TV Report: Weekly Comedy Rankings

A few comedies were pre-empted for country music this week namely Modern Family, Suburgatory, and Happy Endings. But the rest of my usual line-up were all new this week.

1. The Treaty (Parks and Recreation) - As you could tell from my write-up last week, I love this show wholeheartedly, but I seem to love the Ben-Leslie dynamic more than any other element on the show right now so this week's episode was like a love letter to me. Ben and Leslie are both dorks and so them leading a model UN was a great way to show this while also highlighting still the awkwardness of being friends after breaking up. Adam Scott and Amy Poehler were in fine form in this episode. I laughed, I cried, then laughed and cried again.

2. Disaster Averted (How I Met Your Mother) - You can tell that the writers are doing their best to callback to earlier seasons which they've been doing throughout this season. This past episode was full of them from the return of the Slap Bet to the rekindling of the Barney/Robin romance, to HIMYM's usual non-linear multi-layered storytelling. It all added up to an episode that definitely felt vintage and was stronger for it. Also I laughed way too hard whenever Marshall was attached by the bear.

3. Studies in Modern Movement (Community) - Most of the episode dealt with Annie's move from her awful apartment to living with Troy and Abed. I knew the transition wouldn't be so smooth and glad the writers addressed that upfront considering Troy and Abed's affinity to live in their own world. Of course Jim Rash yet again stole the spotlight as he blackmailed Jeff into not only eating lunch with him, but also doing some karaoke which he promptly tweeted for the world to see. Also liked Britta and Shirley picking up a hitchhiker who thinks himself as Jesus Christ. Hilarity ensued.

4. First Night Away (Up All Night) - Not as great as last week's episode, but still the show has been more consistently good than bad now which is saying a lot coming from me. I especially enjoyed Ava babysitting Amy and meeting and connecting with the other father warmly played by Jason Lee. It made her seem much less a caricature (which is bad but didn't fit tonally for this show) and more of an actual human character.

5. Pam's Replacement (The Office) - There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the episode. I tend to like it when Pam and Dwight team up against Jim, but this week's episode painted Pam as too paranoid (I get it, she's pregnant and hormones, but come on). The "Dwight grabbing Jim's crotch" gag was overplayed also. Everything else in the episode was meh especially the whole B-plot with Robert "taking over" the band.

6. The Ornithophobia Diffusion (Big Bang Theory) - Probably one of the weakest episode of the season for this show. For one two of its strongest characters were sidelined either by a really, really stupid plot (Sheldon and his fear of birds) or lack of screen time (Amy). Second, the A-plot focused on the Leonard/Penny relationship which wasn't exactly epic. It also made Leonard more douchey than he usually is and that's just unattractive.

7. And Hoarder Culture (2 Broke Girls) - To be honest, when I saw this episode, while nothing special, I was thinking it'd rank higher this week. Unfortunately for it, most every other show had better episodes and them are the breaks. The hoarder stuff was slightly chuckle worthy and I liked that we got more Max/Johnny development. Though OF COURSE he has a girlfriend. My eye-rolling was epic when we learned of that little factoid.

8. Cece Crashes (New Girl) - A slightly better episode than usual especially since we got more of Cece. Not that I'm annoyed by the other main characters, but for some reason the chemistry that I want from this group of people just isn't there. It all feels a little too forced for me. That said, I DO like Nick/Jess but Jess just seems so socially awkward, in the most unfunny way, that it ruins it for me sometimes.