Comedy Night Done Right

Yesterday NBC pulled out all of the stops for their Thursday night comedy lineup, six shows across three hours. First thoughts, three hours is much too long to be watching television all in a row and NBC needs to realize that having all six of their major comedy programs in a row on the same night is just a bad idea. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to rank the shows from worst-to-best of the night. Here goes:

Dis-honourable mention: Outsourced

I've forced myself to watch this show a couple times so far but I just couldn't do it last night. So it might have been a good episode last night, but after seeing previews that featured a Ku Klux Klan joke about five times through the night I just couldn't do it. My only question is when is NBC going to cancel this awful show?

#5: Perfect Couples

Why? Because NBC wants another "Friends" and as Jack Donaghy put it they want to "make it 1997 again either through science or magic." Overall the show delivered a couple laughs but they were few and far between. The characters are supposed to be cute and we're supposed to sympathize with them, but it's not possible when they're this two-dimensional. There's still time to save this show but it does not look too good for the "Perfect Couples." Oh, and it also wins the award for "Worst House Wrecking Montage Of All Time."

#4: 30 Rock

Don't think of it as 4th place, it's more of a tie with The Office for third, but my biases go to The Office. As far as the episode goes, nothing too memorable and it doesn't help when I have to use Google to understand the best joke of the night. FYI it was when Kenneth asked if being a buffer was anything like a being a fluffer. To keep the integrity of this blog I'll let you look up what a "fluffer" really is on your own time.

#3: The Office

For some reason I just do not like Holly Flax this time around. She was great earlier in the show and for "Company Picnic" but now I'm just not getting it. Michael's Happy and Sad boxes were terrific and I loved the videos he recorded for himself. Unfortunately what kept this episode from being great was Kevin's cringe-worthy vegetable scene. I'm taking this moment to tell NBC something very important: STOP TREATING KEVIN LIKE HE'S RETARDED. IT'S NOT FUNNY. Please, please go back to the way Kevin acted in Seasons 1-3, it is so much better and believable. Although I do have to thank him for the best line of the show: "Not all of us are Michael Freaking Scott."

UPDATE: I want to thank my Dynamic Duo partner Connor Maher for his inspiration of the comment on the new version of Kevin Malone's character.

#2: Community

Most underrated show on TV. There I said it. I love Community and it manages to be consistent and hilarious every week without fail. Joel McHale is so funny and whenever he gets to do his lawyer-type speeches he shines. Also, can NBC replace the fourth hour of the Today show with "Troy And Abed In The Morning"?

#1: Parks and Recreation

The surprising winner for the night, the fall hiatus served the show well as it came back with the freshest material out of all the shows tonight. I forgot in the time off just how lovable all the characters are and two thumbs way up for Rob Lowe. He had me laughing the most out of all of the shows last night and I'm left wondering why NBC waited until January to put these guys back on the air.