Every December, a ton of “Best of the Year” lists pop up everywhere, and they can get old pretty quick, but I’m digging the “Best of the Decade” lists that I’ve been seeing lately. So I figured I’d jump on that particular bandwagon, and so I now present my list of some of the best pop culture trends of the past ten years.

Funny Music from Artists Besides Weird Al
Don’t get me wrong – my obsession with Weird Al Yankovic, the king of parodies and musical comedy, is still strong as ever. And he had a great decade in his own right, with the fantastic albums Poodle Hat and Straight Outta Lynwood, as well as his several Internet Leaks songs and videos. But he also had some competition in the funny music department. Tenacious D’s first album is side-splittingly funny. Though the movie and its soundtrack were less hilarious than they could have been, the genius of their first batch of songs more than makes up for it.

Then there’s Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island crew. The videos for Lazy Sunday, D*ck in a Box, I’m On a Boat, and others are brilliant in their lyrics and their visuals, and the digital shorts have been some of the best stuff on Saturday Night Live in recent years.

And who could forget the brilliance of Flight of the Conchords? Their two seasons on HBO, their two albums, and their EP were full of catchy, quotable, fantastic, and hysterical songs. I cried a little bit (on the inside) when I heard the show was officially done. Hopefully they’ll keep putting out music into the next decade.

The Renaissance of the Serialized Drama
The aughts may be remembered as the decade when hour-long, serialized dramas came back with a major vengeance. The best of the bunch has to be Lost – a show that not only blows your mind every week, but it has you obsessing in between episodes, talking over theories and trying to guess what it all means. The season 1 and 3 finales are two of my personal favorites in a standout series.

While the writing may not be as strong at 24 as it is on Lost, it’s still an extremely entertaining show, and it’s made Jack Bauer an instant kick ass pop icon. Sure, it’s cheesy when he screams “Dammit, we’re running out of time!” yet again, but it’s hard to resist the show’s real-time Die Hard feel. Then there’s Smallville, which has gotten much better at telling long stories over multiple episodes instead of just relying on freak-of-the-week episodes. And Fringe straddles the line of stand alone episodes with a greater mythology, and so far has been doing a great job of both. I also have high hopes for FlashForward and V, but it will remain to be seen how well those shows pay off long arcs, but they’re both off to good starts.

Even when theses kinds of shows haven’t worked all that well (Dollhouse, Terminator, Heroes) or when they were good concepts that were canceled too soon (Eli Stone), it’s still good that network executives are giving their audience some credit, understanding that we have patience, and can appreciate the kind of story-telling where everything isn’t all wrapped up in a tidy package in 42 minutes.

There is a great, albeit very long article about this topic at GQ.com with the guys from Bad Robot – I recommend it if you have a half-hour to kill.

Sit-coms Are Amazing Again!
It wasn’t just hour-long dramas that rocked the decade; the sit-com was reintroduced as a medium of clever comedies, and not just full of pratfalls and one-dimensional characters. Arrested Development was able to use bad puns, sight gags, kissing cousins, and The Final Countdown to great effect for powerful belly laughs. The British version of The Office gave us an amazing new brand of painful and awkward humor that would live on in the American series, as well as Ricky Gervais’ show Extras. 30 Rock is written so brilliantly and the jokes come so fast I find myself having to constantly rewind back to listen to jokes again. How I Met Your Mother gave a new twist to the story of urban singles looking for love. And we got 8 great years of Scrubs – even if Season 9 leaves a little to be desired.

The Superhero Is Cool Again
It seems like ages ago, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past that superhero movies weren’t really anything to get that excited about. Then in a single decade, we got four fantastic films in the genre: Superman Returns, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man. (I know I’m going to get mocked for making those the ones I single out… but I just can’t get behind Spider-man. I tried, really, I did. And I enjoyed X-Men and X2, but I don’t know if they were amazing.) Too often, superhero movies were considered formulaic drivel, and could be released, hated, and forgotten about quickly. But the aughts made them not only bankable hits, but films that both nerds and critics agreed were actually good. I’ve defended Superman Returns so many times I’ve lost count, so I’ll just make this quick – it had its fans, and its share of people who hated it, but I loved it, so it goes on *MY* list, OK? The rebooted Batman films were also incredible, and they made that world so dark and believable it’s hard to not be foaming at the mouth for more sequels. And even though I knew nothing about Iron Man, I thoroughly enjoyed that film as well. Sure there have been some bad superhero movies in the past ten years, but the good ones were so great, it almost doesn’t matter.

The Apatow Movie Method
If some strange pop culture villain put a gun to my head and demanded I name the funniest movie of the past ten years, it’s a safe bet that I’d answer Superbad. I was laughing out loud a lot when we first saw that flick, and every time I’ve watched it since, I have the same reaction. That’s impressive considering I know the jokes that are coming. I also feel similarly about Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, and The 40-Year Old Virgin. And Anchorman and Talladega Nights and Walk Hard and any movie that had Apatow’s name attached to was guaranteed to be at least funnier than your average comedy. Of course, Judd himself didn’t always have much to do with every all of the above movies, but his influence can be felt in them – and others where he had no involvement whatsoever, like I Love You, Man; there are outrageous moments, painful moments, and things that are ridiculous enough to make you laugh so hard your stomach hurts, but they still keep themselves grounded in such a way that you buy what’s happening. Movie comedies will probably continue to evolve, but these movies will always make me laugh.

The Pixar Streak
So much has already been said about the brilliance of the Pixar movies, but here it goes anyway: The folks at Pixar are geniuses, and each and every one of their flicks have been funny, beautiful to watch, and full of great characters and stories. Two of the greatest films of the decade in my humble opinion are WALL·E and Up, neither of which sounded like a home-run concept, but were both executed flawlessly. Sure there are other companies doing similar kinds of animation, but those movies always just fail to impress me with their stories, and often times they are so full of timely references that the jokes will be out dated in a few years. Courtney and I have been watching a DVR’d collection of Pixar shorts, and even the company’s short films are crafted with amazing precision and humor. I sure hope my kids love these movies, because I know I’ll enjoy watching them too.

Nintendo Changes Video Gaming
I’m a Nintendo fanboy – always have been, always will be. And I loved the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance. But what Nintendo pulled off with the Wii and the Nintendo DS is truly incredible. Video-gaming is no longer just associated with nerds playing alone in dark basements – it’s now something that the whole family can do together, something that parents don’t dread if their kids want to do, and it’s even something that women actually enjoy. (And are not just pretending to enjoy for the sake of their boyfriends or husbands.) Wii Sports isn’t my favorite game personally, but I love watching people who have never held a game controller pick it up and play with ease. Wii Fit is a really fun way to exercise at home. The latest iterations of the classic franchises have all been fantastic: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Paper Mario, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are all incredible games, as are their counterparts on the DS. (I just beat the first dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks this morning – it’s really fun so far!)

Sure Nintendo has room for improvement – better online capability, HD graphics, etc. But the fact of the matter is what they are doing now works, and it works well, and it works well for a huge chunk of the population.

Better, Clearer, Faster
High definition television. DVR. Portable players that let us watch movies, TV shows, and carry tons of music and photos, too. It’s pretty amazing that when we started this decade, those things weren’t common, and now it’s hard to imagine life without them. It sounds like a sweeping statement, but it isn’t, really. Try to go through a week without using your DVR. Or switch back to a standard definition TV. You’ll be going out of your mind in a week. What are you going to do, record your favorite shows with a VCR? Seriously.

And remember when you had to carry a discman with you to listen to music on the go? You looked strange wearing headphones, and you could only listen to one album at a time! Now you can carry thousands of songs in your cell phone.

And remember dial-up? When it would take a half hour to load a 30 second video clip? Now you can watch entire episodes of TV shows or whole movies on your laptop – or even on your TV – that load in seconds.

It’s hard to imagine so much has happened in ten years, and it’s even crazier that in December 2019, we’ll be looking back at all of this stuff as quaint and old-fashioned.

So, I guess that means he managed to survive at the end of last season, huh? Well, that was one heckuva shocker. Though I gotta admit the lines about Jack not looking like a grandpa got me sort of excited for the new season.

Of course, I am most excited for the upcoming and (definitely) final season of Lost. There’s a new teaser trailer, and even though it shows absolutely no new footage, it’s still sort of cool to get amped up about Lost again:

The new trailer does NOT make up for the fact that the show won’t be running uninterrupted in 2010 – ABC will force the show to take a break during the 2010 Winter Olympics. That’s just super lame. First of all, I can’t imagine that there is a ton of overlap between Lost fans and figure skating fans. And even if people are truly torn between finding out the secrets of The Island and seeing who takes home the gold in Curling, they can just DVR one, and not screw with the rest of us. (Although now that I think about it, a February 2010 hiatus might be a good thing for the Noah family…)

Like 24, Smallville is another show that may or may not be ending, but now there’s word that the Smallville producers are pushing hard to go for another year. This is sort of just par for the course at this point, considering that pretty much the last few seasons have all been considered likely to be the show’s last. Hell, I had been saying the show should have ended long ago as well, but I gotta admit, the show has been pretty cool lately. Sure, it still has its flaws (like last week where they were back to ripping off movies for plot ideas, this time it was “The Game”) but the show has gotten better at long arcs, and they seem to know what they’re doing and where they’re going. Hell, the simple fact that they are even planning ahead to know how to end this season and lead into next year speaks volumes about their “big picture” plans, which I can appreciate.

And last piece of news: the new Scrubs (which, like Smallville, just keeps coming back for “one more” season) is set to return on December 1st. It’s an odd time for a show to come back on the air, and I was really hoping they would at the very least change the title, but who am I kidding, there’s no way I’m not going to watch it.

And just in case anyone missed it/wants to watch it again, here’s Cartman singing “Poker Face” while Stan hunts Japanese whale hunters.

Super fast recap of the non-Lost season finales of the year:

Smallville – Super disappointing battle between Clark and Doomsday. They built up all season for 1 minute of a fight? And Jimmy Olsen wasn’t thew real Jimmy Olsen? Lame. And Chloe didn’t know that her husband had a brother? And she didn’t even try to use her healing power on him? Lame lame double lame.

24 – Tony was sort of kind of a little bit redeemed – he did have somewhat of a motivation for his actions, although he was willing to go to some awful extremes. And Kim in trouble was a tired way to end the season – there was way too much talking and not enough action in a finale where we knew Jack wasn’t going to die.

Fringe – A great end to a great first year. I really think this was one of my favorite new shows of the past season. The twists about Peter and where William Bell holds his alternate-universe meetings were great moments.

The Office – The best moment of the show was Dwight stalling for Pam and Jim. How many people have to get hurt before we do something? One? Two? Three? … FOUR?

Scrubs – What a great way to end the series, except that they’re not really ending the series. On the one hand I’m happy to have more Scrubs, but they did such an amazing job tying everything up, it could feel like overkill. And how wil they top the next series finale they have to do?

Another TV season has come and gone… Now I can begin a summer of watching baseball!

Hey, I was moved by the Kim-Jack reunion.  I mean, I saw it coming that she would come back and give him a transfusion or something to save him, but it was still an emotional scene.  The guy has one big weakness, and that’s his daughter.  This time out she didn’t look her best, but at least she was not being threatened by a menacing cougar!  And what the hell is up with Tony?  I do not get that twist at all – is he just trying to blackmail his way out of jail time?

On to Lost – I loved the past two episodes.  Ben’s run-in with Smokey was great, and I just loved the way he was lying for what appeared to be no reason.  The man might just be pathologically insane.  I was pretty chocked that he didn’t end up killing Penny – I did think she was a goner – but I’m glad Desmond was able to save his wife.  And I of course loved all of the Hurley-Miles stuff this week, especially the Star Wars references.  Although Hurley did get some of his Empire chronology wrong: Vader told Luke he was his father AFTER he sliced off Luke’s hand.  Jeez, Hurley, get your facts straight!  And who were those guys in the van?  I’m thinking they aren’t with Ben or Widmore – they’re some mysterious third faction, and THEY are the ones who faked the 815 wreckage.  Only a few episodes left!

Their season ended a while back, but Flight of the Conchords had another brilliant season, and I really, truly hope they come back for a third year.

South Park’s been a bit hit-or-miss this season, but I’m loving the great Randy moments.  Every time he says “Hey… hey Sharon,” it just cracks me up.  And the moment a few weeks ago where, after Kyle saves the economy and all of the credit goes to Obama? Well, that was pure brilliance.

And The Office has been as great as ever, and though at first I was hoping to see Michael, Pam, and Ryan rejoin Dunder-Mifflin, now I’m loving their side antics too much to care.  Oh, and this may be harsh, but after reading in Entertainment Weekly, the Times, and online how Parks & Recreation was going to be totally different from The Office, all I could see in two episodes was an Office clone, with one key difference – The Office is funny.  NBC let Scrubs go for this?  Oh, and the two-parter of Scrubs in the Bahamas?  Hysterical.

SPOILER WARNING!

Ah, Lost, how I missed you. I still have some quibbles with the show here and there – like how convenient is it that every time the guys on the Island are in mortal danger, there’s a flash? And how convenient is it that all of the members of the Oceanis Six are in LA just as Ben needs to get them all back to the Island? And how was Jin able to be in the “sphere” of time travel around the Island, when the helicopter was not? Wasn’t the copter flying back to the Island after the freighter went boom? I would think the chopper would move faster than a drifting Jin. And if the Island “needs” everyone from 815 on the Island, why has it killed so many of them? And my BIG question remains – if the Island needed Jack and company so badly,why did Jacob have Ben move the Island when he did?? I still say this predicament of time-hopping is way more of Ben/Locke/Jacob’s fault than Jack’s.

But quibbles and questions aside, the show is still amazing. Seeing Jin alive, though not particularly surprising, was still a great moment. And he meets the young Rousseau? Whoa. I have long wondered about her backstory – what really happened to her crew? How did she live on the Island for 16 years and never see an Other? But did she interact with Jin in the earlier seasons? Did she recognize him? She may have given him an odd look and we would have regarded it as pure craziness. I may have to rewatch some old episodes for research.

And along those same lines, when Claire gave birth to Aaron, were there whispers that could have been Sawyer/Faraday? Could Sawyer have popped out and said hello to Kate? Would that have disrupted the space-time continuum? Could he have talked to himself? Back to the Future rules say no. Timecop rules say he could talk to himself, but the two Sawyers couldn’t touch. Lost rules on this matter have not yet been made clear.

In other TV matters, 24 is officially awesome again! The new characters haven’t bothered me as much as I thought they would, though I would like more Chloe and Bill action. But the tag-team of Jack and Tony is just fantastic. The drama is kept high, the action is fun to watch, and I find myself looking forward to each new episode, which I sorta wasn’t in the middle of last season. Part of me worries if they’ll be able to keep up this momentum, especially with another huge government conspiracy reaching into the White House, but hey, I’m an optimistic fella.

And Scrubs, 30 Rock, and The Office have been amazing this year. The episode of The Office post-Superbowl was unbelievably amazingly hysterical, and yes, I did whine about hour-log episodes of The Office before, but none was so brilliantly executed as this one. The opening sequence was so damn funny, it’s worth watching again. So here it is, my gift to you all. (OK fine, Hulu’s gift to us all.)

Yay – it’s time for the new Spring TV Season! Hooray! Here, in no particular order, are the shows I’m foaming at the mouth for.

Lost – This is a given. Though I personally thought that last season was not the show’s strongest (blasphemy, I know), they did get the ball rolling on a number of fronts, and all of the lingering questions and conspiracy theories that the show leaves you with are just too much fun. In spite of any quibbles, Lost is definitely in line to be one of the greatest serialized dramas in TV history, and I will damn sure be obsessing over every minute this year. In addition to the obvious questions of how Locke ended up in the casket, how the O6 will get back to the Island, and where (or when?) the Island disappeared to, I am still dying to find out how Christian plays into everything, how on Earth Danielle was able to live on the Island for 16 years without ever seeing an Other, and I STILL want a flashback episode for Vincent.

24 – Oh, really, last year sucked? Yeah, thanks for the heads-up on that. Well, for the record, the very beginning and very end of last year were good, it was just the entire middle that was boring and mindless. Well, the mini-movie this fall showed that Jack can still be interesting, and though the change of setting from LA to DC can only do so much, I do think it can help give the show a kick in the tush. They need to remember that what made the show so great in the first place was that the characters were so interesting – the cookie-cutter villains and even good guys just don’t work after a while. Oh, and my conspiracy theory is that Tony Almeida isn’t really a bad-guy – he’s good, just working undercover. I’m really clinging to that, because the whole concept of having him be evil because Michelle died is just so trite.

Big Love – Multiple wives! Shady business dealings! Roman conspiracies! (The kind about the guy named Roman, naturally.) I don’t understand why more people don’t love this show – it’s really well written and well acted, and the whole concept of a a show about a polygamist is just fun.

Flight of the Conchords – I fell in love with this show last year, and picking up the CD has kept New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk rock duo fresh in my music-parody-loving brain. I know the first episode is available to watch online, but part of me wants to wait to see it on the big screen.

Dollhouse – My original goal was to finish Buffy, Angel, and Firefly before Whedon’s latest kicks off. that might not happen, but now that I’m a Joss convert, I’ll definitely be checking in to see Eliza Dushku’s latest role. The rumors of problems on set and with the writing don’t really faze me, as often times those things are exaggerated, and whenever there are high expectations you’re bound to have some people crying foul. But I’ll give it a shot, to watch a Whedon show “live” – just a decade after everyone else started doing it!

Scrubs – And last but not least – Scrubs is back! Tonight! On ABC! I’m going nuts with exclamation points! I am so stoked to be getting more of this show, which I have loved for many years now. Very rarely can one show – a sitcom, no less – be so funny and have so much heart. It’s not an easy line to walk, but Scrubs does it time and again. Part of me hopes that the show ends after this year when Zach Braff leaves, and part of me would love to see it go on forever with a rotating cast, but that just reeks of Saved by the Bell: The New Class to me. Once the core group goes, especially if it’s en masse, it’s just harder to care beyond that point. But I won’t worry about that now, and I’ll just be happy for new Scrubs starting tonight!

On to my other shows:

I know it has become rather vogue to rag on Heroes, but I have to jump on this fanboy bandwagon here. Seriously, what is up with this show lately? In Season One, the revelation that Claire was a Petrelli was shocking. Now Sylar is a Petrelli, too? Come on. And then there are more sisters that look just like Niki Sanders? Ugh. Niki was a terrible character in the first two seasons, and though they made a wise move in killing her off, the show runners should have let the actress go altogether. No offense to Ali Larter, but none of these sisters have added anything worthwhile to the plots, and Claire is better eye-candy anyway. And the whole time-traveling plot device has become moronic – Hiro sees a bad future, and doesn’t understand what’s happening, why doesn’t he go to a few days before the world ends and do some digging? Future Peter decides that Nathan’s revealing the Heroes is a bad move so he goes back in time to shoot him. Why not go back an hour before that and talk to his brother? And after F.P. figures out that shooting Nathan was a bad idea, why not go back again and stop himself? In The Eclipse Part 1, Noah rushes a lightly injured Claire out of the house, but doesn’t finish off Sylar and Elle. Why not? Sure he’s worried about his daughter, but how long does it take to shoot some suddenly powerless villains? There are way too many plot holes like these, and it’s just getting infuriating. I appreciate that the plots are moving faster, but sometimes it feels like they are moving too damn fast, and the stories aren’t given a moment to breathe. The flashback episode, like the season’s theme of finding a hero in every villain and a villain in every hero, is so full of potential, but the show has completely squandered every chance for greatness.

Now, on to my love-hate relationship with Smallville. Despite the incredibly noticeable absence of Lex, the show has been doing all right this year, looking like they are finally ready to have Clark accept and embrace his destiny as Superman. But then I have to go and read that the CW is looking to keep the show around for yet another season. Oh dear Lord, why? Well, the reason why is that Smallville’s numbers are still respectable, so they might as well keep trying to get blood from the stone. The problem with the show going on forever is that the very concept of the show was set up to establish Clark’s journey from a boy with superpowers to a man who is to be the world’s greatest superhero. And it’s a great concept for a show, but it needs to have a set end. By allowing the show to drag on for year after year, the series is basically making the character of Clark Kent less and less likeable because he just keeps putting off the inevitable. The show worked very well in the high school years, and even into Season Five, but after that point, Clark has been dragging his feet, and it hurts the overall tone of the show. This season, the Lois and Clark romance feels incredibly rushed to me, and there are so many nitpicky things that drive me crazy week after week. Like, for example, the fact that Chloe was given away at her wedding by Clark and not her father. Where the hell was he? And Martha couldn’t have taken a moment out of her schedule to attend the wedding at her family farm? What? All that said, I was glad they (finally) tied up the Kara storyline, and I have enjoyed the way the show has introduced Doomsday as a real badass with some frightening Kryptonian heritage.

Eli Stone has been great so far this year, and I am terribly bummed that the show will likely not live past halfway through this season. This is a really entertaining show that enough people just haven’t caught on to yet, which is a real shame. The musical numbers are fun, the characters are well-written, and the hot chick from Species is in the show. Why wouldn’t you watch it? With it’s themes of a higher-power making a guy set things right, the show has a very Quantum Leap feel, which is probably one of the reasons I like it. Hopefully ABC will give the show another chance.

The Office is back with a vengeance, which isn’t particularly surprising, but they continue to set the bar very high for themselves. Of course I loved the episode where Dwight mocked Andy by applying to Cornell, since it was chock full of references to my beloved alma mater, and the show has continued to handle the Jim and Pam storyline masterfully, and they remain one of the best couples to watch on TV. The Andy and Angela arc is still great, and the moment when Andy drunk dials his fiancée while Oscar watches was fantastic. Repairing Ryan and Kelly has reminded me how much I had watching them together, and I am convinced that for the series finale, whenever that may be, Michael and Holly will be reunited.

30 Rock has also been on a roll this season. I will admit to being one of the nerds who grumbled about all of the big name guest stars the show was bringing in, as it seemed like a ratings ploy. But the writing is so good, it doesn’t matter what star is playing the zany characters the show brings in, because it always works. And hell, I hope they do get more viewers with their special celebrity appearances, although Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression likely had much more to do with the ratings spike than an appearance by Megan Mullalley. My only complaint with the show was the way they abandoned the cliffhangers from last season’s finale. I know the Kenneth in China thing was a joke, but Jack being stuck in D.C. got a mention of how he was able to get out, and I would have liked a similar nod to the Page. But it’s a small quibble for a great show.

On the animated front, I am greatly enjoying The Simpsons and American Dad this year, while Family Guy just feels stale. The Clone Wars is great, even though the Jar Jar episode was, well, a Jar Jar episode. Robot Chicken’s second Star Wars parody was, like the first one, spot on with it’s great reimaginings, and I love the ultra-fast jokes for the super obsessed, like Lando commenting that he loves Boba Fett’s ship, but that he isn’t so crazy about the name. Brilliant. South Park had an amazing second half, and even though I thought the High School Musical and vampire kids episodes weren’t hysterical, they still had enough funny moments to make me happy. And the guinea pigs in their little outfits were simultaneously brilliant and adorable.

And a few other thoughts/news items:

The Girls Next Door remains a guilty pleasure, but the show has lost a little bit of its believability now that Hef has shed two-thirds of his girlfriend group. Eh, I always liked Bridget the best anyway, and I’m curious to meet these new twins.

And yay, Scrubs comes back on the air on January 6!

And could it really be that an Arrested Development movie is actually going to happen?

Scrubs – My Princess

This episode serves as the season finale, but it was very clearly not intended to. Very early on in the episode we see Dr. Kelso walking around like he is still the chief of medicine, and that’s because he still is. This episode was meant to come before the most recent two, and it was switched to be the season finale because NBC did not give Bill Lawrence the number of shows he wanted to wrap up the show after the writer’s strike. Because of that, the show will jump to ABC for its eight and final season next year. That’s great news for the show, and this episode did a fine job as a season finale, but the fact that it had to be shown out of sequence was a little jarring at first.

But besides the weird timing of the episode, this episode does a great job at “breaking the mold” of the show by setting it as both a real-world story and a storybook version that Dr. Cox is telling his son Jack as a bedtime story inspired by The Princess Bride. Every character is present in the medieval village – Elliot is a princess, J.D. is the village idiot, Turk and Carla are Turla, a two-headed creature, Janitor is a giant, Kelso, is an evil overlord, and since he is telling the story, Cox is a heroic knight. The jokes within the story are really funny, from Elliot demanding her chastity belt key back from Keith, to the appearance of fairy Todd, to the not-so-subtle Princess Bride reference when Knight Cox tells the disease to “prepare to die.” (As an aside, does it mean something that in the last episode before the show heads to ABC there is a smoke monster in Scrubs, a nod to Lost perhaps?) Elliot and J.D. go on a mythical quest to discover what is wrong with their patient before they finally discover the “golden ring” of the true diagnosis. Dr. Cox tells Jack that they were able to save the woman in time, but then confides to Jordan that in real life, the woman still passed away. Once again, this show amazingly juggles farce with tragedy, and it makes for a poignant end to the season. Because of moments like that, I’m glad that we’ll be getting a whole extra season of this amazing show.

Best joke of the episode: “Your ass is bleeding” meaning exactly what you think it means.

The Office – Job Fair

The Dunder-Mifflin Scranton branch needs some young blood – to euthanize as Michael puts it – so they are off to recruit high school interns at a local job fair. This premise is very simple, but it plays out hilariously as Michael, Pam, Oscar, and Darryl head to Pam’s alma mater to entice new paper salesmen with a single piece of classic DM paper. The interactions between Michael and the students are all deliciously awkward, as he makes a snap judgment deciding that Justin, a student Pam found, was clearly not good enough for the internship, only to beg him later when he could find no one else. Michael is downright cruel to Pam, making her drive back to the office for a single piece of paper after insisting that she only bring one in the first place, referring to her as eye candy, and saying that she will “do” any prospective interns, as she’s already dated two guys in the office that they know about. It’s really no wonder that she was looking for other opportunities as a graphic designer at the end of the episode. How this will affect her future with Jim remains to be seen…

Because while all this is going on at the high school, Jim has decided to actually try to succeed at his job after Ryan’s warning last week. He therefore brings Andy and Kevin along for a golf outing to try to win a new client. Andy practiced so much that his hands are covered with blisters, Kevin is a little too eager to gamble on the game, and the prospective client doesn’t seem at all interested in changing paper suppliers. Watching Jim try his best sales pitch without coming off as too aggressive was handled really well, and it is given extra weight knowing that he wants to keep his job so his future will be secure for Pam. And, of course, watching Andy crash the golf cart was hysterical too. This episode also teases a possible reunion between Dwight and Angela, as they are the only two left in the office after everyone else decides to ditch. I was hoping for a reconciliation, but the uncomfortableness between the two was probably more realistic.

Best joke of the episode: Pam’s detailed “Do you remember” to Michael, all of which he denied.

30 Rock – Cooter

This week’s 30 Rock picks up right after last week’s, with Jack now working in D.C. , which makes the twelfth floor of 30 Rock seem luxurious by comparison. The show’s political humor rarely feels forced, and this episode continues that tradition by not making (many) biting comments about the current administration, and instead focusing the jokes on the denial of a ceiling leak, a bold initiative to get pens, and the bizarre nicknames all the government workers are given by the commander in chief. Matthew Broderick is great as Cooter Burger (because he resembled a turtle and was eating a sandwich when Dubya met him), and given the way the show brings back old plot threads, it’s a safe bet we’ll be seeing more of him in Season Three. Speaking of which, it was a nice treat to see Edie Falco back as C.C., and the cameo made perfect sense as a way for Jack to get out of his current job by funding the ridiculous “gay bomb.”

Meanwhile, Liz begins to suspect she’s pregnant with Dennis’ child. Her remark to Cerie that she knows how birth control works since she’s been sexually active since she was 25 was a great throw-away line, and the results from her pregnancy tests seemed like the show was really committed to having Liz be with child. The fact that it was a false positive brought on by her Mexican snacks was absolutely brilliant, as were all of her phone calls to Jack. Their friendship never felt so real or believable as it did in this episode. The other stories, with Tracy’s porn game nearing completion and Kenneth’s quest to be a Page at the Olympics were also funny, even though they didn’t get as much screen time. Jenna stole the scenes from both, with her recording session for the video game and her revealing how to backdoor brag to Kenneth. The cliffhangers may have been a bit silly, but overall this episode did a great job of ending Season Two on a high note.

Best joke of the episode: Jenna admitting that she had a threesome with Roseanne and Tom Arnold, but that it was two whole years ago.

Scrubs – My Waste of Time

This episode picks up after the departure of Dr. Kelso last week, with Dr. Cox replacing him as the interim Chief of Medicine. Despite the fact that the job is more work than he realized, it seems like a role that Cox was born to fill. The Janitor gives Ted advice to not allow the new chief of medicine to push him around like Kelso did, but the advice backfires on him when Ted revolts against the Janitor’s leadership in their new Brain Trust. Meanwhile, Carla announces to Turk that she wants another baby, and J.D. and Elliot are forced to again examine the nature of their relationship. If that sounds like a lot happened in one episode, that’s because it was a very dense episode. The only storyline that suffered was the one between J.D. and Elliot, which could have been fleshed out a bit more. The interactions between the Janitor, Ted, The Todd, and Doug are very funny, and it’s nice that these background characters are given some time to shine, but it would have been nice to get a little bit more of the main characters. Elliot was hurt by J.D.’s wishing that she was Turk, and she had a point. Even though she and J.D don’t have the same dynamic as J.D. and Turk, that was a pretty cold thing to say, and J.D. ends up coming across as sort of a jerk to Elliot throughout this episode. She is concerned about following up on an old patient because she is genuinely worried that she may have hurt or killed him with a medication she prescribed – what’s so bad about that?

The episode did still deliver plenty of good yuks, from the long fantasy sequence about Turk’s prosthetic testicle shopping at Ball-Mart, Ted’s attempting to pick up a woman with the line, “I want to make you pregnant,” and, of course, the prank J.D. and Elliot played at the drive-thru. The show showed how clever it could be when all of the characters came together to vent about their problems in one room at one time, and J.D. announced, in so many words, that he likes to take a slice of wisdom from someone else’s life, and that he does it almost every week. Explaining so matter-of-factly one of the main themes of this series could have seemed hokey, but the delivery made it work. And the way that Sam stared off in to space, just like his dad did, was a great sight gag.

Best joke of the episode: “Legal Custodian” – get it? – coming this fall to NBC.

The Office – Did I Stutter?

Though The Office has plenty of absurd elements, it does on occasion inject itself with a shot of reality that can be quite jarring. “Did I Stutter?” pulled off that feat twice in a single episode; namely in Stanley’s outburst at Michael, and Ryan’s warning to Jim. Michael is full of bad ideas, and his meetings tend to be gigantic wastes of time. But, for the most part, his staff tends to go along with it, rolling their eyes, and just accepting that this is the way things are. But this week, Stanley was pushed just a little too far, and he snapped at Michael. Michael was genuinely hurt by the outburst, and would have much preferred an apology from Stanley as opposed to disciplining his “friend.” His plan of a “fake firing” was destined to head south, but the way that Michael and Stanley talked out their differences in the end was a great way to resolve their conflict, and it goes to show that as annoying as it might be to have Michael Scott as your boss, it’s better than having someone vindictive and nasty.

Like, for example, Ryan, who gives Jim a good-naturing ribbing about the Eagles, only to blind-side him with a negative performance review because of the time he wastes on pranks and Pam. While there is some truth to this claim, you are forced to wonder what brought it on. Ryan isn’t around to see Jim goofing off, so is Jim right in his guess that this goes back to what he said to Dave Wallace? Or is it from a jealous Toby? Either way, this warning completely took both Jim and the audience by surprise, and the big question is what will come next for the lovable goofball? Is he going to start to buckle down and do more work, or will he be seen as competition by Ryan and dealt with accordingly?

So much drama in a comedy! Though this week’s episode might not have been quite as hysterical as the few that preceded it, it still delivered plenty of laughs. The opening gag of Michael putting his face in the cement was pure brilliance. As someone who normally wears contacts, I could totally relate to Pam’s experience wearing her back-up glasses, though I never had to deal with someone with a librarian fetish like Kevin’s. Watching Dwight work his high-pressure sales technique on Andy and attempt to do it to Michael was hysterical. Is that how the guy sells paper?

Best joke of the episode: Daryl’s talk to Michael about his life as a gang member in the Crips, Blood, Latin Kings, and the Newsies.

30 Rock – Sandwich Day

Tina Fey cleans up nice, don’t she? In interviews, she always down plays her sexuality and nerd appeal, but then she gets herself all dolled up in 30 Rock and drives us all crazy again. Of course she wasn’t trying to impress bloggers, but Liz was trying to make Floyd jealous of all that he left behind when he moved to Cleveland, namely her. Despite all of the great things that Cleveland has, there is one thing they are missing: an Ikea. Floyd wants to be around Liz, but he can’t handle talking about his love life now that they have broken up. This episode takes the concept of an old flame coming to town and really has a field day with it, refusing to rely on clichés. Even when Liz rushes to meet Floyd at the airport, she refuses to give up her sandwich at the security checkpoint.

The Sandwich Day jokes are all great, but the best is Liz’s over-reactions to when her food is taken. The Union guys refuse to give up the location of their secret sandwich shop unless they are bested in a drinking contest. Even though it looks like a lock for them to keep their secret, their luck changes suddenly and without warning. Jack’s story continued from last week with him losing his assistant (who serenaded him with Sarah McLachlan’s I Will Remember You), being forced to relocate to an office on the (shudder) 12th floor, and seemingly getting messages from the hospital janitor that he needs to leave G.E. That and he discovered that catching a snowflake on your tongue in Chelsea is apparently some sort of signal. The episode ended with him apparently joining the Department of Homeland Security, but it seems like a safe bet that we’ll be hearing more from him next week.

Best joke of the episode: Floyd’s use of the name Peter Venkman for evil.

Scrubs – My Dumb Luck

This was supposed to be the last season of Scrubs, and so a lot of stories were designed to wrap up certain characters’ arcs this year. (How the additional year on ABC will change things remains to be seen.) This episode served as the swan song for Chief of Medicine Bob Kelso. Despite his curmudgeonly ways, he has shown over the years that he does in fact have a hear, and that it’s not full of just muffin tops, baby souls, and his denture grip as Dr. Cox claims. Hearing him talk to the random intern about all of his experiences was both touching and funny, as he scared the poor guy and made fun of his “gay little knapsack.” My only complaint about this storyline was that I thought it was a little out of character for him to ask for Elliot and Carla’s help in getting his job back, only for him to then turn around and quit.

J.D. and Turk had some great moments this episode, from their game of “poke the bear” with Dr. Cox, to the way he got them (just J.D., actually) back with bungee cord, to their conversation about not paying attention when they’re being insulted, and of course, the blind luck they used to diagnose the mystery ailment by googling purple pee. Elliot also had a great joke when it was revealed that she called men and lesbians “slick” to get them to do what they want, and Dr. Cox had me laughing out loud when he called J.D. “Hermoine.” Once again, the show is able to mix touching moments with big laughs, but I fear what will be left for the show to cover in season eight if they keep wrapping up threads in season seven.

Best joke of the episode: Janitor claiming to have invented the phrase “delusions of grandeur.”

The Office – Night Out

Over the years, Ryan’s character has gone from a guy you felt sorry for to a guy you hated, and now with this episode, I’m back to kind of feeling sorry for him again. He’s still a self-righteous and arrogant jerk, but the not-so-subtle implications that he has a serious drug problem can’t help but make you think that the pressure of his corporate job has been too much for him to handle. Especially after dundermifflininfinity.com was hacked into by sexual predators. Of course, that won’t be a problem when version 2.0 rolls out, which will happen TBD. Or, as Michael puts it, TDB. Ryan’s scenes in Scranton were all great, but the capper came when the still-bitter Kelly asked him simply, “How dare you?”

Of course, the episode doesn’t really get under way until Michael and Dwight head down to NYC to join Ryan out for a night of clubbing. The way that even Michael is surprised about how happy Ryan is to see them is a great moment from one of the least self-aware characters to ever grace the small-screen. Michael and Dwight are the ultimate fish out of water in this new environment, as Michael orders chicken fingers and “marachino” cherries, calls his mom, and tells women that he’s a bank-teller, all as Dwight mistakes Ryan’s short friend for a Hobbit and tall women for Amazons. Still, it is Dwight who is able to adapt to his new surroundings, by using the women’s basketball team to get his friends into a club, then by making out with one of the gals and even getting her number. If this group is as Swingers-esque as Michael hopes, who would have guessed that Dwight would end up playing Vince Vaughn’s part?

Meanwhile, back in Scranton, Jim once again learns that running the office in Michael’s stead isn’t quite as easy as one would think. Getting their work done on Friday night instead of coming in on Saturday makes sense, but when Jim fails to notify security and the gang all gets locked in, they quickly turn on him. Stanley, as usual, got a big laugh when he said that he’ll kill both Jim and Pam if he’s not in a bath with a glass of red wine in an hour. Jim has struggled leading the branch before, when he tried combining multiple birthday parties. As dense as Michael is, he does apparently know a few things about how to be a regional manager. It was great seeing Jim, who usually makes fun of others when they are in awkward situations, squirm as he calls the security guard, and suffer through Andy and Angela being voted to be the better couple by everyone, even Phyllis. The ending of the show was again great, with the security guard finally arriving to find everyone else has gone. The Office went through a bit of a slump at the start of the season, but since its return from the strike hiatus, the show has been incredibly strong.

Best joke of the episode: Toby putting his hand on Pam’s knee, announcing a move to Costa Rica, and then jumping the fence in the parking lot.

30 Rock – Succession

Jack Donaghy’s quest to be the next boss of GE has been playing out for a while now, and whenever Jack’s rival, Devon Banks, makes an appearance, you know you’re in for a great episode of TV. Will Arnett hasn’t had much luck on the big screen since Arrested Development, but his guest spots on 30 Rock are always spot on, as he plays a power-hungry gay man willing to do anything to get ahead, including marry into Don Geiss’ family. The flashback of him flirting with his wedding florist, the way he feigns excitement for his bachelor party, and his back and forth with Jack about seeing Clay Aiken in Spamalot are all great bits that take the “gay man getting married to a woman” joke to whole new levels.

As great as the Donaghy/Banks rivalry is, Liz Lemon steals the show. She starts out by saying that Frank looks like a cross between Gene Simmons and a basset hound, and then makes references to her secret wish of living with the gorillas. But once she decides to go corporate, Liz is at her funniest. The way she handles herself at her first executive meal is brilliant, and it’s a real treat watching the other suits react to Liz’s bold microwave “start button classic” initiative. Of course, it was not meant to be, and by show’s end, Liz is back at her TGS gig and Jack’s future is uncertain. It seems like we’ll be seeing more of Banks in the weeks to come, which is always a good thing.

The episode also had another brilliant appearance by Dr. Spaceman (pronounced Spuh-chee-men), and a fantastic bit with Tracy trying to invent a pornographic video game. The twist of this story turning into a parody of Amadeus, worked well, and seeing Frank jealous over Tracy’s success with the game, despite his difficulties in making realistic characters that were sexy and not creepy, was really funny stuff, and I hope we hear more about the finished product as the show continues. This episode certainly laid the groundwork for the rest of the season, and it is full of potential.

Best joke of the episode: Tracy’s summation of Han Solo: “He acts like he doesn’t care, but he does.”