Must See TV? I Think Not.

It's Thursday night, which according to NBC is 'must see TV'. As such, I must ask myself why? 'Must See TV' died when Friends and Fraiser ended their runs. Arguably, you could say it ended after Cosby and Cheers ended their runs, but the point is, there's really nothing on Thursday nights to get excited about.

There's The Office, another in a long line of British shows that NBC has copied and ruined (Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf, Coupling, and Teachers, all of which I've seen the originals of). First of all, Steve Carrell needs to stick to movies. He's not good on television in any capacity. Secondly, the casting for this show was apparently either friends of a guy at a frathouse, or a bunch of people who were already screenwriters, which possibly accounts for the fact that not a single one of them is truly funny. Third, the mechanism for the humor is a bad idea for American TV. Us dumb American viewers make fun of people who are awkward, and exclude them from playing our reindeer games. Even if it weren't, it's so poorly executed that any humor from 'That's what she said' or anything Dwight does just looks totally stupid.

In contrast, 30 Rock has all the pieces The Office is deficient in: The writing is good (but could be better), the casting was ridiculous (how the got Alec Baldwin is beyond me, and he's FUNNY) and the humor works because they lampoon THEMSELVES. Now, I will freely admit, that I don't watch 30 Rock like I should, and the only two reasons that is is because there's a faint odor, a taint, if you will, of the rest of the shows in the line up, and that I cannot abide, and that like every other popular show after it wins every award on the planet, I think they're starting to phone it in

The problem with both Parks & Rec and Community is the same reason why NBC's in fourth, and the converse of why CBS is kicking ass: They're too dependent on their bread and butter shows. Every show in this lineup is stylistically descended from The Office, which means Joel McHale and the main cast, minus Chevy Chase, will write, produce, direct and star in bunches of crappy summer comedies. The casting or writing (to some degree) is descended from SNL and 30 Rock. What I still don't get is why Amy Pohler is still relevant, other than being Tina Fey's side dish since she's roughly equal to Steve Carrell in the funny department. Unlike CBS who can clone CSI or NCIS until the apocalypse and have each show be independent operators from each other, when I try to watch NBC's comedy lineup, I feel like I'm watch a two hour comedy movie that means nothing and isn't funny. I'd probably get more meaning out of a two hour Curb Your Enthusiasm marathon than the so-called Must See TV

And from where does NBC get the hubris to say anybody 'MUST' watch anything on their network anymore. You're in fourth place, dudes. Acknowledge your failings, suck it up, grow and learn. Rewatch the pilot episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip for additional assistance