Parks and Recreation: The Camel

Another strong installment. The running gag with the murals returns, and this time takes centerstage as finally the offensiveness of their contents forces TPTB to have the different departments come up with alternative suggestions to the theme of "The Spirit of Pawnee". Poor Jerry, who quite clearly came up with the best mural, fudges his speech and the rest of the folks were too busy laughing at his faux pas to notice the actual mural itself. Fun to watch Tom becoming increasingly enamoured with the abstract mural he paid an art student to concoct for him (including him tearing up during the tag!). Mark's mural was, as Ron put it, very pleasing and calm to look at, and probably would have won if they had gone with it. But Leslie's eventual decision to go with the montage of everyone's mural suggestions was in keeping with her character and tone of the show.

TV Roundup: Week of 2 November 2009

Parks and Recreation:
Superb episode this week. Ron taking centerstage is always a treat, and libraries being vilified like they've never been vilified before was hilarious. The Andy-Mark-Ann subplot inevitably suffers by comparison.

Modern Family: "En Garde"
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I thought nothing could possibly come close to "Parks and Recreation" this week, but boy, did this match it blow for comedy blow. Laugh-out-loud from start to finish, and I lost count of the number of great one-liners in this. My personal favorite was Phil proudly proclaiming his son to be the future real-estate mogul "He's gonna drink your milkshake". The whole Manny fencing plot was pure comedy gold, and also very nicely tied in to the (by now obligatory) "family is good" moment of the week, which didn't seem out of place at all and indeed rounded off the plot well. Claire and Mitchell's history as figure skaters also provided its share of the laughs, especially Mitchell's snide remarks about why their team was named "Fire and Nice". Phil and Claire's TH as they do the rundown on their kids' potential (Alex is the best at everything...she'll settle on something eventually; Ashley's good-looking...she'll find someone who's the best at something; Luke...we kinda dropped the ball on that one...yea, we kinda did) was another LOL moment. All in all, solid solid installment. The next episode can't come soon enough!

Parks and Recreation: "Kaboom"; "Greg Pikitis"

A little light on laughs these past two weeks, but it's good to see the pit filled in in "Kaboom", and Louis CK does his usual deadpan magic in "Greg", owning the funniest bits as he tries to correct Leslie's law-enforcing ways on Pikitis. The Halloween party storyline is a bit predictable, but at least gives a nice twist in that Tom actually loves (or at the least cares for) his "wife" from their greencard marriage.

How I Met Your Mother "Robin"; Dollhouse "Instinct"; Parks and Recreation "Practice Date"

Okay episode of HIMYM this week. Not a lot of laughs, though Ted's lecture to Barney on tips on dating Robin does give Cobie Smulders an opportunity for some nice comedic moments. Subplot of the barrel doesn't do much for me, and the tie-in to the main plot is superfluous at best. Nice to see Lily being a supportive friend to Robin though, in her crisis moment.

Dollhouse, I thought, had a good episode. Despite the telegraphed nature of the main mission-of-the-week storyline, I found myself engaged nevertheless. One part that left me confused though (in the aftermath of the reveal that Echo "remembers" her imprints)...does Echo retain her consciousness and the remnants of her imprinted personality are only in the background after a wipe? I.e. that she's completely her imprinted personality (without her original personality) prior to the wipe? Because she didn't seem to recognize Ballard when he came to take her back to the Dollhouse the first time. Good scene in Echo's heart-to-heart talk with Ballard in the park later in the episode about the tolls of taking down the Dollhouse while retaining her own personality juxtaposed with all her imprints, and offers more insight in that Echo seems to "feel" her previous imprints rather than remember them, though the scene does seem to reach for a higher emotional impact than what it eventually achieved.

Terrific episode of "Parks and Recreation", continuing its fine form this season. The one-upmanship competition among the staffers to see which of them could dig up the most dirt on each other was great, and had the awesome payoff of Tom catching Ron in his late-night jazz gig as Duke Silver. I like the main plot of Anne helping Leslie practice for her first date with Dave. Leslie's rambling of her awful past first dates was hilarious. All in all, a very enjoyable installment indeed. The next episode can't come soon enough!

Parks and Recreation: Episodes 1 - 3

Block post for "Parks and Recreation". Really liking the season so far, and the way they have been writing Leslie, so that she's more than just a female Michael Scott. She's way more self-aware than Michael, but finds her well-intentions in politics doesn't always, let's just say, translate. I like how Anne is being integrated into the show as Leslie's friend. I don't find her presence out of place and I think the show needs a level-headed character to ground all the zaniness around. Leslie's budding relationship with the cop looks promising, and he certainly comes across as very decent and amiable. Hope the show can keep this up! The next episode can't come soon enough!