Parks and Recreation

I wasn't on board for the series during its first 6 episodes last spring, but its second season has started very strong, with the actors (Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones, Paul Schneider, and Aubrey Plaza) really finding and embracing their characters. But what completely hooked me was Ron (Nick Offerman) stuck in his chair in excruciating pain from a hernia throughout "The Stakeout", the second episode. Every scene with him is priceless. Ansari is equally hilarious from the other side of the comedy spectrum. I initially thought Poehler was a lame ripoff of Steve Carell's Michael Scott character, and she sort of still is, but the set up in a government bureaucracy does lend itself to irony not found in a paper factory and Poehler takes full advantage of this. Catch "The Stakeout" here. And the excellent prior episode "Pawnee Zoo" here.

The rest of NBC Thursday night's lineup included The Office, which included a classic pre-theme song scene where Michael Scott asks the openly gay Oscar what to expect from his upcoming colonoscopy, how he can make it better for himself and his gastroenterologist, and if they should have a "safe word". See "The Meeting" here.

And finally SNL Weekend Update Thursday can be found here. Great to see Keith Morrison back and there's a great Walmart-syphillis joke. Fred Armisen's Governor Patterson is 100 times better than his Barack Obama, but a lot of that has to do with the writing.