I think Walking Dead is better than Dexter. Weeds and Californication, have had some pretty wild swings in quality from season to season, but, in general, both these shows are better than Walking Dead.  I think OITNB is as good or better than the first couple of seasons of Weeds, when that show was at its best.

I really didn't like the stuff about the chicken.  The symbolism was very heavy-handed, and the characters had to behave in unbelievable ways to develop the metaphor.

Honestly, I was really glad when Futurama came back, but I'm not that bothered about it ending. It seems somewhat diminished to me in the later seasons.  The writing staff has been pared way down, they don't have the budget for the cool visual effects.

He WAS the problem.  He was so insanely bad at his job that Michael Scott's competence served as a corrective to his ludicrous corporate mismanagement.

The question of the British "Office" was how David Brent could stay employed, and the answer was that he ultimately could not.

If his $10000 investment is paying such huge dividends, how come he's still working at Dunder Mifflin?

But Dunder Mifflin is not a secure gig.  This is a company that has had three changes of ownership in three years, following several brutal rounds of branch closings.  There have been several abrupt changes in management, and management's behavior gives people a lot of reason to be fearful of the company's future.

Well, Twitter and Facebook were all lit up about the "Kitchen Nightmares" meltdown for the last couple of days, so I checked it out, and it turned out that "Kitchen Nightmares" is the most aggressive, ridiculous, perfect example of what's wrong with the storytelling on network television in general.

Seems that way.  This is the last one, though. I promise.

Well, I was running out of ways to explain why "The Office" is so disappointing, and that was the last other thing I watched.

Glad you think so.

Here's how I've been thinking about "The Office" this week:

The fact that people think he's going to end up at Athlead after all just shows how unpersuasive Pam's objection has been, even though her objection to this new venture has been her entire arc for the season, outside of painting the mural in the warehouse.

We'll see.  If Pam does the sane thing at the end of the series, they still made a season-long conflict out of Pam not wanting Jim to have a better job.

I almost wrote an explanation about how an obit is different from a paid death announcement, but maybe I should just admit that talking about obituaries was a poor way for me to discuss how the show is resolving the question of who Jim is.

Call me Carlos,

I think it's condescending that Liz Lemon and Leslie Knope (and Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute) have to get married in order to be resolved as characters. And I think it's lazy of writers to reach for these cliched resolutions instead of figuring out more interesting ways to end these narratives.

Bro, I totally will.

1. I've been saying I'd like to see one character's story end dark, and Andy's kind of did.  An a capella singing competition show seems like a perfect place for Andy to have his big break, so it was welcoming to see him fail there spectacularly.
 
That said, when we catch up to him in 6 months (next week) I bet he's…

I've bitched a lot about the fact that Athlead was a ridiculous thing in past comments, and I guess I'm ready to let that point slide.  I'd much rather see Jim reaching for a more plausible dream-job, like starting a company that provides some sort of more relevant business service than paper-supply.