Top 10 Best Sitcom Episodes of the 2008-2009 Television Season

Well, I had meant to do this before the Emmy nominations were out, but now they are, so that ship has sorta sailed. I'm still offering my opinion, even when there is a much more respected one out there!

10. 30 Rock - "Kidney Now!"

I think I was more into this year's 30 Rock finale than most people--I thought it was far better than last year's finale, scattershot Emmy winner "Cooter." A lot of my enjoyment came fromm the fact that I'm a sucker for satirical points about the division between medium and message, which two of the three plotlines (1. a charity song to selfishly get one person a kidney and 2.a catchy but relationship-destroying catchphrase) dealt with.

9. Flight of the Conchords - "Prime Minister"

Of all the fun things in this episode--the guest starring roles of Art Garfunkel-obsessed Mary Lynn Rajskub and self-important Elton John impersonator Patton Oswalt to start, not to mention the cameo of Garfunkel himself--the one that pushes this episode into the sublime is the parody of Korean karaoke. The whole bit, sung by Bret, complete with both-languaged subtitles and marvelously weird stock footage, is the most consistently hilarious straight two minutes on TV since Alec Baldwin's therapy session last year on 30 Rock.

8. South Park - "The Ring"

I've knocked South Park before here, but man, when they get it right, they get it right. Calling out the Jonas Brothers' purity rings not for being lame but for being an elliptically dirty marketing trick--THAT is satire.

7. The Big Bang Theory - "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis"

This is a show that started with a terribly lame pilot, but has grown into one of the best sitcoms on TV, centered on Jim Parsons playing an self-important Aspegian asexual (and getting an Emmy nom for it, huzzah!). I wouldn't pick this episode to start with (for that I'd recommend either the first season's "The Loobenfeld Decay" or this season's "The Vegas Renormalization") but once you've familiarized yourself with Parsons' character, his every move in this episode is gold.

6. How I Met Your Mother - "The Naked Man"

Television critics smarter than me have pointed out that at HIMYM's best, it often recalls Seinfeld's social-deconstruction-via-term-invention but with more heart, and this episode is a prime example of that, in what is almost certainly the show's best season to date.

5. 30 Rock - "Gavin Volure"

I was a lilttle underwhelmled by this episode at first, but I kept thinking about it and remembering lines from it, and when I watched it again and realized that it's exactly the groove that 30 Rock has settled into--in a good way. It's not as mind-blowingly surprising as, say, last year's "Secrets and Lies," but it's just an excellent and consistent half-hour of comedy, with jokes like, Steve Martin: "This is my expert on fine art and yelling," John MacEnroe: "Why isn't there any good art in this house!" that I can only describe as perfect.

4. How I Met Your Mother - "Intervention"

Maybe my favorite episode of HIMYM to date, this just has callbacks building on callbacks building to an earned climax--this is like great sitcom writing 101. And something as wacky as old-man makeup as a plotline could only be sold by Neil Patrick Harris.

3. 30 Rock - "Generalissimo"

As I indicated before, I don't think that 30 Rock quite had the highlights of its best episodes last season, but was overall more consistent. That was helped out by a pair of reliably good-quality romantic storylines, Baldwin with Selma Hayek and Fey with Jon Hamm (whose good looks and serious comedic chops make him my biggest man-crush in a long while). This stellar episode is kind of a stand-in for how the several episodes with those characters were for me--brought over the top by Baldwin playing his gay Mexican doppelganger.

2. The Office - "Broke"

Even more so than 30 Rock, this one is a stand-in for The Office's superb 6-episode storyline about the clash between Michael Scott and Charles, the stuffy suit played by Idris Elba. This whole season saw Michael Scott shouldering not only the comedic weight that he always had on the show, but also the dramatic weight--with a major love interest early on and a major professional conflict later. Together they made this season of The Office the best yet, though it was more about the consistency in arc from episode to episode than it was about individual 22-minute chunks. I elected this one the best (over other close calls like "Heavy Competition," which may have the best Office line of all time in, "The meatball parm is their worst sandwich!") in part because all of the wonderful subtle details about Michael that appear when this show is firing on all cylinders. The fact that he has been drinking milk and sugar--JUST milk and sugar--every morning for the past six years, is too perfect for words.

1. Better Off Ted - "Racial Sensitivity"

Well. I have waxed poetic about this episode already. Suffice to say I thought it was the best half-hour of TV this season. Watch it, already.

CAVEAT: I have yet to see more than the pilot of Party Down. Also, there are other shows that I didn't watch, but they're shows that for the most part I don't like.

Top 6 Greatest "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" Moments

I friggin' love Conan O'Brien, and I am on the edge of my seat with excitement for him to take over The Tonight Show. To pump the rest of you up, let's take a look at a small selection of Conan at his most brilliant.

6. Conan Goes to Santa School

5. Triumph Interviews Star Wars Fans

4. Conan Forms a Boy Band

3. Conan Picks Apples with Mr. T

2. Conan Goes to Finland

1. Conan Plays Old-Time Baseball

3 Eloquent Defenses of Laugh Tracks on the Blogs of Television Writers/Critics

While I was wasting a little time in between writing my paper, I found these today.  I thought they all had something interesting and worthwhile to say, especially as I have often personally defended the laugh track as having its place and time and enhancing a show that is well-built with it in mind.  Maybe some time I will share my own thoughts on the laugh track/studio audience laughter issue in full.  Until then, THESE:

3. "Bring Back the Laugh Track!" by Jaime J. Weinman

A pretty full-throated endorsement of laugh tracks for single-camera comedies.  Not sure if I fully agree, but interseting.

2. "Laugh Tracks" by Ken Levine

Probably more negative than positive in this one, but it contains an good defense of the laugh track's use in certain situations.

1. "Laugh Tracks" by Earl Pomerantz

The best of these, though it's more about studio audience laughter than laugh tracks per se.  That's probably good, since very few people (other than #3 above) I know of actually think that canned laughter in single-camera sitcoms should come back.  So the point about taped-live shows is more interesting to argue.  Also, might I add that this blog, written by a former writer for Taxi among other shows (but it's Taxi that I care about because I LOVE TAXI) is absolutely delightful in general.  I'm going to subscribe to it in Google Reader right NOW.

Top 10 Reasons to Believe in and Watch Current Saturday Night Live

For some dumb reason, it's an accepted bit of conventional wisdom among a lot of people that Saturday Night Live has lost it, and will never be as glorious as it was in the 70s/80s/90s/whenever you remembered loving it.  Well, you know what? Whenever you loved it, people were saying SNL had lost it then, too.  (Unless it was the very first season, in which case, you should shut up anyway.)  Yeah, SNL goes through rougher and stronger patches, but if you follow the series at all, you'll realize that this season it's certainly in one of its stronger jags.  It's funny, smart, and absolutely worth watching each week.  Let me explain:

10. SNL has always had a lot of filler

I'm sorry that the first reason here is more of an excuse than a positive affirmation of the show's qualities, but it needs to be said: even the best years of SNL have had a lot of mediocre/lame/outright stupid sketches.  The recent release of the first few seasons on DVD has particularly shown that even in its lauded first couple years, there was still realiably a good 30 minutes worth of the 90 minute show that nobody could possibly care to ever see again.  Which is probably why SNL is almost always rerun as an hour-long show instead of a 90-min.  And that is probably part of why you remember what was good from then, and not what was filler.  Yep, it has filler today, too, but no more filler than it ever did, and the strong stuff is quite strong.  Okay, that out of the way, the rest of these will be positive.

9. They're doing good parodies of classic cultural pieces

Something that SNL has sometimes avoided is doing cultural parody of classic culture rather than current pop culture.  Yes, you risk alienating a young audience that might not be extremely familiar with Of Mice and Men or Mary Poppins when you do stuff like this:

and this:

but the learning curve to figure it out isn't too hard, and for those who know the material well (read: most mildly-educated people), these are both pretty smart and funny sketches.  I'm glad they're doing this more this season.

8. Some of their newer writers are fantastic and heroes of mine in other endeavors

Now, I know that the fact that the writers are funny outside the show doesn't necessarily mean that in the show they're great, but two young writers who have been added in the last year--Simon Rich and John Mulaney--are both guys that I'm huge fans of outside of SNL, and I'm sure they've made great contributions to the recent improvement of the show's writing.  Simon Rich, former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Lampoon, has written two collections of short humor pieces and publiched several of them The New Yorker, such as this:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2007/07/23/070723sh_shouts_rich

which is very funny.  On the other side of the coin, John Mulaney is hands-down one of the funniest stand-up comedians I have ever seen or heard, and I listen to and watch kind of a lot of stand-up (for some reason I can't embed this):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys_Hi8nV7yM

Rich is now in his second year as a writer on SNL, and Mulaney is in his first.

7. They're being adventurous in their choice of hosts

Who is Jon Hamm?  I don't know, I've never seen Mad Men either.  But in any case, Lorne Michaels (or somebody else) managed to use some sixth sense to peg him as a great sketch actor even if he isn't an A-list modern cultural figure (yet), and got him on the show.  And oh, man, he was great:

Other similarly impressive choies, though none that wowed me as much as Hamm: Josh Brolin, Paul Rudd, and last night's John Malkovich.

6. They're doing good topical stuff that isn't just impression-based

Saturday Night Live has always been pretty good at nailing the humanity of of political figures, or topical stuff in general when they have a specific personality to engage with.  But they tend to be a little weaker when it comes to a conceptually smart take on a current event, which is why I've been quite impressed so far this season:

And, on the more political/topical side, one that contains some impressions but is more about the smart, aggressive angle:

5. Along those lines, the political stuff that is impression-based has, obviously, been great

This is the stuff that you've admitted to your friends is good even if you haven't seen a whole episode yet.  Fred Armisen's Barack Obama is better than most people have given him credit for--I'm sure people will start realizing that it's a very good impression once the writing finds a more aggressive angle on him.  And Hammond's McCain has been solid, too.  But of course, the scene-stealer has been Fey's Palin.  This one was, I think, the best of hers:

4. They're not afraid to go "out there"

There's been a good amount of pretty adventurous, weird stuff on SNL this year.  It doesn't always work, but when it does...

And...

3. Their pop cultural parody is spot-on

As much as I can talk about the satirical topicality or classic cultural parody that SNL is doing right now, their bread and butter are two things: first, pop cultural parody.  Which isn't necssarily my favorite kind of sketch, but God, when it's done right...

2. Their character-based sketches are solidly above-average

This is the other part of the bread-and-butter SNL, the sketches built around a specific actor's character.  Which is why this season of Saturday Night Live is being ruled by Kristen Wiig:

1. The cast is almost across-the-board fantastic

I think that Wiig is pr0bably my favorite cast member right now, though Will Forte, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis all impress me and vie for that spot on a very regular basis.  (Amy Poehler is great too, but she'll be gone soon.)  Bobby Moynihan has been good in what he's done so far, Fred Armisen has done some really fantastic stuff, Darrel Hammond has never been bad in all his million years on the show, and Kenan Thompson sometimes underwhelms me but was so good in that View sketch that I think show is starting to know how to use him right.  I haven't been impressed by any of the new girls yet, but I'm giving them time, because current Saturday Night Live is WORTH IT.

Top 10 Numberwangs

The other day, a friend introduced me to a glorious recurring Mitchell and Webb sketch called Numberwang.  Watch all of these, in this order, first, then endure my musings.

1. "Numberwang"

2. "Numberwang, Pt. 2"

3. "Numberwang, Pt. 3"

4. "Numberwang, Pt. 4"

5. "German Numberwang"

6. "Wordwang"

7. "The Numberwang Code"

8. "Numberwang: the Board Game"

9. "The History of Numberwang"

10. "Live Numberwang"

What's really brilliant about this concept, I think, is the way that they capture the manic energy of the rapid-fire game shows that they're parodying, but manage to remove absolutely all of the content.  They end up with something that feels familiar to and is just as eminently watchable as World Series of Pop Culture or The 64,000 Dinari Pyramid or whatever, but without anything discernable that the game show is about.  For my money, the best ones are the first one for being so original and spot-on, and "Numberwang: the Board Game," which has one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in any sketch.  The "History" one loses me a little; I prefer to think that there is absolutely no system to determining what is "Numberwang" and what isn't, which seems to fit the spirit of the sketch more than "an extremely complicated system."  But I'm nitpicking.  This shit is awesome.

The 10 Most Underrated Bits of Culture Currently Happening

So, a while ago, I got livid about bands I think are overrated, and I thought about possibly doing a similar list of underrated things.  But honestly, it's really hard to find things that are genuinely great that have been consistently disliked by critics.  So, what I decided was that for a list of underrated things, I would look more towards stuff that just doesn't have the audience that it deserves.  Because I could call Tom Waits "underrated" for not moving as many units as Oasis, but it still wouldn't change the fact that he's got a niche and thousands of people who adore him.  Consider this a list of things you may not have tried yet and should.  Oh, and it's harder to come up with these, so it's just cultural in general and only ten items.  Help all of them find a bigger audience!

(Oh, and one final note: because it's about exposure, I'm obviously excluding cultural backlash.  If I were to make a list of bands who deserved their hype and didn't deserve the backlash--AND MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL--Vampire Weekend will be #2 and Bright Eyes will be #1)

10. Dylan Moran

As well as starring in an underrated sitcom (Black Books) several years ago, this guy is probably the best stand-up comedian that I consistently get "never heard of him" from other people.  He's an import (Ireland), but he ought to be a big name import like Eddie Izzard (to whom his stand-up is possibly most easily compared) or Ricky Gervais.  Here you go: get started on him with this.  It's the start of his best special, which is in ten parts on YouTube:

9. Current Saturday Night Live

I'm not going to go too far into this, because I plan on doing a list soon of "reasons I believe in SNL this year," but they've been producing a solid 2-3 memorably funny sketches per week, which is about as good as SNL has ever done at its best.  Kristin Wiig is amazing.  And they're doing great topical stuff that isn't even entirely impression-based!

8. Daily Dinosaur Comics

Yeah, if you read this blog, you already know how obsessed we are with Dinosaur Comics, but since it's seriously one of the funniest things being made right now, it must be emphasized.  Right now, the sites I visit daily are gmail.com, nytimes.com, and THEN qwantz.com.  Okay, also, fivethirtyeight.com but that's mostly just a right now thing that I'm visiting it daily.

7. Tony Gong

You know when really adolescent, high school-y lyrics work, the way it does in Big Star's "Thirteen" or The White Stripes' "I Can Tell that We Are Going to Be Friends," and it's friggin' awesome?  Do you want to listen to a singer who pulls that off on basically every single song, one after the other, and they're all catchy as hell?  Yes, I agree with you on this one, you do want to listen to Tony Gong.

6. The Burg

I already waxed poetic about this show in my review of it for the Bwog, which is here.  Anyway, they want sponsorship to make a second season, and good Lord do I want them to somehow do it.  MAKE IT HAPPEN, AMERICA.

5. Human Giant

This is the best sketch show on TV right now.  And it does have real competition, at least if you take my claim at #9 seriously.  But it's damn tough to beat concentrated brilliance like this:

4. Lewis Black's Root of All Evil

This exceeded all my expectations.  It's consistently funny, well put-together, and punchy without getting cheap.  Some idiot reviewing this show had the gall to call the comedians in it "second tier."  Second tier?  In what crazy universe are Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Tompkins, Greg Giraldo, and Andy Kindler second-tier?  Oh, right, I remember, in the universe of people who have only heard of three stand-up comedians and two of them are Dane Cook (I don't know what that means either).  Anyway, this show is really solid, and I want to see it continue.

3. Pheobe Killdeer and the Short Straws

The obvious reference point here is that she sounds like a female version of Tom Waits, but it's not just that.  Listen more closely and you'll hear other influences, like Fiona Apple, Nick Cave, and musical theater.  Her Weather's Coming... might be the best album released so far in 2008, or at least a heavy contender.  And I haven't read a professional review of it yet.

2. How I Met Your Mother

This is the third-best sitcom on TV right now--after The Office and 30 Rock (and yes I have seen Sunny or whatever other show you would put here)--but most people to whom I mention it either haven't heard of it or mentally group it in with terrible schlock  like Two and a Half Men.  Yeah, it's a multi-camera sitcom, but multi-camera isn't actually a worse format than single-camera, just a different one.  And when it's done right, like it is here, it's glorious.  Mother is probably the closest successor currently on television to both Seinfeld (in the way that it deconstructs the minutiae of human interaction) and Arrested Development (in its slavish devotion to intertextuality, consistency, and legacy).  All that, plus you have two of the best characters on TV in Jason Segell's Marshall and Neil Patrick Hariss's Barney.  FIND AN AUDIENCE, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER!

1. The Kitchen Cabinet

Think of what Uncle Tupelo or Whiskeytown would sound like if they were inspired less by country-rock like Gram Parsons and Cash/Carter country, and more by Fleetwood Mac-ish folk rolk and Dolly Parton-esque bluegrass.  That is, if country-rock birthed alt-country, this is more like alt-folk.  They're heavy on guitar and banjo (in a folk/bluegrass way, not a country way), but what really distinguishes The Kitchen Cabinet is their care and commitment to melody.  Splitting frontwoman duties are Ashraya, whose voice reminds me of Joni Mitchell's in the best ways, and Anna, whose darker, lower voice meshes great with Ash's when they sing together.  Check 'em out.