The Best TV Shows on TV – Baboo! Serpentine!

Happy Friday! Before you start preparing for your Super Bowl party (or Puppy Bowl, which is significantly more adorable), we’re here to ease you out of the work week with another look at the Best TV Shows on TV. We’ve gone through the schedule to find the best television shows of the week and looked at exactly why they were so delightful. And this week was a big one. Heck – just look at the spunkyfavorites who showed up in guest roles.

Parks and Recreation gave us Martin Starr (Freaks & Geeks, Party Down) and a rare onscreen appearance from series writer (and Analyze Phish host) Harris Wittels. The Daily Show’s Kristen Schaal appeared on 30 Rock, June Diane Raphael played a gynecologist on New Girl, Heroes’ Jack Coleman reprised his Office role as Angela’s new husband, Jacob from LOST had a role on the Chuck finale, Beeper King Dean Winters was on Up All Night, and Jon Hamm played his most surprising role yet. So many of our favorites appeared this week that we almost felt like TV was trying to bribe us.

We’ve got a lot to get to, so let’s head right into the best shows on TV!

Chuck – The series finale aired on Friday, wrapping up five seasons of action, comedy, and product placement. And while most of this final season has been a little disappointing, the finale was great. Part of the problem with recent episodes has been that they’ve clearly wanted the storylines to advance, but they also weren’t willing to leave anything behind. Once Chuck became an actual full-fledged spy, there was no reason to keep the Buy More in place, but they liked it so it stayed. That’s created some awkward plots, but it also means that everything that was ever important to the show was still in place for the finale.

Thanks to a dangerous new version of the Intersect and some brainwashing from Nicholas Quinn, Sarah lost her memory, forgetting everything from the beginning of the series on. Even once they dealt with the fact that she’d been brainwashed to assassinate Chuck, they still had the problem that she couldn’t remember anything, including her relationship with Chuck. It was kind of heartbreaking to watch poor Chuck struggle with the fact that his wife had no memories of him and no feelings for him. But it wasn’t all sad, as the climax involved Jeffster! (Jeff and Lester’s “band”) taking over an orchestra with a performance of A-Ha’s “Take On Me”, and actually saving the day with the power of rock! Well, pop. All of the characters got to have a nice finale moment, with big promotions for Leslie and Awesome, Casey going after the woman he loves, and Big Mike finally getting a Subway in the Buy More. (And in a reference to the rampant product placement that helped keep Chuck on the air, one of the last scenes featured a giant illuminated Subway sign.) All in all, it was a well-done finale that reminded us of just how much we loved Chuck. And also, just how bad Zachary Levi’s hair was in Season One. Wow.

Archer – ISIS went up against Nova Scotian terrorists as they tried to bring a captured Canadian criminal back to his homeland to stand trial. The whole crew took the train to Canada, and what should have been an easy transport mission fell apart in short order. Cyril let the prisoner get away, Archer was much more interested in Carol’s ocelot, Baboo (“He remembers me!”), and fake Mounties hijacked the train. It’s always great when they cram the whole cast in a small space like that – there’s so much bitterness that can just fly off in any direction. We learned that fighting on top of a train isn’t as cool as Archer expected (“The dust! It’s like I’m being shot in the eyes with a glitter gun.”), and also that Canadians take racism very seriously. But really, it was Baboo who stole the show – the fact that Archer is utterly charmed by him is always funny. (“He called you ‘exotic’. That’s people talk for ‘awesome’.”)

The Office--Dare we say, this was one of the better outings in a long time! Jim lied about a week of jury duty to help Pam with the kids, but felt guilty when everyone told him all the stuff they had to do to cover in his absence, causing him to tell the truth. At the same time, Angela was having her baby, who was supposedly a preemie, but clocked in at 9 plus pounds. She admitted he was conceived “out of wedlock”, and this meant one thing to Dwight…he was the father! Jim brought the kids and Pam to the office to apologize, but when they witnessed CeCe’s terrible twos and baby Phillip’s newborn crying, they realized his week at home was anything but a vacation and forgave him.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret – Todd’s misfortunes this week were pretty hilarious (you won’t believe what got him kicked out of a limousine), Jon Hamm stole the show. In an amazing scene in which Dave used four separate cell phones to screw around with Brent, Jon had to make robot noises. It took a couple tries to get the exact sound Dave wanted, which just made it funnier. The man can “beep boop” with the best of them. And in another weird twist, we found out that Jon is playing himself. Yes, Jon Hamm is Dave’s butler. (“I need to get back to the set of Mad Men, sir. We’re shooting a new season, and they’ve already written me out of the first four episodes.”) With only two episodes left, we’re going to have to see Dave’s master plan soon, and just why he was making Jon Hamm record threatening messages. And now that Todd’s been arrested for defiling Princess Di’s grave, it really can’t get any worse, right? Don’t answer that.

Alcatraz – We’re catching up on the recaps, so we’ll have more to say about this episode in a week or two. But we feel compelled to point out that this episode heavily implied that Alcatraz Island had a monster in the basement behind a locked door. Ever since LOST ended, our TV schedule has been disappointingly low on monsters.

New Girl–This week picked up not long after the last episode, and Nick is still seeing Julia, though they’re not labeling anything. Jess tried to make friends, but her excessive girliness was a turn off to Julia, who says she doesn’t have many girlfriends…red flag, Nick!! After a confrontation in traffic court, where Jess actually stood up for herself (“I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I’m sorry I don’t talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pantsuit…I’m about to go pay this $800 fine, and my checks have baby farm animals on them, bitch!”), they reached a bit of an understanding. Meanwhile, Schmidt was freaking out because his towel was always damp and we found out he uses something called sculpting chutney on his hair. He’s insanely high maintenance, and we love him. (“Warning! Spoiler alert! Somebody unplugged my dehumidifier to plug in their flat iron. I will be putting my dehumidifier and my towel in my room where nothing ever gets wet.”) We also learned that the towel was always damp because he and Nick were using the same one, which Nick never washes. Cue Schmidt gagging. Winston had the C plot, where he went on a proper date with the girl who was his pre-Latvia bootycall.

The Daily Show / The Colbert Report – Both of these shows have absolutely been on fire lately. For the last several weeks, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been getting a lot of mileage out of Colbert SuperPAC. And now, with Stephen ending his run to be the President of the United States of South Carolina, he can once again run the PAC. Both shows had a running gag on both shows where Jon wouldn’t hand over Stephen’s money, climaxing with Monday’s hilarious crossover when Stephen shows up to take back the SuperPAC by any means necessary. The first video is the end of The Daily Show and the second is the opening of The Colbert Report. Trust us, you need to see this.

Once Upon A Time--This was a twisty, turny episode, where we got a glimpse of the Evil Queen when the King (Snow’s dad, played by Richard Schiff) was still alive and she was miserable that he would never love her as he did Snow’s mother. It just so happened that the King had freed a magical genie, who looked a lot like Sidney Glass dressed for an Aladdin number in Disney’s Stars on Ice. He fell in love with Regina (she has the same name in both worlds!) and wanted to be with her. Her father brought Genie a box containing two poisonous snakes (or one snake with two heads) and he wanted to use them to kill the king so he and his true love could be together, which he did. Regina then revealed to a heartbroken Genie that she didn’t love him and he should leave the kingdom. He insisted on staying and used the last wish (given to him by the very man he’d killed) to swear he’d stay with his queen forever. The wish somehow backfired and he ended up trapped in the magic mirror.

In Storybrooke, it appeared as if lapdog Sidney was finally turning on Regina, teaming up with Emma to investigate $50,000 gone missing from the town budget. When confronted in a town hall, Regina had to admit she was building something in the woods, but it turned out to be a playscape for the children after the other one was devastated by the recent storm. Emma was embarrassed and angry, but at least felt like she had Sidney or her side for her trouble. It turned out she didn’t…the whole thing had been a wild goose chase to convince her that Sidney was in her corner when he is still in cahoots with Regina.

 Justified – This was a fun, mostly standalone episode. While this season’s plots did advance and give us great scenes like Boyd Crowder’s speech to Devil and Raylan’s continuing conflict with Raymond Quarles and Wynn Duffy. (And man, Jere Burns has been rocking in his newfound niche as a sleazy mastermind, both here and on last season of Burn Notice.) The meat of this episode, though, pitted Raymond against crooked pawnshop owner Glen Fogle. (Pruitt Taylor Vince, who’s always so good.) The fun part was that there was a real element of danger, but Raylan was mostly just irritated by Fogle and his crony. Raylan has a lot on his plate right now, and he does not have time to deal with dopes who think they’re power players. After a couple of episodes of recovery, it was good to see Raylan in control of the situation, and Timothy Olyphant had some excellent scenes. Here’s a hint – if Raylan Givens ever starts telling you a folksy story about his childhood, it will almost definitely end with him punching you.

Raising Hope – This episode had Hope playing Hilary Clinton in a musical (a pug in a suit played Bill), the whole Chance family getting addicted to gambling (finally hitting bottom when they started betting on middle school track-and-field), and Virginia’s hilarious collection of Porkchesters (figurines of pigs dressed like people). And best of all, it was full-fledged crossover with My Name is Earl. Hope referenced creator Greg Garcia’s previous show before (in the pilot, a news report confirmed that Earl completed his list), but this week brought a familiar face to the show – Patty the Daytime Hooker! We have no problem with any Camden residents who want to make the move (it seems like Burt would get along fine with TV’s Tim Stack), but Patty was a favorite on Earl and we were delighted to see her leading a Gamblers Incognito meeting.

Parks and Recreation–The episode started with the Knope tradition of Gal-entines Day, where poor Ann, the “beautiful spinster” is a wee bit depressed. Leslie wanted everyone to help find her a guy at the Valentine’s dance, which resulted in really weird speed dating session that included a Phish shout-out (hello, Harris Wittels!) and Jerry hiring a gigolo on Craigslist (“man seeking man for a night of casual fun”). Leslie sent Ben on a very long scavenger hunt all around Pawnee to someplace that will is the “essence of their third date”. Aside from this taking us to Pawnee landmarks like J.J.’s Diner and The Bulge, which was fun, it ended up at the statue of Lil’ Sebastian, everyone’s favorite miniature horse. And we were treated to the sight of Ron in his glory solving riddles, which he definitely doesn’t want for his birthday present from Leslie. Oh, and somehow Ann and Tom ended up on a date, which we’re fairly confident he blew in about the first five minutes.

An Idiot Abroad – Karl’s forced Bucket List took him to Russia this week for a trip on the Trans-Siberian Express. He wasn’t particularly blown away by what is considered the most beautiful train ride in the world, and he was a little freaked out at meeting a magnet person. (Exactly what it sounds like – apparently this happens in Russia.) Karl also got a chance to take a zero gravity flight, but he took a medical exception for his swollen glands. Technically, one doctor said he could go on the flight and another said she was concerned but wouldn’t stop him from doing it, but when talking to Ricky Gervais, Karly translated that to “The doctor said I can’t go”. As funny as it is to see Karl when he’s uncomfortable, it was good to see him put one over on Ricky. Seriously though, who doesn’t want to go on a zero gravity flight?

30 Rock – Kristen Schaal! There will never be a time when we are not excited about a guest appearance by the Flight of the Conchords / Bob’s Burgers actress. She appeared as a substitute page (“Hazel Wassername”!), borrowed from Suze Orman, when Kenneth decided to try and get the TGS staff to appreciate him more. Meanwhile, Jenna and Tracy performed at a Transformers-themed bar mitzvah for their accountant’s son. Not only did they get in a dig at the weird racism in the movies about robots, but they tried to perform the “Who’s on first?” bit. (Tracy couldn’t think of that phrase!) Alec Baldwin stole the episode, though. When Liz’s contract came up for renewal, she tried to negotiate it herself, using an instructional video that Jack made in 2002. (“Speaking is a sign of weakness.”) At first Jack was excited to negotiate with himself, but when Liz wasn’t a good enough Jack Donaghy, he actually took over the entire process, arguing both sides in turn. Sometimes you just have to step out of the way and let Alec Baldwin do his thing. The end of the episode even sets up a new arc for Kenneth, where he’s looking to move beyond his lowly position.

Delocated – The season premiere brought a new status quo to our favorite Witness Protection “reality” show.  The death of Jon’s ex-wife left him a single father, raising David on his own.  Also, Susan left her son five million dollars.  (She left Jon a note that said “F**k You!” wrapped in tortillas.)  Jon went a little crazy and started wearing Susan’s clothes – on weekdays he was David’s mother, and on weekends he was the father.  Increasingly paranoid, he hired a Chinese gang to kill the Russian assassin who’s hunting him.  Instead, they killed the assassin’s father, who’s the mobster that Jon testified against in the first place.  A lot of things happened this week!  Now Jon’s raising David with the help of his ex-Blackwater private bodyguard (“The human pyramid was my design.”), and stand-up comedian Yvgeny now heads the Mirminsky crime family.  Only Delocated can be so plot-heavy and so downright silly at the same time – check out Jon’s “Mom’s Day Out”, especially when he gets a facial.  (He’s still wearing the ski mask.)  We can’t wait to see where Jon’s headed next!

And before we go, well, obviously we can’t talk about Community this week because it’s still on hiatus. While we’re very upset about this, there are bigger issues to consider. Check out Donald Glover’s PSA and heed his words…

But wait, there’s more!  Here’s Donald yet again…this time as Childish Gambino, rapping lyrics over the instrumental Knight Rider theme song, something that was slated to air in a Jack Donaghy Superbowl Special that we really wish 30 Rock had time to completely flesh out.  While you listen, you can head over and “like” our Facebook page and we’ll like you back.

That’s all for this week! As always, if there’s something we should be watching, let us know! We’ve got lots of TV shows to watch, but there’s always room for one more.  Until next week, Go Puppies!

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