TV Report: Weekly Comedy Rankings

You can tell the networks are bringing out their big guns since it's November sweeps. For sitcoms, it's less about epic story lines and more about bringing in a bunch of famous guest stars as you'll see below.

1. End of the World (Parks and Recreation) - Damn if this wasn't another strong episode from the best comedy on air right now. The Chris stuff is still the show's weak point, but everything else was strong enough to compensate. Most notable, for me, was Ben and Leslie finally sharing a scene together and trying to deal with their break-up. As an unabashed Ben/Leslie shipper, this episode killed me from the gas station scene to Leslie's "If the world was ending today, I'd want to be with him" quote. After that, Tom and Jean Ralphio's epic end of the world party and April and Andy Bucket List adventures culminating at the Grand Canyon were quite p itch perfect.

2. The Isolation Permutation (Big Bang Theory) - I've constantly been saying for the past season and a half that the best thing this show has done is to give Penny girl friends. But bringing in Mayim Bialik as Sheldon's sorta girlfriend and Penny's bestie was a stroke of genius in no small part due to the brilliance that Bialik brings into the role. This episode was very Amy-centric with Amy trying to deal with Penny and Bernadette jilting her on a bridesmaid shopping trip. I ugly-laughed several times, one of them while Amy tried to convince Sheldon to cuddle with her.

3. The Slutty Pumpkin Returns (How I Met Your Mother) - Here's the thing... I was amongst EVERYONE who groaned at the thought that Katie Holmes was cast as the famed Slutty Pumpkin from the show's first season, but she didn't do a bad job at all. In fact I found her and Ted's inability to connect quite hilarious. My favorite storyline of the night though went to Barney and Robin (notably sans their respective paramours) as Robin kept teasing Barney of his 25% Canadian heritage. Robin talking Canadian and torturing Barney are two of my favorite things ever. The cherry on top is seeing Neil Patrick Harris dressed as a shirtless Uncle Sam-like character. God Bless the USA. Marshall/Lily's city v. suburbs storyline was slight, but still good.

4. Parents (Up All Night) - I've not been such a gung-ho fan of this show from the get-go. I love everyone involve and there are moments and even whole episodes that are quite good, but all in all I don't have any exciting feelings regarding it. With that said, this past week's episode with guest stars Blythe Danner and Richard Schiff is one of those good episodes that had me smiling from beginning to end. Most of it were how great Danner and Schiff was, but Applegate was the real stand-out in this episode hashing out her issues with her parents as a new mom herself. The Maya Rudolph B-plot was also funny if only for that ridiculous and hilarious tribute video at the end.

5. Lying Around (Happy Endings) - Speaking of hilarious videos, Dave and Max's commercial for Dave's food truck nearly killed me in its over-the-top suckiness. I also loved the fact that they ended up creating a great commercial by the end only to make no mention of what they were promoting. Brad and Jane's staycation duel was pretty funny as well as Penny getting jealous of Alex's date being exceptionally grand. For the latter, I wished we had gotten to actually see more of the grand dates.

6. Advanced Gay (Community) - A lot of things worked for me in this episode. All of the gay puns and word play were more than chuckle worthy and that stupid jingle for Hawthorne wipes keeps playing in my head. I also loved Troy's B-plot about being recruited by Vice Dean Laybourne over to the Air Condition Annex. I just wished these two plots were in different episodes, because they never really connected. I also wished we had more Dean Pelton especially for an episode entitled "Advanced Gay." I also thought Pierce's ivory-wigged father was a bit too ridiculous even for this show, but whatchagonnado?

7. Treehouse (Modern Family) - There really was only two things I particularly loved about this episode. The first is Leslie Mann working with Eric Stonestreet with the latter trying to play straight and Mann going along for the ride in the end. Hope we see more of her! The second is Ty Burrell, because well he's Ty Burrell, and because I always enjoy his scenes with Luke. I also loved that he made a new friend. Rest of the episode was solid, albeit unspectacular to me... Gloria wanting Jay to dance and Jay trying to learn from Manny... Claire ditching Haley in the middle of nowhere so the latter had something to write about on her college essay after complaining she's had it easy, etc.

Note: I don't have much to say about the next four shows/episodes so my reactions will be very short and sweet.

8. Charity Case (Suburgatory) - Kind of an odd/weird episode that didn't really work for me, but on some level still did. More commentary on the excess that rich people have, but not much to the episode for me.

9. And the Pretty Problem (2 Broke Girls) - Apart from the end result of the girls finding out their niche in the cupcake business (mean cupcakes! genous!), another run-of-the-mill episode.

10. Doomsday (The Office) - Dwight and Gabe aren't my favorite characters and since this episode had a lot of them, it wasn't one of my favorite episodes. Kind of tired of both of their schticks.

11. Naked (New Girl) - To be honest, I'm this close to dropping the show. I just watch too many other similar shows that just do it better. Schmidt wanting to see Nick's penis was chuckle worthy as well as Jess' inability to say penis for the first five minutes (then it got increasingly annoying after that). I'll likely keep watching, but I'll probably stop writing about it.