTEEEEE YYYYYOOOOUUUU
I actually missed this week’s episodes because Louis CK came to Montreal and Kompletely Fucking Cilled it. He could violently pantomime the phone book and I’d love it. Yaaaaay. I’ll catch up tonight, though. Don’t you worry, everyone who I’m sure cares very much!
USA! USA!
SORRY IT WAS JFK, WROTE IT DOWN WRONG
No Bones! I’m going through withdrawal!
Take my hand, Sweets. That’s it.
That helps.
do you ever find yourself having to justify why you love bones, and then you get all flustered and just end up yelling “SWEETS!”?
That happens to me, but more often I’ll be watching the show and Sweets will do something (or say something, or someone else will talk about him, or I’ll just think of him) and I’ll shout out to the room: “Sweets! I’m gonna put you in my pocket!”
Oh Sweets, I loves you so much.
I love this.
So as a gay man that love himself some David Bananas, Where should I start with this show? I will watch from the beginning if I MUST, but from what I gather it isn’t a building plot show, more of a bones-of-the-week kind of thing.
+10 hit points if you can tell me what season he is mostly shirtless.
He’s in the bathtub in one episode. Now I have to remember which one…..
Though this season he has been shirtless many times whilst “making the loves.”
FANTASTIC.
Also a million upvotes on adopting the best nickname ever! David Bananas has got me through some rough times.
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Stefan:
Agreed. I’m not even gay and I like a little shirtless David Bananas now and again.
Fenrox: not sure where this reply will show up, but–I think it’s fine to start from pretty much anywhere. You might not understand every little thing that’s going on with the relationships, but it is a “bones-of-the-week” thing (perfect description), so it’s still enjoyable until you get caught up on who is who. That said, I really enjoy going through and watching a show from the beginning (although with this show they really didn’t get the chemistry going until about halfway through the first season). I think bathtub was Season 4.
It’s not huge on the building-plot stuff, but there is enough going on with some of the characters that watching them in order makes more sense. I watched them kind of randomly at first but was confused by at least one episode that referenced an earlier one that I hadn’t seen yet. As much as I consider Bones a kind of “guilty pleasure” show, I think it’s totally worth watching them sequentially. I think the first 4 seasons are on Netflix Watch Instant right now.
Oh Sweets. I love you so much, but dislike Daisy so much.
Kind of late in the thread and you guys probably wont even see this but it needs to be mentioned:
Bones is getting a spinoff:
http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/foxs-dramedy-bones-plots-spinoff-series
What? Weird news. Plus, all Bones spinoffs should be either Sweets- or Caroline-based.
The Abed/Shirley plot wasn’t great for me. I’d like to watch it again because it made me feel like I wasn’t getting something important. I did HIGHLY enjoy Pierce’s stint as a hipster.
Happy Blirthday Frajer! “I should throw tossed salad and scrambled eggs on you.”
Also, I haven’t watched The Office since the wedding episode last season (I don’t care how many “nice” moments I’ve missed, that show sucks now). But I did watch it last night because a friend wanted to. I think I liked it because there were ZERO new regular cast members in it. It was the old gang doing old gang stuff. I liked it, and I remember why I hate the new stuff so So SO much.
What’s Outsourced? I turn off my TV whenever that Australian blackface variety show starts to come on.
No It’s Always Sunny talk? Mac and Charlie’s moms? The dog that won’t die?
It was pretty good. Mac and Charlie expecting the Golden Girls (and singing the theme song!) was hilarious. Also 1, 2, 3.
I think all of us monsters can agree, it just feels good to do things in three’s.
I feel more in control that way.
It’s worked so far!
Poppins chowing down on a diaper in the trashcan KILLED ME. And Danny DeVito saying, “It looks like a gargoyle.” I kind of want that dog.
Reaganing. ‘nuf said.
“when you’re pitching a no hitter, you don’t walk Albert Pujols. You are the Albert Pujols of problems.”
Oops. I slightly misquotes.
I didn’t enjoy community that much this week. The whole meta thing, “God is watching jesus/jesus is filming God” made my head hurt. But I did enjoy the hipster gang. I hope I can steal a car and get disoriented when I’m their age.
“So what’s the problem, did you eat spaghetti in front of him?”
“Of course not!”
DO OTHER Monsters watch JUSTIFIED? BECAUSE holy fuck is IT GOOD.
Also, COMMUNITY was okay. IT STUMBLED, BUT it wasn’t Outsourced OR BIG BANG Theory.
LOVE justified. my favorite new show of 2010.
I haven’t gotten a chance to watch Justified yet (I’ll get to it!!) but I’m upvoting you for your sweatshirt in your pic.
But how do you feel about his ironic mustache?
Justified! 4EVA! (Or at least as long as it remains an incredibly well written and engaging show)
I have to say, I have had my absolute fill of ironic mustaches, especially since I live in Northern Michigan where it takes a while for trends to reach us sometimes so young men around here are still, just now, discovering the irony of having a silly mustache. And there’s this twee indie folk duo (that are a couple) that have a song about mustaches where the refrain is “People always ask how I get so much ass, I do it with my mus-tache, baby.” It makes me want to die but I probably shouldn’t talk too much shit about them on the internet, especially since their band is playing a show in my store tonight. They are very nice people, but I find the mustache song insufferable.
my ironic mustache is actually doubly ironic as i think ironic mustaches are retarded. it’s the inception of mustaches, basically.
either way, michigan represent!
This is a great point AnAmPat. As grandiose or muddled as Community was (personally I liked, but I understand the criticism) it isn’t anywhere near as trite as The Big Bang Theory. An elephant in the room that people just seem to passively ignore. It is TRULY AWFUL.
(x-y)We’re nerds^1+Physics joke about sex^2+nebbishism=Profit
Sorry Jim Parsons.
I finally watched one ep of TBBT a couple weeks ago, at my friends suggestion because it was about cats. (I like cats, what? wanna fight?) Anyways, horrible. It’s just constant laugh track, lame jokes and more constant laugh track. Don’t get the appeal what so ever. WAIT! It’s on CBS. Got it.
Agreed, “Justified” is the bee’s knees. It mixes up the serialized episodes with the stand alones better than any other show on now.
Timothy Olyphant represents “Justified” and Peter Greene is “Outsourced.”
Yeah, I am so enthusiastic about Justified, I registered to comment just so I could say that I’m enthusiastic about Justified.
justified related: season two’s big bad was announced to be none other than daniel faraday. WE HAVE TO GO BACK!
WHAT/!?!?!?!?!?!
i know right? we’re gonna need a bigger FUCK YES.
Can we have a Friday Night TV Open Thread for folks like me with no cable and can only watch Hulu? I feel all sorts of left out on the Thurdsay TV threads.
Bah, I got nothin’.
Yeah, I just come here for the spoilers.
I caught a few moments of Outsourced. The white American (GOOD GUY) was showing sexual harassment videos to the BAD GUYS (the Indians) and they were offended. “THEY DON’T EVEN KISS IN BOLLYWOOD MOVIES!!!” complained one of them, because they complain about everything it seems.
A
thinracist premise to hang an episode on.This show is so back assward, It really needs to just be a show cuz there are like 2-3 cute guys on it.
“What’s wrong, Lemon? When I see you chew your nails like that it’s either your very nervous or you’ve handled some ham earlier.”
OH GOD I JUST REALIZED SOMEONE REALLY NEEDS TO MAKE A TRACY MORGAN X BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB GIF OR WHATEVER HE WAS DOING.
I need more Jack impersonating Tracy in my life