Johnny Case in Wonderland . . . hopelessly adrift in popular culture

Thursday night as must see TV on NBC is dying a slow painful death right before our very eyes.  I don’t really have any vested interest in a singular night being appointment TV, and, in fact, I can’t remember the last time I watched something other than sports live anyway.  It’s all about the DVR.  That said, as recently as last year I relished my weekly viewing of Community, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and The Office.  After its abominable pilot, I never watched the mercifully cancelled Outsourced, but still, four high level shows in a row on a contemporary broadcast network was no small thing.  But this year it’s all going off the rails in a hurry. 

Community, a show I really liked its first year, was a lot more uneven last year—though still worth watching—but this season I think it’s been downright bad more often than not.  It’s defensive and insular in its writing, static in its performances (especially Ken Jeong’s Chang and Chevy Chase’s Pierce, who they just don’t seem to know what to do with), and just not really funny anymore, which is a shame.  I think its setting, a community college, might have something to do with it in that by now there should have been an influx of new characters—after all, people coming and going is a hallmark of what happens at community colleges—but as of yet there really hasn’t been an infusion of energy and it’s stuck in time and space.  Maybe they’ll make better use of John Goodman and/or Michael Kenneth Williams, which could be great.

Whitney is stale, humorless, and rancid, full of unlikeable characters and a cringe-inducing laugh track (or a coached live studio-audience—same difference in this case) that harkens back to the worst of 1970s TV.  It’s supposed to be about modern romance, but it’s still doing the same tired comedy that’s based on the broadly stereotyped gender differences that supposedly complicate relationships.  Ugh.  That this dog got picked up for a full season run after just a few tepidly rated episodes speaks to the utter chaos going on at the networks right now.  My guess is that NBC TV just didn’t know what to do, so they went with what they had. 

And then there’s The Office, the fate of which I think is inextricably intertwined with Parks and Recreation, which, with its infectiously likable main character, well-developed ancillary characters, and crisp writing and great storylines, remains one of the best two or three half hour sitcoms on TV.  Conversely, it’s not hard to pinpoint what’s wrong with The Office.  Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott was the heart and soul of the show and now that the characters who worked so well playing off of him are asked to continue along without him they just don’t work as well as they previously did.  This is especially true of Ed Helms’ Andy Bernard.  Helms is an actor who might be able to carry a show with the right role, but Andy isn’t it.  There’s no shame here like, say, going on with the X-Files after David Duchovny left the show.  Unlike that debacle, the Office still has its moments and it’s definitely not an embarrassment.  But it’s just average, and that’s disappointing for a show that even last year often had high points as good or better than anything else on TV.

While The Office is still among the most DVRd shows, I’m afraid it’s just a matter of time before it begins to slip much more precipitously in the ratings.  And my fear here is that if The Office dies as a Thursday night anchor—the one long term reliably well rated show of the evening—then the rest of the line-up will almost certainly be cancelled, unless the currently on hiatus 30 Rock somehow does huge numbers when it returns, which is unlikely.  I’m afraid Parks and Recreation will meet an Arrested Development like ending, for it ultimately just doesn’t matter how much critics like a show or how rabid its fans are if it doesn’t play in Peoria and advertisers aren’t buying in.