NBC Brings Us Holemdy Cheer

Holemdy= Holiday Comedy. I made that up myself. Thanks.

Warning: this is full of spoilers and obnoxiously long

You know, with all the conjecture and criticism surrounding NBC and its Comcast-bought future (may I direct you here and here for more information), last night’s Thursday Night Line-Up reminded me that despite low ratings and a lack of juggernaut TV like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, NBC has some of the best writers, best actors, and best stories on TV.

Last night’s holiday episodes of Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office, and (to a lesser extent) 30 Rock delivered superb episodes in what have been consistently strong seasons. The Office and 30 Rock usually deliver great holiday episodes (Benihana Christmas, anyone?), so it’s nice to see the fledgling Community and Parks do the same.

Here are some something things I thought about them.

Community

Community’s “Comparative Religion” officially moved the show to my Thursday night favorite. Sitcoms always work best when they’re pushing the underlying emotional agenda of the show, and “Comparative Religion” is a great example. In Community’s case that would be the ragtag group trying to find their place in the world after various personal crises- a sports injury, a nervous breakdown, getting fired, etc… In “Compartive Religion,” possibly the most emotionally distraught character, a recently divorced Shirley, decides to throw a Christmas party for the group, only to find that none of the other members actually celebrate Christmas. Community does a great job of actually addressing issues like race, religion, sexuality with direct humor instead of just shying away with them. It’s refreshing to see a show actually talk about diversity (“I didn’t know you were… a Jew.” “Maybe say the whole word next time?” ) without assuming it will implode from political incorrectness.

The B-plot brought in an absolutely ridiculous Anthony Michael Hall (loved the subtle John Hughes reference, “He’s a j0ck who used to be a geek. They’re the worst!”) as a perpetually sweatpants clad (“Are you always on your way to the gym?” “My life is a gym!”) cafeteria bully who challenges Jeff to his first-ever fight, leading Troy and Pierce to teach him to defend himself and some seriously impressive physical comedy from the entire cast during a giant candy cane/snowblower filled brawl at the end of the episode.

Ultimately, the strength of the episode stems from the progress the characters make. Shirley spends the entire episode trying to hang on to her conception of Christmas as it existed before her divorce, guilting her Greendale “family” into celebrate with her after their Spanish final, only to come to terms with the fact that things just aren’t the same for her anymore, and kicking some serious ass during the final fight (“Please! It’s Christmas!” “It’s December 10th.”) Jeff, who’s never been punched in the face, his “money maker” and last remaining vestige from his glitzy lawyer life, ends up taking 3 hits in the nose and being ok with it. The final scene, with the entire group beaten up, bleeding, but happy, together, and with Shirley singing an all-faith inclusive Holiday song was not only funny and touching, but reminded us what’s at stake with the characters, and how much their mismatched family means to them.

And as if the episode wasn’t near perfect already, the always hilarious Troy/Abed closer was the funniest two minutes of the night, as Abed decorated a perfectly still Donald Glover with tinsel and ornaments while singing “Oh Christmas Troy,” only to have Joel McHale interrupt (“Why do you guys do stuff like this?” “Because it’s fun”) and immediately cut to all three of them singing/trimming Troy. Whoever thought of that deserves an award.

Parks and Recreation

“Christmas Scandal” is the first time we’ve really seen Amy Poehler separated from the rest of the group. Leslie, thrilled with a holiday market set up in the pit and coming off a hilarious government party, finds herself embroiled in a political scandal with a sexually deviant Councilman, who decides that an fake affair with Leslie looks better than his newest public sexcapades. This episode used one of my favorite sitcom techniques, pairing up characters we rarely see together for most of the episode. Ron gives Leslie the day off, prompting the rest of the team to split up her to do list for the day, and setting up some fantastic moments with Ron and intern April (“Oh so, you’ll be giving the presentation then?” “Uhhh….”), and between Tom and Mark (“Bring sanitation a case of beer.” “Let them get their own beer, I’m hungry.”)

Parks has improved every week since it started, as the writers and actors continue to zero in on the balance between the totally weird and mundanely boring that makes the show funny. No aspect of the show is trickier than Leslie herself. When Parks started, Leslie was so caricature-y that she was difficult to watch, but instead of making the mistake of continuing to push her eccentricities on us (ahem, Michael Scott), the writers and Amy Poehler have calmed and softened her to where she’s totally endearing. As a fan of the show, I was overjoyed to see Leslie out of the office, acting smart, romantic, level-headed, and adorable. As two of the most important aspects of her life are threatened- her job at the Parks dept, and her relationship with a called for Army Reserve duty in San Francisco Officer Dave (who was hilarious last night and will be sorely missed, “There’s a 75 dollar change fee, which I can pay or I can reimburse you for. There’s a number of ways we can handle that.”), Leslie handles everything in stride. Even the moment where she pulls down her pants on a local TV show didn’t seem over the top. That’s an accomplishment. We’ve also gotten to the point in the show where we need to see that Leslie is actually important within the deaprtment, so watching the rest of the employees scrambling to accomplish Leslie’s daily to-do list (“I have to give a presentation, lead a forum, and do crafts at the senior citizen center. Simultaneously.”) and their relief when she comes back to work, added a much needed dimension to her character.

I’m also increasingly impressed with the way Aubrey Plaza handles the April/Andy crush. For such a bizarre character, the writers and Plaza have done a great job of making the crush realistic and sweet instead of over the top, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite continuing plot.

The Office

Oh, The Office. I’ve missed you so. It’s no secret that The Office hasn’t been the same since Season 3, but last night came pretty darn close. I’m not quite sure which was the A plot here. We had office Secret Santa, leading to some great moments like Dwight assembling what he assumes is a gun (“Unless the part you’re missing is a gun, that’s not a gun.”), and Erin/Kelly nervously asking her Secret Santa to stop sending her The Twelve Days of Christmas as “the geese have started to pull out my hair to build a nest” among other reasons. We had Phylis Santa vs. Michael Santa, which gave us the epic term “Tranny Claus.” We had Oscar crushing on a hot gay warehouse worker (“Nice to meet you Mike.” “Matt.” “Right Matt.”…….”Pam I know what I’m doing.”). And we had David Wallace informing the office that Dunder Mifflin had been sold and all the corporate execs were losing their jobs, which causes panic in the office.

“Secret Santa” did what The Office does best- focus on the characters. And they were all at the top of their game. Moments like Toby awkwardly trying to hug Ryan after he gave him a kite for SS (Toby was reading The Kite Runner), or Kelly nearly crying after opening her Twilight poster from Jim, and Kevin’s excitement at getting to sit on Michael-Santa’s lap for the first time, were all joyful and believable, but also very funny in their normalcy.

The best moment for me though, was the closer. One of the reasons The Office has been lacking the last couple seasons is the hole left by Jim and Pam finally getting together, but it’s possible that void might soon be filled by Andy and Erin’s touch and go flirtation. Turns out,  Erin/Kelly’s borderline psychotic Secret Santa is Andy, who begged Jim for the opportunity. Once he realizes how much trauma all the birds cause, he hilariously admits to Erin it was him, but in a way that also makes it seem like it wasn’t. In last minute of the episode, as the office files out into the parking lot to go home, a drum line appears, 12 to be exact. Andy dances in front of them, clanging together cymbals and says “Merry Christmas, Erin.” It was romantic silly in a way only The Office can pull off.

30 Rock

30 Rock was probably the low point of the night, unfortunately. Too much of the episode focused on a fake facebook site called YouFace, and I still cannot even begin to stand Cheyenne Jackson in anything. But that doesn’t mean “Secret Santa” still wasn’t pretty funny.

So, GE acquires a site called YouFace, which leads to jokes like Cerie pulling up the site on her blackberry before Liz could type the name into a computer browser (and a mistype leading to porn), and Jack’s high school girlfriend changing her relationship status from “working on it” to “weirdzies,” and other assorted old people are mystified by technology jokes. I have yet to come across a social networking parody that I actually find amusing, and this certainly didn’t change that. Regardless, YouFace  leads to Jack’s old high school crush, played by an always charming Julianne Moore, poking him or something and eventually arriving in New York. Jack realizes that he’s homesick for his working class Boston upbringing (but it wasn’t nearly as funny or interesting as the same revelation he had at Liz’s high school reunion- “Beers, buds and boats. That’s what’s important”), but ultimately didn’t lead anywhere.

The subplots offered some nice moments. In order to get out of Kenneth’s convoluted version of office Secret Santa (“He brings together the two worst things about Christmas, gift giving and rules!”) Toofer and Frank create a fake religion called Verdukianism and celebrate a holiday called Merlinpeen. We also got a rare human moment out of Jenna, who reveals terrible childhood Christmas memories that weren’t negated as lies at the end of the episode. The best part of the episode is the exchanges between Jack and Liz, who decide to give each other gifts for the first time. After setting a zero dollar limit, there are some funny moments where they try to one up each other.

Eh, there’s not that much else worth talking about from this episode and if I mention Cheyenne Jackson this will turn into a rant about how much I hate Cheyenne Jackson, and this post is already ridiculously long.

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Tags: nbc, stuff on NBC that isn't Jimmy Fallon sucking, stuff we watch that you don't, Thursday

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