Another vote for “wasn’t expecting much and was pleasantly surprised.”
It’s amazing how much more one can enjoy a sitcom if there is no laugh track. The speed of the the dialog was great. Tight, fast paced. Keep things moving. Nice.
As an ex-college prof, the bit about the letterman’s jacket rings true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to pull aside a freshman and let him (and in some cases her!) aside and point out that the other students are laughing at him.
I am surprised that Pete Cambell would let Trudy takes classes at a community college. What will the guys at Sterling Cooper think if they find out he is letting his wife take classes after marriage?
But where do you find community college’s offering four-year degrees? Is that real and I’ve only ever seen two-year schools? Or when they say “community college” do they mean podunk state college like Eastern Northwest Washington State University?
I was puzzled by that as well. Of course, Joel McHale (who got a law degree in Colombia but can’t speak Spanish) thought that all the tests in all the classes are written out before the start of the year so he could be handed all the answers in a bundle. We’ve in TV Land, where reality is a wallflower always ready to be stood up for a plot point or a joke.
Maybe I’m getting whooshed but the joke was that people assumed his degree was from Columbia, not Colombia. Since he didn’t know Spanish I can only assume it was an online degree.
He did kind of know Spanish. I mean, he was speaking actual Spanish words, they were just irrelevant words…which didn’t matter much since he was trying to BS people who didn’t speak Spanish much themselves. From what we saw in the first episode, I could believe that he was working from whatever vocabulary he remembered from his high school Spanish class or that he really had spent time in Columbia and had picked up a little. A year or two in South America wouldn’t have made him a fluent Spanish speaker unless he were actually putting effort into it, which seems unlikely given what we know of the character.
“They found out my degree wasn’t quite as real as I had stated.”
“I thought you had a bachelor’s from Columbia?”
“Yeah, but now I need one from America.”
I actually had heard some pretty good buzz about the series and saw a preview a few months ago that made it one of the shows I wanted to check out. The pilot was excellent, with no sense of it having to find its legs. The jokes were funny and often very subtle (and I love subtle, like the messed up mnemonics).
I’ll be watching more (though probably on Hulu once CSI returns).
Another casting thing that caught my eye. Patricia Belcher has a “blink and you’ll miss it” appearance in the cafeteria scene. She has a recurring role on “Bones” as a federal attorney. So appearing in such a tiny role is surprising. And “Bones” airs on another network at 8pm on Thursdays!
Leno had nothing to do with My Name is Earl being cancelled. NBC has always and will continue to show four sitcoms on Thursday nights, and they haven’t shown sitcoms on any other night in years. With space for only four sitcoms regardless of what happened at 10pm all week, the choices were:
My Name is Earl
Community
Parks & Rec
The Office
30 Rock
Given those five, it’s a no-brainer which one I would terminate with extreme prejudice. But somehow Parks & Rec survived and Earl got canceled.
The death of My Name is Earl was in part because the show wasn’t produced by NBC. It was produced by 20th Century Fox, and it’s my (limited) understanding that this meant NBC was making less profit off Earl than they would if it were produced by NBC, and also that they would make little or nothing off Earl in syndication. So although the show was fairly successful, NBC could make more money off that time slot with Parks and Recreation even if it were a bit less successful.
Just saw this today on DVR and I loved it. Just some great dialogue and one liners (I lost it at the “2002 was a simpler time” line). McHale really does a great job as the bastard lawyer who has to realize he’s got to do some work for once. Really enjoyed the ensemble cast as well and how McHale’s character has to actually treat them like people and not just talk and talk until he gets what he wants (also learns the lesson with the prof that tries to screw him over, but is too weak to really carry though - “Don’t hit me!”).
Loved the first episode. Joel McHale is awesome in anything he does, and it was nice to see Asperger Syndrone jokes being brought to the mainstream. I’m not quite sure if it was for the better or the worse that they show didn’t actually explain what AS is though…
Also, if NBC really thinks that Parks & Rec is going to have a money-making syndication package, they’re even more delusional than I thought!!! Everybody I’ve ever talked to to about this show thought the first season sucked and couldn’t believe it even got a second season. Does Amy Poehler have scandalous photos of the president of Universal, so that she now has a whole HOUR of Must See Tv?
