Best TV of 2013

Hello, everyone! Due to some "oh no I never watched Breaking Bad let me binge through it so I don't look like an asshole when I make my top TV of 2013 list" related issues, my Best of 2013 post is a bit delayed. But that's okay! It's here now, and that's all that matters, right?

2013 was a pretty fantastic year for television, and it was an interesting year for my personal television habits. I've expanded my taste a lot this past year - previously I had mostly contained myself to the comedy genre, but that wasn't the case this year. There are plenty of shows on this list that I would've never dreamed could be on there in previous years. Why did I decide to finally expand my TV mind? Maybe it was because this was the year we lost 30 Rock and I needed something to vill the void. Maybe it's because Community was off and I needed something to fullfill THAT void. Maybe it's just because I was bored. I don't know! But I'm glad it happened. It lets me see TV in a broader and more interesting light.

Alright! Let's get down to it. But before we get there, I wanted to give a shout-out to....

30 Rock
30 Rock aired only four episodes in 2013, so it wasn't eligible for my list. But if it was? It would be a strong contender for the #1 slot. There wasn't a single episode of TV this year I enjoyed more than the final 3 episodes of the shows' run, which brought each of its characters to a perfect, well-earned conclusion. And all the while, it never stopped being the funniest show on TV. Farewell, sweet 30 Rock. We'll miss you. Well, we'll miss making new episodes. We're still going to watch you obsessively on Netflix, obviously.

Alright! And now for the...

Honorable Mentions

These shows didn't quite make my top 10, but they came very close. Therefore, they deserve mentions!

Parks and Recreation
2013 saw Parks & Rec comfortably settling into its middle age. Many times, the show felt like it was running around in circles, rehashing plots it had done better in its peak years. It also lost its usuallysharp focus, often seeming unsure of what left it could do with its characters (and particularly its protagonist, who seemed halted in her growth). But even though the storytelling left something to be desired, Parks remained a show that I was happy to spend a half-hour with every week. And at the end of the year, the show made the curious decision to recall Leslie from her City Council position and send her off on an unknown path. It was the most interesting narrative choice the show made in several seasons, and it provides some hope that Parks can re-emerge as a vibrant and compelling show once again. But even if it doesn't, spending time in Pawnee is sure to remain a simple pleasure for as long as the show airs.
Highlight Episodes: "Leslie and Ben", "London", "Recall Vote"

Archer
Archer remained an incredibly funny show in its fourth season. The cast was still aces, and the writing was still sharper than just about every other comedy on TV. But one important competent was missing - the element of surprise that always drove the show at its best. This is pretty natural - as a show ages, there's no way it can continue to bring the same thrills it did at its peak. But it was still incredibly funny and entertaining, which likely would've been enough to give the show a long and fulfilling future - even if it meant a little bit of coasting. Of course, as we all know now, that wasn't enough for Archer. They hit the reset button this year, sending us on an insane journey that recalls the fast-and-loose experimentation that drives the show at its best. I'm glad Archer wasn't content to settle into a groove, but Season 4 proves that Archer coasting still made for a pretty great time.
Highlight Episodes: "Live and Let Dine", "The Papal Chase", "Sea Tunt"

Happy Endings
Happy Endings spent most of 2013 in burn-off mode on ABC, which caused many people - including myself - to sort of forget about it come the end of the year. But when VH1 marathoned all of Happy Endings on New Years' Day, it reminded me how much of a perfectly crafted joke machine it was. Few shows on TV make me laugh as loudly and consistently as this one did, and I'm going to miss its delightfully insane characters and jokes that are fucking poetic in how perfectly hilarious they are. The marathon also reminded that Happy Endings closed out with a fairly strong set of episodes. They were just as hilarious as the show had always been, and for the first time, they successful rang some pathos out of situations like the end of Penny's engagement with Piece and Alex and Dave deciding to call it quits. I'll really miss Happy Endings, but at least it went out on a high note.
Highlight Episodes: "The Ex Factor", "The Marry Prankster", "She Got Game Night"

Arrested Development
Arrested Development's long-awaited fourth season was sort of a beautiful mess. On one hand, the excitement of seeing the Bluths back in action was matched by very little else on TV this year. On the other hand, the confusion of the shows' downright strange narrative style was also matched by anything on TV this year. Since the original recipe of Arrested Development was heralded for its innovation to the TV sitcom, the Netflix revival seemed to feel like it had to follow in its footsteps - but that caused the show to often forget about what made it work so well in the first place. Luckily, this wasn't always the case. Even though the narrative was convulted, the humor on AD remained mostly sharp, and the fourth season succeeded in providing a new wave of classic Arrested Development quotes. It may not have completely lived up to the shows' original run, but what could? At its best, AD Season 4 was still an incredibly funny and entertaining show, with some intriguing character work. That's more than enough to keep me hoping we don't have to wait another seven years to see the Bluths again.
Highlight Episodes: "Colony Collapse", "Senioritis", "Off the Hook"

Alright. That's that. Now let's get on to the Top 10!

10. Veep

Veep is one of those shows that could've simply repeated its first season for its entire run, and a good portion of its audience (possibly including me) would've been content. I mean, it's a bunch of hilarious people dressing up as politicians and cursing, and that's awesome. But I was impressed by the narrative choices the show made in its second season - rather than continuing to hammer the "Selina is useless" shtick, Veep made her an integral part of her administration in Season 2 after her nameless party received a particularly harsh setback in the midterm elections. This raised the dramatic stakes in ways that helped keep the show fresh and interesting. The season ended with an even more intriguing twist, suggesting that POTUS will not be seeking re-election and that Selena will attempt to fill his seat. That paves the way for a third season that could be quite interesting indeed, and will certainly continue to give us the classic, profanity-laced exchanges we've all come to crave.
Highlight Episodes: "Hostages", "First Response", "D.C"

9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is the most promising new network comedy in several seasons (perhaps since Community?), and the reason why it's been so delightful can be boiled down to a few simple components: it has a killer ensemble cast, it has top-notch talent behind it, and it has an interesting set of characters that it's willing to dig into. Oh, and it's really, really funny - far funnier than any sitcom halfway through its first season has any right to be. The shows' only real blind spot is its protagonist - Andy Samburg does a fine job with Jake Peralta, but the show has yet to give us a reason why we should be rooting for such a self-absorbed, obnoxious character. But other than that? Just about everything on this show is fire right now, and I'm incredibly excited to see where it's going to go.

Highlight Episodes: "The Vulture", "Halloween", "Thanksgiving"

8. The Middle

It's rare that I get overly excited about a family sitcom, but The Middle is just that good. And unlike most aging comedies, it's only getting better. As the Heck kids grow up and begin dealing with things like graduation, college, and part-time jobs, The Middle is able to renew its comic energy by digging into these rites of passages and putting its own unique spin on them. But change isn't limited to the kids - the show made the wise decision to give matriarch Frankie a career change last year, and it's resulted in a surprisingly interesting story about people trying to re-invent themselves in their middle age. The way The Middle manages to consistently find fresh new challenges for the Heck clan is the key to its success, and it's what makes it continue to be the quietest great show on television.

Highlight Episodes: "Wheel of Pain", "Change is in the Air", "The Potato"

7. Mad Men

After a dynamic 5th season that experimented with the shows' form in incredibly interesting ways, Mad Men's 6th season first appeared to be a bit of a cooldown. It was still thought-provoking and genre-pushing, sure, but it didn't quite have the spark of the 5th season. And then, about halfway through, everything changed, and the season arc became clear: this is the beginning of the end for Don Draper. The season suddenly became the story of a broken mans' downfall, as we saw Don sink to depths we had never seen him reach before. Add this to a sudden status quo change that merged Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce with one of its rival firms, and you have another great, intriguing season of television.

Highlight Episodes: "For Immediate Release", "The Crash", "In Care Of"

6. Orange is the New Black

The most surprising new show of the season may have been Orange is the New Black, a Netflix original series that came seemingly out of nowhere and blew us all away with its intriguing premise, refreshing characters, intricate character work, and unique storytelling structure. Of all of the things to love about the show - from all of the reasons I just listed along with its amazingly diverse cast and subtly effective social commentary - the single element that made the show work may be the way it challenged the way we view characters on television. The way it was able to take characters that started off looking like villians - such as Alex or Red - and turn them into truly sympathetic individuals was an amazing feat, as was their ability to do the opposite with a character like Healy. Of course, the best example of this may be Crazy Eyes (or Suzanne), who starts off the series as a terrifying wildcard and ends it as perhaps the most lovable character on the entire show. The show even achieves this goal with its protagonist, who goes from poor, helpless soul to dangerous anti-hero in a surprisingly natural way. After a year where it made such a splash, there's few shows I'm looking forward to in 2014 more than Orange is the New Black.

Highlight Episodes: "Lesbian Request Denied", "Fucksgiving", "Tall Men With Feelings"

5. New Girl

New Girl continued its momentum in 2013 by giving us one of the most compelling will they/won't they arcs on TV in a long time - the epic romance of Jessica Day and Nick Miller. I was originally completely against a Jess/Nick pairing, but the show did an excellent job turning me by basically just forcing me to accept it. In "Cooler" - quite possibly the shows' best episode to date - the series simply throws the characters together for a passionate kiss and refuses to give the audience time to process it all. And it worked! That episode kicked off New Girl's best run of episodes yet, fueled by the perfectly constructed Jess/Nick romance. But Jess and Nick aren't the only factors that made New Girl so compelling in 2013 - the show continued to dig deep into its characters and ask them tough questions about who they really were and what they wanted. This was perhaps most obvious with Schmidt, who was forced to hold a bit of a mirror up to himself and question how good of a person he really was. It didn't always work, and the show had a few rocky episodes this fall, but when it did, there wasn't much else on TV that could match its mix of top-notch humor and deep-rooted characterization.

Highlight Episodes: "Cooler", "Parking Spot", "Menus"

4. Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad's final eight episodes were some of the most upsetting and emotionally disturbing things to air on TV this year, but that only cemented just how fantastic the story they were closing out was. All of the characters we've grown to care about (except Walt, because he's a terrible, terrible human being) were put in the desperate, grim situations we've known were coming for them since Season 1 - and it was every bit as terrifying and emotionally draining as we knew it would be. The best example of the beautiful misery of Breaking Bad's final stretch episodes was the breathtaking "Ozymandias", a nauseatingly tense episode of television in which everything we spent the past five seasons fearing was going to happen, happened - in the span of about 10 minutes. While the finale was a mild disappointment that never engaged with the psychological questions that the show was able to at its best, the build-up to it was perfect enough that Breaking Bad's curtain call will certainly be remembered for years to come.

Highlight Episodes: "Blood Money", "Confessions", "Ozymandias"

3. Enlightened

(The picture represents Amy and Tyler's reactions to ranking above Breaking Bad).

Enlightened is gone too soon, but what a beautiful story it told while it was here. After a strong first season that created a compelling protagonist in Amy Jellicoe, the second season of Enlightened put things into the highest gear possible and told a no-frills story about realizing what you're capable of. It was one of the most powerful shows on TV, and it was also one of the most unique - very few shows ever wear their heart on their sleeves as much as Enlightened did, which is perhaps why it wasn't a show for everyone. But if you could get on the shows' wavelength, you were lucky enough to experience some truly powerful messages about human connection, all done with some of the most lovable misfits this side of Community. It's a shame that we aren't getting anymore Enlightened, but part of me thinks we don't even need any more. What we got is such a beautiful, self-contained story that articulated its message so well, I'm just glad it existed in the first place.

Highlight Episodes: "Higher Power", "Follow Me", "The Ghost is Seen"

2. Doctor Who

On a purely subjective level, Doctor Who is probably not the #2 show of 2013. The second half of the shows' seventh season wasn't its all-time best, hurt a bit by the decision to split the season into two separate parts (although the two specials - the 50th anniversary and the Christmas special - were fantastic). But damn it, I'm putting it here anyway, because I don't know if there's a show that aired on TV this year that made me as purely happy as this one. 2013 was the first time I watched Doctor Who, and I binged through all seven seasons of the modern incarnation of the show pretty fast. What I love about Doctor Who is how, despite its seemingly complex nature, its really incredibly simple: it's about a time traveler and his companion, traveling all through space and time. Sure, there's plenty of other mythology to it, but that one sentiment sums up the child-like glee that you get when you immerse yourself in the shows' world. It's fun. It's campy. It's often funny, it's often heartbreaking. It's Doctor Who, and while it sometimes slips up a bit, there's nothing remotely like it on television.

Highlight Episodes: "The Rings of Akhaten", "The Day of the Doctor", "The Time of the Doctor"

1. Bob's Burgers

Oh, Bob's Burgers. Is there any show on TV that accepts people from all corners of the Earth as much as this one does? Is there any show with characters as downright lovable as the Belchers? Is there any show that could come up with a line as brilliant as "they'll say aw, topsy at my autopsy?". No. No, there is not. Bob's Burgers has such a refreshingly warm comic tone that brings a much-needed change of pace not just to the Fox animation family, but to television comedy in general. The way it manages to take characters that would easily be the butt of the joke on any other show and turn them into sympathetic and beloved figures is what truly sets it apart. That and its wonderfully weird and consistently hilarious sense of humor, of course. Sure, other shows might have kept me on my toes more, but no show made me as excited to spend time in its universe this year than Bob's Burgers. The way it accepts its completely weird, off-beat characters with such open arms is the kind of thing that really melts the heart of internet losers like me all over the world. Here's to another great year with the Belchers.

Highlight Episodes: "Mother Daughter Laser Razor", "Topsy", "Christmas in the Car"

So there's 2013. It was a great year, but with the re-emergence of Community and Archer, the return of Louie, and a whole slew of promising new shows, I wonder if 2014 could somehow be even better. I guess we'll just have to wait and see! How FUN!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING

It has been a very busy week for television. This was originally going to be a post about Community and Parks and Recreation's most recent episodes. But then I put it off and like, eight more things happened. So let's get to it. We'll start with Community and Parks:

Community - "Basic Integluetal Numistatics"



I had no idea what to make of this episode at first. I wasn't thrilled that the show was already doing a genre parody only two weeks into the new season. I wanted to re-establish the characters! And the setting! But the episode slowly won me over by committing so damn well to its concept (which seemed to be a parody of David Fincher movies mixed with some crime procedural spoofing) that I ultimately didn't mind. The visuals were excellent, and the music was even better - Ass Crack Bandit is totally my new jam. I also thought the episode was quite funny, with a rapid-fire joke setting reminiscent of Community's early seasons. Community occasionally forgets to be funny with its concept episodes, and while it really doesn't matter because the show is capable of being excellent without being hilarious, it certainly made this episode much more enjoyable (and helped to bounce off the darkness of the source material). Where the episode didn't land for me initially was character-wise. I'm just really tired of the Jeff/Annie pairing - at least romantically (last week's Introduction to Teaching managed to rediscover how fun the pairing can be without the weird love story angle) and I didn't feel this episode added anything new to it. I also was not a big fan of how Pierce's death was handled. It was...sudden, and I got that it was kind of the point, but the death of a major character should really have more importance than it did in this episode. But after re-watching it about 4 times, and after seeing next weeks' episode (LET ME HAVE THIS) which deals with Pierce's demise in a really excellent way, I'm more convinced that...well, that was the point. The sudden, ambiguous nature of the ending was meant to point out how in real life, death isn't just another thing that happens. It has real life consequences. And although I didn't think the episode landed this concept as well as it could have (it probably shouldn't take 4 watches to get it, you know?) I applaud what they were going for, and it gave me a lot to think about it. So overall, this was another promising step for Community's fifth season, which has been seriously impressive so far.

Parks and Recreation - "Second Chunce"

Parks celebrated its 100th episode this week, but it didn't really make a big deal about it, choosing instead to have a quieter episode that analyzed the fate of its characters going forward. This was probably its greatest strength. I liked Leslie realizing that she's destined for more than Pawnee - it wasn't exactly new, because it's been a running thread of the season, but it was sort of nice to see it solidified, and it pushes the show in a new direction it desperately needs. I'm hoping that this allows the show to try some new things with its protagonist rather than just giving her the "Leslie has obstacles, but she's so great so she manages to get through them!" cycle that she's spent the last two seasons running around in. I especially liked the return of Jen Barkley, giving Leslie the push in the right direction that she needed, because a) she's an interesting foil for Leslie and b) she delivered the best joke of the night, discussing her mothers' 19 year old boyfriend. The rest of the episode was...fine, I guess. It sort of demonstrated why my love for Parks has dwindled over the past year, though - it just felt like a retread. We've seen Tom question his direction in life before. Then he started Rent-A-Swag. Then the show took it away for him, because they always have to return everything to the status quo eventually. Oh, and there was a boring plot with Ann and Chris, and yet another nauseatingly cheesy Ben/Leslie end scene (yay they go to Paris they're so perfect yay). Just...do something different, Parks! Take Community and Archer's lead. You have the potential to with this Leslie story. Now let's see it out.

That seems like a good segway to Archer, but I would be remissed if I didn't at least touch on my best show of 2013 (full list coming soon, btw!)...

Bob's Burgers - "Presta Tina-o"

This was Bob's Burgers at its weirdest, and therefore, its finest. Of course, that sort of goes without saying with a Tina episode. Tina is just such a fan-fucking-tastic character. She's a confused teenage girl, sure. There's lots of those on TV. But there's no confused teenage girls who are as proud of being a confused teenage girl, and that's what makes her unique. And let's be honest. There's a little bit of a confused teenage girl inside all of us, isn't there? Tina Belcher shows us that it's okay to be insecure and weird and unsure of yourself. In fact, it's that insecurity that might lead you to sabotage a magician competition, only to un-sabotage it and earn yourself an honorable mention for on-stage chemistry, which isn't really real but makes your family proud anyway. The fact that I could just type all of that and have it make sense to at least 4 million people out there is a rock solid example of why I love Bob's Burgers as much as I do.

Alright. Let's get to....

Archer - "White Elephant"

Holy crap, you guys.

I liked Archer's fourth season, but I didn't love it. It was still hilarious, sure, but it just felt like a lot of plots that were rehashes of things the show had done in the past. The show probably could've comfortably carried itself to 7 or 8 seasons off of that, although it likely would've sacrificed its place as a boundary-pushing critical darling in the process. But nope. Adam Reed didn't want to do that. He got bored, and he didn't want to see his show circling the drain. So this season of Archer is no longer about ISIS and is now about the gang selling cocaine.

What's amazing about this episode is that it makes all of this feel totally organic. To be fair, Archer is always a show that has played fast and loose with its foundation, having no qualms about giving its protagonist cancer, or a baby, or turning major characters into cyborgs. So it's more likely to pull off such a massive change than a lot of other shows are - and in a way, the giant revelation that ISIS was never actually a government agency and that all of its work was completely illegal actually makes sense. Since Archer is a show where we have to suspend most of our ideas of what's "normal" on a television show anyway, it's able to pull off a trick like this pretty easily. I guess that's what Season 4 missed for me. It just didn't have that "I legitimately have no idea what the fuck is going to happen" feel that the show did at its best. So to see that return in such a huge way is a big relief.

Of course, part of what makes it work, too, is that the cast and characters are still the same cast and characters. And, really, that's always what made Archer what it was. Or at least, I assumed it was. This season will be ultimate test of that - but if that kick-ass preview of the upcoming season is to be believed, we have nothing to worry about.
------

Aaaaand I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the Golden Globes. I generally have very little use for awards shows, but the Golden Globes are kind of a boozy trainwreck, so they're a little more fun than say...the Oscars. And with Tina & Amy hosting, there was no I wasn't watching at least a little bit - and I'm glad I did, because I was really happy with how things turned out. No, I'm not talking about Jacqueline Bisset's acceptance speech, although that was definitely a highlight! I'm talking about the awards themselves. Well, mainly just the TV comedy awards. Amy Poehler FINALLY winning for Leslie Knope is about three years too late but made me incredibly happy. And Brooklyn Nine-Nine winning Best Comedy was a huge shock, and while I wouldn't give it that distinction yet, I'm incredibly happy that the show will now likely have a chance to get there. We all like to say awards shows are useless. And they mostly are! Tastes are subjective, and who cares what a bunch of old rich Hollywood dumbasses and whoever the Hollywood Foreign Press have to say? But awards can be beneficial for a show like Brooklyn Nine-Nine. They certainly helped 30 Rock and Arrested Development earn recognition, and all of the "WHAT IS BROOKLYN NINE NINE SHOULD WE BE WATCHING IT" type of responses that circulated the internet today prove that it just may give that show the boost it needs right now.

New year television catch-up

Hello, everyone! It is a new year, and I am going to try to keep this thing consistently updated in 2014. REALLY. Also, I'm going to be posting a Best of 2013 list as soon as I'm done binging through Breaking Bad (or by the end of January, whatever comes first).

First, let's cover a show that is sadly confined to 2013 - Enlightened.

Man, you guys, did I love this show. I hadn't watched it until I saw it popping up all over year-end lists, most notably topping The AV Club's (beating out Breaking Bad, which hardly anyone had an opinion about), and I'm incredibly glad I did, because I don't know of too many shows that spoke to my soul quite as closely as this one did. Something about this show is just so intensely relatable, even as I don't find myself sharing all that many characteristics with Amy Jellicoe (aside from being a general mess of a human being). I think it's because Mike White was able to really tap into human emotion with this show. Everyone in this show was just fleshed out in ways that felt so real and that had so much attention to detail that most shows miss. The way the show could take a character like Dougie, seemingly an unlikable douche, and turn him into a sympathic character who's tired of being a pog in the system, was remarkable. Just like  the way the show could make you feel everything that Amy was going through, even if you would never put yourself into the situations you did - or the way the show could depict the complex relationships between Amy and her mother or her ex-husband in ways that allowed you to clearly see both sides of the spectrum. On top of that, Enlightened was also a poignant takedown of not just corporate America, but of...life, in general. It really made its viewers think about a lot of things we normally take for granted - from the companies we work for, to the power we truly have to make a difference, to just how we feel and how we interact with others on an everyday basis. Enlightened had its thumb on the human condition in such a beautiful way, and while I'm sad that we're not getting anymore of it, I'm incredibly happy that the show got to express that in a complete, ultra-satisfying way.

Next, a show that also begins with an E and ends with a D! Fox's new comedy, Enlisted.

Despite the fact that Ryan Shay is a national treasure, I was not really expecting to care all that much about Enlisted, which looked pretty funny but kind of inconsequential, and was also being thrown to the wolves on Friday nights. But I watched the first two episodes for a review on SitcomsOnline.com, and I was floored by how much I enjoyed it. This (along with Brooklyn Nine-Nine which I've talked about pretty extensively here) is one of the most fully-formed network sitcom in ages, with characters that I already care about and jokes that I'm already laughing at consistently. It's really hard to get a military comedy right, but this show has managed to do it - it has the perfect blend of goofiness and heart that neither becomes overwhelming, and the whole show is just brimming with a strong sense of purpose that gives it a momentum that most comedies simply don't have this early in their runs. It's a shame that Fox seems to have no faith in it, because it's an incredibly enjoyable show, and I hope it somehow makes the best of its comically awful timeslot.

But now we have to move on to Community. Oh boy, you guys. Community.

I love Community. It is a strong contender for "favorite show of all-time" title for me, and it speaks to me in a way very, very few shows do. I could write a horrifyingly long essay about why I love Community (and hopefully I will this semester in my TV Criticism class!). But Season 4 of Community was simply not good. I tried to like it. I tried to convince myself that it was mostly the same show as before, and that the show didn't even need Dan Harmon. I really did try. I even praised the first few episodes! A lot! But as the season went on, the truth became harder to deny. And then we got to Advanced Introduction to Finality, a horrific episode of television that still keeps me up at night sometimes, and I knew that Community would never be the show I loved again. I hoped it got a 5th season, just so that it didn't go out with one of the worst episodes of an otherwise good show I've ever seen, but I knew that the Community I had such a passion for was gone for good, living on only in DVD sets and syndicated re-runs. 

Until it wasn't.

I don't need to go into the specifics of what happened. You all know. Dan Harmon was re-hired, Chris McKenna came back from The Mindy Project, blah blah blah. All I need to go into is that Season 5 of Community is an amazingly exciting rebound season, managing to rebuild the show from the ground up in ways that I didn't think were possible even with Harmon at the helm. Sure, the basics of the show are restored - it's funny again. It doesn't look dirt cheap anymore. The plots don't feel like bad fan fiction. The characters feel like themselves. But what I'm more interested in is how this season of Community has managed to feel completely fresh in a way a sitcom hardly ever does in its 5th season. It's not content to just coast along, even though it probably could with Harmon back at the reigns. No - Community has to keep pushing itself forward as it continues to tests its characters by dropping them to their all-time low points. Jeff Winger is now a teacher at Greendale! You know his life is in shamles if that's happened. And things aren't much better for everyone else - Annie's selling pills (and possibly using them again?), Shirley's split with Andre again (this time, she's the one at fault, although I really don't think investing too much money in a sandwich shop is nearly as incriminating as having sex with a stripper), Britta's a bartender, Abed's flat broke. Just as it did in its peak, Community is discovering its momentum in its shattered characters, and it's once again using their scars to come together and create something meaningful. And, of course, it's doing this whole continuing to experiment the hell out of its form and by delivering the beautifully off-beat humor it's always given us. In short, Community is Community again, and it's really, really wonderful.

I think that's all I've got for now! Next week, we have the premiere of Archer, which has undergone an even more intense relaunch after a fourth season that wasn't nearly as disappointing as Community's but felt a bit like a retread. I'm incredibly excited to see what that show is up to, and I will try to post my thought  on it here. There's also the return of Parks and Rec (which is having a pretty good season while also providing an example of what happens when you don't change anything at all in your later seasons) and new episodes of Bob's Burgers (still the most consistently great comedy on TV), New Girl (which is having an up-and-down year, but with more ups than downs) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (the best new sitcom on network TV in several years). I will try to share my thoughts on all of these with you. If not, well, sorry. I'M ONLY HUMAN.