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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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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Sure to start up a storm of controversy, this film from co-director/co-writer Ricky Gervais is a biting social satire wrapped up in the trappings of a cute little romantic comedy.  It pushes boundaries, and is tremendously bold. The story takes place in an alternate realty where lying does not exist. A blind date between the beautiful Anna (cute as a button Jennifer Garner) and schlubby  screenplay writer Mark (Ricky Gervais) sets up the premise of the movie nicely.

When he rings the doorbell, she arrives flustered, proclaiming that she has been masturbating.  This causes him to blurt out that he is now thinking about her vagina. When they get to the restaurant, a waiter (Martin Starr) greets them with “I’m embarrassed I work here” and later, while delivering a drink, he confesses, ” oh I had  a little sip of this.” Mark immediately tells Anna that he has no net worth and will probably be getting fired soon. She informs him that there is no chance of them having a relationship because he has no money, no social stature, and she fears they would have fat children.

The following day, Mark is fired, and on his way out of the office, everyone is sure to let him know how much they disliked him. It is a sad scene of petty and cruel behavior, and it lays the groundwork for the concept that honesty is not always the best policy. The down-on-his-luck, soon to be evicted Mark has a personal Jesus moment when he is at the bank, and realizes that he can just lie about his account balance. The teller naturally believes him, and assumes their computer must have made an error.

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