Babies can be beautiful, welcome addition to real-life families, but they can signal the downfall of a TV show. A baby can mean that a show is desperate to try something new to liven up a once-great show, or it can be a ploy to get more people interested in it because the kids that have been on the show have gotten older and they need new youngsters.
We'll have to wait and see if the baby that Pam will have on 'The Office' will be a good thing for the show or a bad thing. The baby will make its debut in a special one-hour episode that will air on March 4. In the same episode, Erin will have lunch with Kevin, making Andy jealous.
One good thing about a baby on 'The Office' is that it's a workplace sitcom, not a domestic sitcom. So there won't be any big reasons for Jim and Pam's baby to be at Dunder-Mifflin all the time, it will probably be at home with a sitter or with relatives or at a nursery (only not the one from last week's episode, of course).
(S01E15) Why has this season of 'The Office' been so off-kilter? There have been promising episodes but very few that hit the mark. In fact, the only episode that can hold its own with classic 'Office' episodes is the Pam-Jim wedding, and I'm starting to fear that the show really is trying to figure out where to go from that high point.
And Jam may be the big problem here. They're not interesting anymore. But I'll get to them later.
So Dunder Mifflin is now owned by a company called Sabre. We don't quite know what they're all about except that they sell printers and they have a feisty CEO played by Kathy Bates. And in exchange for saving the branch's ass, they've asked for a few very reasonable changes. You'd think that even Michael Scott would embrace those changes. You'd be wrong.
Of course, we know that 'The Office' didn't create that phrase. A lot of people have probably been using it for decades. But somebody had to start it right? Turns out it was created by Kim Marlowe of Long Beach, CA, as explained by this Funny or Die video.
A couple of weeks ago, Kona wrote about the campaign to convince ABC to save Better Off Ted. Despite these grassroots efforts, the rating for Ted continue to be dismal and ABC probably has "cancel Better Off Ted" on the corporate to-do list.
That's a shame, because the more I watch of Better Off Ted, the better I think it is. Smart, funny, observant and surreal, Ted is an office comedy that makes deserves to survive. If more people gave it a shot, I think it would be a success. Maybe not a monster hit, but there aren't many of those in the sitcom field right now. Emmy winner 30 Rock is anything but a ratings hit.
After being gone for six weeks, and teased by the no good louts at the NBC publicity department that we were getting a "new Office," we get handed a clip show. Not cool.
And... and... when was the last time you saw a sitcom do a clip show, anyway? Friends, maybe? I thought in this new era of "creativity" in the sitcom world clip shows were more mocked than embraced.
Ok, ok. Enough bitching on my part. I guess this will be the shortest Office review ever, because there wasn't all that much new material to talk about.
While promoting his new, self-titled animated HBO show based on his podcasts, Ricky Gervais hinted that his boss character of David Brent may make an appearance on the American version of The Office. Gervais and his writing partner and co-creator Stephen Merchant have already been associated with the show, having written two episodes, including the pilot.
Can you imagine the sort of repartee between Michael Scott and David Brent? Would they be friends? Would they be enemies? Does anybody remember the bit from the Emmy Awards in 2008 when Gervais demanded he be given Carell's Emmy? I'm not even watching it right now and that bit still has me laughing hysterically.
Sure, NBC doesn't need the promotion right now what with the late night controversies going on, but soon Conan will be gone and Jay will take back The Tonight Show. They'll need a new event to get people excited about something on their network and this could be it (well, I don't know about everyone else but at least I'd be excited).
More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the funniest actors of the last ten years.
If you want to be a great comedic actor, you can never let on that you know you're being funny. Your character never knows what the joke is. That's why Rodney Dangerfield was a great, legendary stand-up comedian, and a fairly poor comic actor.
Everyone on this list excels at the comedic poker face. Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais, in their Office boss characters, don't know that most of the rest of the office is laughing at them. Or at least they don't understand why. Stephen Colbert, despite all of the attention The Colbert Report have received, may be the most underrated comic actor, because the character is so seamless, sometimes it's hard to tell it's a character. Shatner is a legend for playing campy with a poker face. And Neil Patrick Harris as a cad? A straight cad? Perfect.
Here are a few of our favorite comedic actors from the past decade, and may their characters never realize the joke's on them.
I don't think I did one of these lists last year, and I have no idea why. The election all by itself would have generated a pretty fun best/worst list. Maybe we were all suffering from information overload, and were just exhausted. Not sure.
But 2009 had a lot of interesting TV, too, just not all in one category. As I've done in the past, I'll dispense with the usual "best show" and "worst show" lists and just make up categories:
GOODNESS
Best comeback from a shaky first season: Parks and Recreation. As I mentioned in my "return of the sitcom" story, Parks and Rec has made the biggest improvement from first season to second since... well, since The Office. It's no coincidence; Greg Daniels and Mike Schur's Office experience taught them that patience would be rewarded, both on the part of the writers and the viewers.
I'm always amazed at how people haven't learned from TV history. Back in the early eighties, everyone and his mother was saying that comedy was dead, mainly because of then-cutting-edge dramas like Hill Street Blues were dominating the air, while the best in comedy that the networks could come up was crap like Pink Lady and Jeff. Then The Cosby Show, Cheers, Family Ties, and Night Court came around, and all of a sudden comedy was back.
So it's not a big surprise that comedy is making a big comeback a quarter-century later. Times are tough, and people want to laugh. It also helps that on a few networks (NBC, of course), low ratings and little inventory have given shows like The Office and 30 Rock a chance to find and grow an audience. The seeds sewn by those shows have grown in a major way, as three of the four networks now have successful comedy lineups.
Every day it seems that we have nominations to announce. Yes, we are in award season and today it's the Screen Actors Guild's turn. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, at 8 p.m. on TNT and TBS, the winners of the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will air live from Los Angeles. Here's the nominees in the main categories and some thoughts on each:
Drama Ensemble:The Closer; Dexter; The Good Wife; Mad Men; True Blood
Interesting that CBS's The Good Wife made the cut, especially over Lost or House or Breaking Bad or Sons of Anarchy or Damages or Friday Night Lights. And I love The Closer, but the inclusion here is a surprise. I guess NCIS would be too big a surprise to get recognized.
Comedy Ensemble:30 Rock; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Glee; Modern Family; The Office
Glee and Modern Family are freshmen, but clearly excellent ensemble comedies. And for Curb Your Enthusiasm, are they honoring the Seinfeld team all over again? Also, where's The Big Bang Theory?
In the recent "Scott's Tots" episode of The Office, they showed an old newspaper clipping of Michael Scott with the kids that he was going to send to college (cough, cough). They didn't show the article for long but it wasn't just one of those fake TV newspaper props that have nonsense text. The entire article was actually written. The prop department called the real Scranton Times and they created the article for the show.
Round up the usual suspects. That would seem to be the appropriate line when you look at the nominees for the 2010 Writers Guild Awards. That doesn't mean that all these nominees are not worthy; they are some of the best 2009 television for sure. It's just that inevitably some shows are left out in favor of the tried old faves.
For instance, in the comedy category, can you really put Modern Family in and completely diss The Big Bang Theory? I can't. I'm not even happy about the annual goopfest for 30 Rock, a sitcom that I've grown tired of -- but that's just me. I'd prefer How I Met Your Mother to get some time, or United States of Tara or Nurse Jackie or The Middle. All four of those show have been superior to 30 Rock -- to me.
I know not much time has passed, but let's review the Christmas memories from some of TV's sitcom this past season because if you ask me, they were sort of all over the map. Someday maybe I'll hold one of these in my heart like the On a scale from one to ten, with ten being classic, there were none that will live on in the annals of TV history, but there were a couple worth writing about.
The Office
I found this entire episode a downer. The economy is in the toilet and we all know it. Heck, I don't know anyone who isn't worried about having a job in 2010. So we can feel for the fact that Dunder-Mifflin is hanging by a thread. But it's hardly hilarious fodder for a holiday half-hour.
I finally, and with great difficulty got the tree up, I've somehow gotten roped into holding a cookie exchange at my house this weekend, and I have glitter in places where glitter should not be. What's that smell? It smells like Festivus to me. While the main thing I want this year is to just lie very, very still in a dark room for a week or so, this is a TV blog, so let's talk about what TV could do to make me happy!
Stop with the long hiatuses already! I don't get to see a new episode of V until March, and I'm being forced into leading a Glee-less existence until April. Give it up already! If you have 3 months between new episodes, it's a new season, why not call it that? You know what I have been doing for the past 11 weeks? Watching the first 11 episodes of Dexter. This week, I will be watching episode 12, and then the season will be over. It's efficient and satisfying. The networks need to get on board.
(S06E13) After the cringeworthiness of "Scott's Tots," seeing an episode where Michael merely acts like a petulant child is almost refreshing.
But Michael's petulance had a purpose. Dunder Mifflin is in trouble. Office morale is at an all-time low. So, while Michael was still acting like a baby, he was doing it because he wanted to be the one to lift everyone's spirits. Still, it's funny to watch childish Michael, especially when we can see big ol' Kevin act indecisive while crushing Michael's lap.
I loved seeing Phyllis as Santa. She's right; she has the temperament, the figure, and she's got bad-ass Bob Vance to back her up in case anyone objects. And to think, at one time Phyllis Smith was a cheerleader for the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals.
While promoting his new, self-titled animated HBO show based on his podcasts, Ricky Gervais hinted that his boss character of David Brent 
More of our 
Every day it seems that we have nominations to announce. Yes, we are in award season and today it's the Screen Actors Guild's turn. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, at 8 p.m. on TNT and TBS, the winners of the 
Round up the usual suspects. That would seem to be the appropriate line when you look at the 
I know not much time has passed, but let's review the Christmas memories from some of TV's sitcom this past season because if you ask me, they were sort of all over the map. Someday maybe I'll hold one of these in my heart like the On a scale from one to ten, with ten being classic, there were none that will live on in the annals of TV history, but there were a couple worth writing about.
I finally, and with great difficulty got the tree up, I've somehow gotten roped into holding a cookie exchange at my house this weekend, and I have glitter in places where glitter should not be. What's that smell? It smells like Festivus to me. While the main thing I want this year is to just lie very, very still in a dark room for a week or so, this is a TV blog, so let's talk about what TV could do to make me happy!
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on 'Faces of America' and the Beer Summit
Six Reasons Why '24' Has Jumped the You-Know-What
The Super Bowl Commercials: The Best
