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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The Harvest Festival has come and gone (about 16 episodes earlier than I thought), and Leslie’s getting the kudos she deserves…until the city manager Paul suffers a heart attack during her recognition ceremony and collapses with a death grip on her right mammary. Nice. (And the headline “Knope Grope Is Last Hope” is the icing on the booby.)

Before he does, though, he tenders some eagerness toward what Leslie’s next big idea will be, which leads Leslie to call a mandatory work/brainstorming retreat for the parks department, a fancy name for camping in one of Pawnee’s starry-night-sky-infested parks. Naturally, the rest of the office is reluctant (I do love how Leslie seems to be the only person in her department who actually enjoys the parks): Ron would prefer to skip the get-together and go camping by himself (presumably at some private campground).

Tom would prefer to bask in the pervading effulgence of SkyMall; and Jerry just brings bad luck by scaring all the fish (and misidentifies “rappers” as “rappists”). The only one who shares Leslie’s gung-ho-i-ness is Andy, who sees it as an opportunity to build a love-tent for himself and April (not too bad of an idea, had he not chosen the wrong campsite to pitch it).

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Who says good news doesn’t come at the end of the week? On the heels of their Q&A at PaleyFest this week, NBC’s newest hit show, Community, has been given more life as the network has renewed the show for another season. Also to get another season are Parks and Recreation and the new Steve Carell-less Office.

It seems that though the shows weren’t performing up to expectations, they managed to get a stay of execution. THR spells it out with math. We hate math.

Veteran comedy The Office is delivering a 4.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and averaging 7.7 million viewers for its current seventh season. Steve Carell‘s farewell episode is scheduled to air at the end of April, with Will Ferrell coming on for a multi-episode guest arc.

In the ratings, Amy Poehler‘s Parks and Rec, currently in its third season, is averaging a 2.8 in the key demo and 5.5 million viewers. With its move to the 9:30 p.m. time slot, the series is up 17 percent in the 18-49 demo (2.8 vs. 2.4) and up 9 percent in total viewers (5.5 million vs. 5.1 million).

Critical favorite Community, which has anchored the competitive 8 p.m. time slot on Thursdays for NBC and is led by The Soup host Joel McHale, has averaged a 2.1 in the 18-49 demo and 4.7 million viewers so far in its sophomore season.

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Those who watch NBC comedies Parks & Recreation, Community and Saturday Night Live know that some of the considered “favorites” of those shows consist of Donald Glover, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Aubrey Plaza. Sure, there are a few others, but now we’re getting all of these names in one place with the new indie comedy The Hand Job.

From Variety:

Hader’s wife, Maggie Carey, is set to write and make her feature directorial debut on the coming-of-age story; Plaza will star as a type-A valedictorian who’s determined to lose her virginity before leaving for college. Project does not have a start date yet, as financing is still coming together.

In addition, TV veterans Connie Britton (“Friday Night Lights”) and Alia Shawkat (“Arrested Development”) have joined the ensemble, while Plaza’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” co-stars Johnny Simmons and Mae Whitman have come aboard to provide comedic support.

So as if the list of stars wasn’t enough with NBC’s top four, they’re adding two Arrested Development alumni to the mix. This could just be the indie comedy (and hopefully more) of the year.

We’re just hoping they keep the title.

As things are just getting good on some of NBC’s biggest shows, it’s hard to believe that we’re in the home stretch for this season of TV. With just about a month and a half left, NBC has just released their final schedule of season (and possibly series) finales for this year.

No exact word on what will return just yet, but there are a few shows still on the bubble to be canceled. We’re looking at you, Chuck, Perfect Couples, and Outsourced). However, we’re still holding out that our favorite comedies such as Community, Parks & Recreation, and The Office will return.

With that in mind, here is the full schedule of season finales that the network has lined up, courtesy of Deadline. So prep your DVR’s and get ready for a whole summer of re-runs and off-season replacements.

MONDAY, APRIL 4
“Harry’s Law” (10-11 p.m.)
FRIDAY, APRIL 8
“Who Do You Think You Are?” (8-9 p.m.)
TUESDAY, APRIL 19
“Parenthood” (10-11 p.m.)
SUNDAY, MAY 1
“America’s Next Great Restaurant” (8-9 p.m.)

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Chris and Ben are both extremes of Leslie’s personality—Chris being her unflappable zeal and Ben her insecurities, particularly regarding the acceptance of others—and that’s a good enough starting point, but, as I’ve said way too many times when I couldn’t think of anything else to write, they need to develop into their own characters. Fortunately I think they’re starting to explore the possibilities of Ben, last week being a delightful lambasting of his Pawnee PR ignorance, but Lowe’s Chris still isn’t quite there, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever get a chance to be.

The core plot revolves around Leslie and Ron heading up to Indianapolis to receive a commendation for reviving Harvest Festival, but that’s quickly dismissed once it becomes clear that Ron’s sole incentive for going is to visit his favorite steakhouse, and Leslie gets sidetracked into spying on Chris, now back home in Indianapolis, when Ann Perkins suspects he’s cheating on her.

I love it when Leslie and Ron are put in light opposition to each other, but placing Chris in the crossfire seemed doomed to fail because his character is so upbeat that he’d deflect the spitwads. So the humor falls back on Poehler and Offerman, in particular a scene pitting Chris’s ultra-healthy views on diet squarely against Ron’s aggressively meat-oriented tastes.

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I don’t think I’m alone in wondering where Adam Scott’s Ben Wyatt fits into Parks and Recreation. Scott’s a fine straight man (Party Down) and a good sleaze-ball (Piranha 3-D), but as Wyatt he didn’t seem to have much to work with other than being a possible romantic foible for Leslie. And even then there didn’t appear to be much potential for their relationship, since, as Anne Perkins constantly brings up regarding her relationship with Chris, he’s heading back to Indianapolis soon. (Though given Scott and Lowe’s inclusion in the main cast, that may not be too soon.)

So it was nice to see the show focus on Ben and explore some of the clean-cut accountant’s weaknesses. In particular Ben’s reluctance to address his disastrous tenure as the former teenage governor of a small Minnesota town, which he bankrupted after sinking all its money into the failed skating rink “Ice Town.”

The show’s brought up Ben’s shadowy past before but never made much use of it until now, when, during the Parks’ media blitz for the upcoming harvest festival, it’s dredged up by Pawnee’s horrendously obnoxious (and completely spot-on) morning show “Crazy Ira and The Douche.” (And I’d really like to know who discovered that you can get away with “douche” on network television, because every show in existence has reveled in it.

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In an effort to bite off even more than I can chew (and since we don’t have, like, a bajillion articles published on Friday anyway), I’ve decided to take a swing at covering Parks and Recreation, a little gem of a show I’ve gotten into the past week while cooped up inside the apartment thanks to the Great Chicago Blizzard of ’11. (It even made me miss a screening of Sanctum because the city shut down. Really. Though early reports of the film say I didn’t miss much.)

One of the things that got me to check out the show, other than ennui, was the stellar reviews it’d been getting and my general desire to fill the void The Office’s lackluster season has left. Hey, they had a good run and some pretty good episodes so far, but Parks and Rec has been batting a 1,000 since its second season, which is right around when The Office started to come into its own. (And in case you’re wondering, the spate of Office comparisons are because Parks and Rec was created by two Office alums, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur.)

One of the things I admire about the show, beside its daringness to showcase an overtly Libertarian character in Ron “F*cking” Swanson and the adorable pluckiness of Amy Peohler, is the light contempt it has for the general public of the little backwards town of Pawnee. Coming from a small town myself and having lived in an even pettier one that offered hours upon hours of small-town self-righteousness just a local access channel away, it’s nice to see someone satirize this comic gold mine. It always is the same, lonely people who take themselves way too seriously over a trivial point of local government, and the subtle touch of reducing the populace’s rhetorical skills to simple chanting is a nice touch.

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Normally we would make some interesting comments about this or that and post something relevant to the topic at hand. This time, however, the staff is in a hurry to head out for lunchtime hot air balloon rides so this has got to be a quick one.

NBC has some great shows on Thursday night and they are all back tonight will all-new episodes. We, of course, have promos for all of them.

Community kicks off the night with guest Malcolm-Jamal Warner, followed by the Perfect Couples premiere. Then Michael’s war to win Holly’s heart continues on The Office, followed by Rob Lowe back with the cast of Parks and Rec. Finally, Liz dabbles in Jack’s marriage on 30 Rock followed by Outsourced going Bollywood. That should be interesting.

Check out all the clips where we usually put stuff like that. If you can’t figure it out now, we can’t help you. All the fun kicks off tonight at 8/7C with Community.

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It’s a new year, and a new month, which means that Cortney’s TV Digest is here to tell you everything you need to watch. And since it’s a new year, I figured we’d try something a little different, and talk about some shows I’ve never discussed here until now! January’s a big month for tv, with some new shows bursting on the scene, but also some old favorites of mine returning for a new season.

V

With shows like Caprica getting the axe, it’s great to still have some decent sci-fi on television these days. Which is why I’m super psyched that V has returned for its second season.

V is a re imagining of the 1983 mini-series of the same name, in which an alien race arrives on Earth, claiming they come in peace and bringing with them both technology and medical knowledge, as well as some ulterior motives.

V premiered on Tuesday, but that’s plenty of time to catch up on the series in time for the next episode, which airs January 11th on ABC.

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It’s Thursday so that means new episodes of some of our favorite comedies are back on NBC. From 30 Rock to Community to The Office, these shows bring the funny and are a welcome break and a great way to spend a Thursday night.

To get you ready for tonight’s shows, our friends at NBC have sent us some videos from each of the four comedies that make up the Thursday night lineup. First off is Community where you can get the scoop from Ken Jeong as he explains how him and Joel McHale are rivals after the “battle of the nudity!” Next on Parks and Rec, two deleted scenes from last week’s episode are sure to get you ready for tonight.

For The Office, we’ve got your first chance to watch the new opening credits which now rightly include the awesome Ed Helms. Finally, on 30 Rock, does Tracy Jordan really have a career in politics ahead of him? Find out as he answers fan mail in this very funny clip.

Check out all the videos after the break. These all-new comedies start tonight at 8/7C with Community.

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Once again with last night’s lineup of comedies, NBC proved they are a force to be reckoned with on Thursday nights. And if you missed any of the shows, which include Community, Rock and Parks and Recreation, you’re in luck because we’ve got highlights of all of the shows to share with you right here. Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about The Office as we already had a full recap of that show earlier today.

On Community, Jeff and Slater hit a rough patch but Britta saves the relationship by playing some touching moments from a drunken voicemail that Jeff left her. See how Valentine’s Day ended for Jeff and the rest of the gang in last night’s episode highlights. On 30 Rock, Jenna finds out her stalker has been seeing someone else and Liz deals with Valentine’s day by scheduling oral surgery. Of course, that doesn’t go exactly as planned. Plus, the awesome Elizabeth Banks shows up to give Jack (Alec Baldwin) a run for his money.

Finally, on Parks and Recreation, Andy dreams of being a rockstar were slightly derailed last night as his band was relegated to playing at the senior center. He wants to know how his band sounds, but how does he find out?

Check out all the highlights and some deleted scenes, after, you guessed it, the jump.

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