Yes - what is the point of the adoption plot? I don't know too many teenage only-children who are so upset at not getting a younger sibling. And why would her husband have left his job to wait around for an adoption?

I think BBT is actually a fairly appropriate comparison. BBT (:ducks for cover:) isn't actually a bad show. Nowhere near as good as Parks, Community, 30 Rock, or even Modern Family. But it's also amusing and far from the worst sitcom out there.

There's no reason someone couldn't make a genuinely good multicam sitcom again.

I hope they do a Donna-focused episode sometime. Doesn't look like they will for the rest of this season at least.

If they want to bring Brandanowicz back, his taking Leslie's position would also work, as the original concept was that he gets disillusioned with government, leaves for the private sector, then gets disillusioned with that and returns to government.

I know City Council members can have other jobs, but is it really possible for someone to work in a governmental department AND serve on the City Council? I can't imagine that it is, though the show has sort of waved away other obvious objections like her remaining on the City payroll while running and having her…

You're forgetting Ron Paul Swanson.

Wasn't Jerry supposed to retire this year? (In the last Jerry-centered episode - the one with Andy Samberg and the burrito, from S2, Jerry said he just had two more years before he could retire with full pension.) I wonder if they'll address that. It'd be easy to say the budget crunch wiped out his pension and…

The funny thing is that in that clip he's the bizarro Ron. Same 'stache, same rugged exterior, but he's lobbying the government - the federal government - to spend $900 million in taxpayer money to protect wildlife from hunters and ranchers.

Damn the two of them look young in that picture.

When I first read about Cop Rock I tracked down various YouTube clips and, weird as it was, I found the show weirdly appealing. If you get past how preposterous it was and the cheesy '80s production values, it seemed very entertaining.

I know I'm like the 1000th person to say this, but I really wish they had stuck with the original concept of Maya Rudolph's character just being Reagan's coworker at a PR firm. The whole Ava character just seems like she's from a different show entirely - like a 30 Rock ripoff or something.

Apropos of nothing, when I was in Australia, I noticed they also have Progressive, and their ads are exactly the same, except with an Australian, Flo doppelgänger.

Yeah - I wouldn't call this the greatest episode ever, but it was pretty good and overall an average 30 Rock episode. B/B-, maybe, but a C-? Excessively harsh.

Wait, was Val's mom actually named Brandon? Maybe I'm being dense, but I took that whole thing to mean that she IS dating a guy named Brandon, but that she likes Daryl enough that she tried to cover it up.

The pre-Parks, pre-Community days of My Name is Earl and Kath & Kim.

Parks should have been given the post-Office slot in the '09/'10 season (Season 2). That's when the show got really good and when it could have steadily built an audience over the course of a full year.

Happy Endings is fun but slight. If I miss an episode, it's not that big a deal, and nothing much happens in any given episode. (Sort of like 30 Rock S3 on, but a little less clever.)

If this sticks to pattern, it'll get a six-episode trial run next spring, get trashed as inferior to its source inspiration, then become beloved (but at least somewhat low-rated) in its second season.

So in fairness, plenty of cable shows follow the British model of short seasons with defined ends. The issue is that American network television doesn't do that because they face very different broadcast economics.