While we count the weeks, days and hours until Community returns we can console ourselves a bit with some of NBC’s other programming. Case in point today is the brand new show Awake, which looks to be pretty interesting and features some actors we really like, and one of our long-time favorites, Parks and Recreation.

Starting us off is the new show Awake, starring Laura Allen of the seriously underappreciated Terriers and Jason Isaacs of Harry Potter movie fame as a man who seems to exist in two worlds and neither of them are an ideal place to be. We’ve got some previews for this new show for you today and from what we’ve seen so far, it looks pretty interesting.

Then, we turn our attention to the folks in Pawnee who, as the previews show, are having a bit of an issue with a drinking fountain. This is why I always bring bottled water wherever I go.

Parks and Rec airs at 8:30/7:30C followed by The Office, Up all Night and the premiere of Awake at 10/9C on NBC. Check out all the videos after the break.

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Somehow it’s Thursday again and that means new episodes of some of our favirite shows on NBC. We won’t bore you with more angry rants about the lack of Community on the schedule, we can leave that alone for the moment. Instead, let’s focus on the fun shows that are still around.

Well, to be honest, there’s pretty much only one show we know of that’s still going strong. That show? Parks and Recreation. It’s a great time and helps us forget, at least a little while, the sting of not having any Community to watch. Sorry, couldn’t help ourselves.

We’ve got previews for tonight’s Park and Rec for you today and in this episode Valentine’s Day comes early to Pawnee. Yes, it’s a V-Day episode. Don’t worry, it will be funny. We promise.

We’ve also got preview for The Office in which Jim plays hooky and things don’t go over well with his coworkers. Last, but not least, we’ve also got a preview for Up all Night, a show we haven’t really watched but it does have Will Arnett in it, so how bad can it be?

Check out all the videos after the break.

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It’s Thursday again so that means more new episodes of some of our favorite shows on NBC tonight. Sure, we still miss Community and hope it’s really coming back.

Until then, at least we’ve still got brand new episodes of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation and more to help us pass the time. Not only that, we’ve got previews for all the new episodes for you right here too.

First up on 30 Rock, Liz invokes a pact she and Jenna made to each other years before. Then on Parks and Recreation, Knope 2012 goes on a bowling adventure.

Next up, it’s a second episode of 30 Rock called “The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell.” Finally, The Firm is back with a new episode. Havent had a chance to watch that one yet but I would bet the budget for a one hour drama show would have been more than enough to cover the cost of new episodes of Community.

Come on NBC, get with the program and give the viewers what they really want. We don’t mind that you made a mistake, we all do. Just correct it. . . soon.

Check out all the previews after the break.

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Sorry for missing last week. My sister was getting married, and it put the kibosh on reviewing the Parks and Rec opener, which I wasn’t even aware had premiered until it came up during the reception, between one of my friends and cousin Jane, both of whom raved about it while I bit my tongue, cheek, lip, and anything with gnawing range for having missed it.

They also mentioned that next week’s episode would feature a drinking contest between Tammy I, Ron’s mom, and Leslie. Add to that the fact that the episode is titled “Ron & Tammys,” the Ron-and-Tammy episodes being among the series’ best, I was very excited for tonight.

But to back up a bit, we’re finally introduced to what we can only believe is the demon whose evil outdoes even Satan (Tammy II): Tammy I (Patricia Clarkson, looking sexy in an appropriately red dress). The cliffhanger that Season 3 ended on, where Leslie told Ron that Tammy I was waiting in his office (and scaring away Tammy II with a mere shot of I’s shoes) certainly lived up to the hype, and, just to reinforce it, there was a great scene last week when Tammy I put April in her place (and further magnified the threat by having her work for the IRS and auditing Ron).

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It’s not particularly surprising that Mad Men and Mildred Pierece had the most nominations today when Melissa McCarthy and Joshua Jackson made the 2011 Primetime Emmy announcement. Jane Lynch will be hosting the 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, September 18.

For the complete list of nominees, head over to the Emmys website. We’ve just got the ones we really care about for you here. (aka The Big Ones).

Of course, the fact that Community isn’t nominated in the Outstanding Comedy category just makes these awards that much less special. Plus, I wouldn’t want to be nominated in a category against Peter Dinklage for Game of Thrones. He’s pretty much got that one in the bag

Check out the nominations below.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes
Louis C.K., Louie
Steve Carell, The Office
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Hugh Laurie, House
Timothy Olyphant, Justified
Jon Hamm, Mad Men

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You didn’t think I’d let the season finale of Parks & Rec go by without a writeup (however late), did you? Well, given my inability to balance it among The Office recaps and the usual movie reviews and whatever else is kicking around in my head and just oozing to be ignored, I can’t blame you.

I did, in fact, have a recap of the season’s best episode “Ron and Tammy II,” but it ran to over a 1,000+ words, and I still hadn’t scratched the surface of its brilliance (“Real piece of work…”), so sometimes quality overtakes quantity regarding something or other that probably likely also begins with “q.”

But that’s not to say that recapping the final two episodes is a mild attempt to do them justice, it’s just a shorter, briefer form of justice. A McJustice. Plus both of them were awesome enders to an equally awesome season.

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I’m glad there were two episodes—disregarding the fact that it meant double the recaps—because it was nice to see the Leslie/Ben (is there a name for this yet? If not, I’m submitting “LesBien” for mass consideration) sexual tension get some mutual recognition—and some face-munching.

But that comes later. The first episode, “The Fight,” honors the timeless sitcom staple of everyone getting really, really drunk. The setup is that Pawnee’s head of public relations for the health department has, as Chris says, “Gone bananas,” freeing his position up for Leslie to swoop in and recommend Ann Perkins for the job, a job Ann’s none too willing to take since it entails memorizing every Pawnee health reform since the 1950s (which actually might make interesting, if not terrifying reading)…in one night.

Meanwhile, Tom’s developed a new drink to promote at the Snake Hole: Snake Juice, a 140-proof, Kahlua-inspired liquor (basically a lot of alcohol mixed with sugar and coffee), which likely tastes as good as it sounds, but oh how it does the job. Tom invites the gang out to partake (but more to help peddle the hooch), and oh how they do, particularly Ann Perkins, who ditches the massive amount of homework Leslie prepares and is now dating The Douche, Pawnee’s own radio-shock-idiot, last seen in “Media Blitz.”

Leslie gets incensed at Ann’s promiscuity and Ann retaliates by chiding Leslie for hiding her feelings toward Ben, leading to a booze-fueled confrontation between the two that results in a falling out/massive hangover.

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I‘ll admit it. I was a bit slow on the uptake to start embracing Parks and Recreation. But now, after watching it for many weeks, I’m hooked on it and its quirky characters.

Now we can add one more quirky character to this show, at least as a guest star. That’s right, 90′s indie film mainstay (and recent Lex Luthor BFF) Parker Posey will be making an appearance this Thursday on the show.

She will be playing the role of Lindsay, Leslie’s former coworkers and current Eagleton rival. When the two faceoff about a fence, tempers run high. To get you started off and excited for Thursday’s show, we’ve got previewsd and some interviews with Posey as well.

Be sure to check them al out after the jump. Parks and Recreation airs on Thursdays at 9:30/8:30C on NBC.

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Oh, just make out already! Or go hog wild on Tom’s desk. Or have Chris or Ron or Ann Perkins or all three catch you in bed together, Leslie and Ben! You guys were doing so well avoiding the trap of lingering romance that every damn sitcom and its mongoloid step-brother trips, I hope you can chew your foot off before it’s too late.

“Jerry’s Painting” continues pushing the Leslie/Ben thing that, hopefully, will culminate in an upcoming episode where the two take a road trip to Indianapolis (I saw it on the Wikipedia), and Chris even goes so far as to set Ben up with someone who has what he deems “compatible traits,” to the natural chagrin of Leslie. But the bulk deals with the eponymous (damn, I hate that word) Jerry’s Painting—on full display at the Pawnee community art exhibit—which depicts a topless female centaur slaying a deer while a Reubenesque cherub looks on.

But, of course, it’s by Jerry, so naturally it has to have something wrong with it, which is that the centaur resembles a topless Leslie and the cherub resembles Tom (I wonder what mythical Greek creature Ron would be…Zeus?). However, while Tom is (in a cosmic sense unjustifiably) incensed, Leslie loves it and feels empowered that it’s her flailing boobies taking down a stag. What woman wouldn’t? Still, topless art is topless art, and Marcia Langman, the same Bible-beating woman who tries to find some anti-Christian message in everything objects to the implied beastiality of the painting and wants it destroyed, as does Tom, though for completely different reasons.

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Members of my generation probably remember Rescue Rangers, the cartoon that (if you lived in mid-Michigan in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s) eased the de-gression each weekday from the awesomeness of Ducktales to the mediocrity of Tailspin. Rangers wasn’t up to the same level of quality of Ducktales, but it did have one thing that kept our pudgy little eyes watching: Gadget.

Smart, sexy, and sporting a dynamite purple jumpsuit that no girl ever dared try pull off, Gadget was ashamedly appealing, and Disney gets a lot of credit for screwing up our concepts of attractiveness and sexuality. My college roommate’s predilection for redheads stems from seeing The Little Mermaid at a birthday party when he was seven (that same friend also took my “Who’s Your Ideal Cartoon Woman” quiz and, oddly enough, ended up with Gadget, which he reasoned was actually an ideal choice).

So what does this have to do with Parks & Rec? Outside of mindless filler and the hope of scoring more hits from the nostalgic crowd, I think I’ve nailed down what makes Leslie Knope so fetching: She’s the human equivalent of Gadget. “Mousey” would certainly be a good adjective to describe her—she’s petite and generally shy, regarding the opposite sex; she’s blonde; and she’s scatterbrained yet curiously competent at what she does (and in both cases it’s implied that their work is a substitute for social interaction).

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Maybe I’m biased, but Amy Poehler gets cuter and cuter each episode (something about those devilish eyebrows); Jerry gets more pathetic; and Ron is more and more of a badass.

First off, this may be my favorite cold open so far—though it’s in close competition with the one where Leslie goes up the dreaded fourth floor of Pawnee’s City Hall (“POPCORN?”)—it’s nice to see the twistedly playful side of Ron and even nicer to see that he’s almost aware of how the rest of the parks department perceives him.

He almost fooled me, too, but then my Ron Sense is calibrated enough (or at least more than Tom’s) to figure out that even he wouldn’t perform an impromptu tooth removal in the middle of a meeting.

The episode lives up to that open as well; it keeps the humor coming but also injects some character development that ranks right up there with the best of The Office’s second season: Ben’s crush on Leslie is getting more overt; Donna’s finally getting more face-time; the writers deliver a great moment from Chris; and, oh, April and Andy get married.

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What do Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Elijah Wood, Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Will Arnett, Susan Sarandon, Rainn Wilson, Seth Rogan, Ted Dansen, Stanley Tucci, and a whole bunch of other named celebrities have in common?

They’re all in a brand new semi-biographical, semi-science fictional short film by The Beastie Boys, about The Beastie Boys, titled Fight For Your Right-Revisited.

The film is done in conjunction with the trio’s highly anticipated eighth album, “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”, and has got Ferrell, McBride, Black, Reilly, Rogan, and Wood playing both the Beastie Boys from the past and the Beastie Boys from the future.

Expect zany, wacky, convoluted awesomeness when the 30-minute film hits DVD (as well as the the web) when Hot Sauce Committee Part Two hits music stores on May 3. In the meantime, check out the star-studded trailer after the jump.

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