Comedy comes back to NBC

My TV favorites are slowly making their way back on the schedule since everything was disrupted by the strike. My Name is Earl came back last week, unfortunately it still hasn't quite hit its stride. The writer persist with the whole Earl in a "sitcoma" plotline. Unfortunately, Earl's coma-induced sitcom fantasy is dull, dull, dull. Hey, Leave it to Beaver was occasionally amusing--maybe "The Hickeys" needs Eddie Haskell...My suggestion: Bring back the Indian doctor! He was hysterical.

Funniest line of the night comes from Jaime Pressly's ascerbic Joy--as usual:

"People like it when I call 'em names...It's like sprinkles on the ice cream cone of conversation!"

Hopefully Earl will come out of his coma soon (although Randy smothering him with hugs is not a good sign...) and things will get back on track. The sitcoma needs to get cancelled. It's worse than Cavemen!

While Earl stumbles along, The Office returned with its usual absurdist humor. Remember when the women of the office staged a semi-intervention to get Michael to break up with the controlling and emasculating Jan? Ah, but where would the humor be in that? Seeing Jan and Michael play out their own version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf during the dinner party from hell (or as Jim described it, "Michael and Jan are playing a game called "Let's see how uncomfortable we can make our guests" and they're both winning!") was excruciatingly amusing. Kudos to Melora Hardin for her balls out portrayal of the ballbusting Jan. Three vasectomies? Ouch.

Interestingly enough, Rae from Ramblings of a TV Whore brought up the fact that she gets very uncomfortable watching embarrassing situations on TV. I thought that I was peculiar in that way--I squirm even when it's fictional characters in scripted situations! Turns out I'm not alone--I have soulmates in that respect! As squirm inducing as the comedy of The Office is, I still love it.