Review Roundup

Haven't seen the NBC comedies besides Community or Fringe yet, so I'll save those for next week!

How I Met Your Mother: "Hopeless"- Much the better than the previous episode, even if that isn't saying much. Neil Patrick Harris and John Lithgow continue to remain awesome and the rest of the cast, despite brief or trivial plotlines, made this episode very enjoyable. The best part was Barney's announcement to his dad "We're also a band!" with a direct cut to the cast preforming the theme song. Very fun.

Chuck: "Chuck vs the Wedding Planner"- One of the best Chuck episodes in quite some time. It gave some much needed closure on Sarah's relationship with her father and continued to push momentum through the non-Vivian related story arcs, you know, the ones that people actually care about. The plot was quite original and paced very well (which normaly wouldn't warrent a note, but based on this show's recent episodes, it seems almost out of the ordinary). The episode also did a good job of balancing the humor and the real emotional stuff. I especially enjoyed the reenactment of Chuck's flash face. Possibly the fourth to last episode of this show ever, so I'm glad it was as enjoyable as it was.

Raising Hope: "Cheaters"- Didn't particularly care for this one. I thought it was fine, nothing too bad about it, but nothing all that great either. I think the main factor might be a heavy use of Maw-Maw (please don't give her her own storylines), but some of the character work just felt forced and frustrating.

The Whitest Kids U'Know: "5.02"- I still am not a big an of The Civil War on drugs. I don't know what it's trying to do, I don't know why it's there, and I don't find it to be particularily funny (although I did laugh several times this week, as opposed to the straight face I had the whole ten minutes last week). I did like almost all the other sketches this week though. "Old Folks Home" was almost a spiritual successor to "Dinosaur Rap" and things like the last second turn of the "Dominos" sketch felt like things we should have seen last week. And the Anne Frank skit did bring up a surprisingly disturbing but true point.