Wrapping up this season, we asked some of our contributors to write about some of their favorite comedies that have aired since the fall. Instead of handing out accolades to just one show, we're looking at a number of shows that all deserve to be called the best comedy of the season.
Watching Parks and Recreation's fourth season finale earlier this month, I was struck by a series of poignant moments — bits of genuine, hearfelt emotion — sprinkled throughout the episode. It takes a lot of confidence for a comedy to put laughs aside for a few minutes to work in some serious stuff, but doing it well [...]
Wrapping up this season, we asked some of our contributors to write about some of their favorite comedies that have aired since the fall. Instead of handing out accolades to just one show, we're looking at a number of shows that all deserve to be called the best comedy of the season.
Thanks to the Internet, I both love and hate Community far more than when I started watching the show. On one hand, the rabid online fan base has reassured me that I am not alone in my appreciation for the show’s playful storytelling, unearthing wonderful little gems like background story arcs and jokes three seasons [...]
In the beginning, sitcoms would almost always feature self-contained 22-minute stories, with there never being a consequence to what anyone did or said that would carry over to the next episode. Johnny slipped on a banana peel. And it was good. Eventually that would change: a character began to be able lose or get a job, and pick up a new love interest and maybe someday marry them, and the tired show would be able to sprout some more material. And that was good. Then the meteoric rise of The Sopranos begat the HBO model of airing shows that didn't have episodes, but installments of an epic story, making banana peels [...]
So, the 2011-2012 TV season is pretty much finished at this point. Looking back, there's only one question that comes to mind: which single show was the very best? There's gotta be one that stands above the rest, right? Well, there's only one way to determine what that show is, and that's a decidedly un-scientific poll.
Now, before we get to it, a couple of notes. First, this is counting shows from the fall and mid-season (January premieres), so summer shows like Louie, Wilfred, Girls, and Veep do not count. Nor do late night shows such as The Daily Show or SNL. It's all prime time comedy from the [...]
