Designed to replace a venerable animation institution, King of the Hill, Bob’s Burgers represents yet another rip-off of the Simpsons’ formula: a fat Dad with three annoying kids. Its only claim to originality is that this awkward family works at a fast food joint and none of the characters are voiced by Seth MacFarlane.  The pilot revolves around the restaurant receiving a health inspection after being accused of serving human flesh. No further description of the plot is necessary as there are no jokes, character development, messages or charm of any of sort in this show. The closest the show comes to humor is the childish insertion of the phrase “child molester” into its dialogue, which will shock the viewer for the two seconds necessary to make them forget that what they are watching is uninspired, unfunny dreck.

Indeed, everything about this show feels half done. The animation is bland and juvenile, seemingly pasted together by a pair of high-schoolers testing out their first piece of animation software. The voice acting is practically monotone as though the voice talents (and the author uses that term loosely) recognize that the mundane run-on sentence of schlock they are droning isn’t worth their time or effort. Even the melodramatic sound effects of this show are gallingly generic enough to come off as cheesy and unprofessional. Cartoons don’t necessarily need high production values, but can’t come off as feeling hurried and incomplete. It feels as though the producers stayed up all night to meet a deadline. If this is the care given to the pilot, nothing good can be on the way.

Boring and uninspired, one wonders how this raw, unfinished project was rushed into our TVs. Nothing about this show feels finished or remotely memorable and as a result it lacks any value as entertainment. One can only hope that in keeping with the show’s flimsy premise, the executive who gave it a green light is ground up. Unsafe for consumption by humans or the higher functioning apes, Bob’s Burgers is a terrible show and a waste of the viewer’s time.

Bob’s Burgers airs on Sundays at 8:30 on Fox, but probably not for much longer.

Then something happened. The most recent season of the venerable show was stilted, unfocused and frankly, unfunny. Whether it’s the litany of ham handed pop culture references carelessly crammed into an episode (It’s a Jersey Thing, Insheeption, Crème Fraische) or a throwback to its glory days (200/201, the Coon trilogy) season 14 was uninspired. Worse still, the show appears to be coasting on jokes repeated over and over, such as Tiger’s Wood’s golf club wielding wife in Sexual Healing.  Even the show’s satiric bite has been blunted, as witnessed by the lame metaphor of fried chicken and weed in Medicinal Fried Chicken.

But while every great show is entitled to a bad season (here again, the Simpsons during the early and mid 00’s comes to mind) one cannot help but notice what seems to be a marked trend of decline within the quality of South Park over the past few years. Season 13’s finale, Pee was a juvenile retelling of the disaster movie trope the show had visited before. Whether it was Glenn Beck in season 13’s Dances with Smurfs, High School Musical in 12’s Elementary School Musical or Twilight in The Ungroundable, South Park seemed unable even to hit a target ripe for satire. Regrettably, all of these deadened episodes lead to the conclusion that the show jumped the shark.

As with all series, jumping the shark doesn’t mean that nothing good has come out of South Park in recent years. Season 12’s Canada on Strike was a perfect lambasting of the WGA by means of those lovable Canucks, Terrance and Phillip. Similarly, Seasons 13’s double hitter of The Coon and Margaritaville were hard hitting, side splitting looks at the super hero genre and the economic meltdown. Of course, it would be a crime to neglect season 13’s Fishsticks, which marked a turning point in the career of Kanye West. These were South Park at its best: moralistic, creative and deceptively simple deconstructions of modern culture. But never the less, these jewels shine out even more because they must be compared to the dirt that they were placed between.

If there were an episode where the show officially jumped, the single instant where the downward trend began, it would have to be Season 12’s opener, Tonsil Trouble. In this episode, Cartman becomes infected with AIDS, and through the course of the episode proceeds to infect Kyle with them. Although South Park had taken aim at this issue before with Season 6’s Jared has Aides, its season 12 counterpart was devoid of charm. Instead, the episode came off as crass, and had no redeeming comic aspects other than a few minor swipes at Jimmy Buffet. The moral of the story, that “lots and lots of cash” is the cure for AIDS, was forced and unsubtle. Though South Park had been grossly violating standards for years, it had never done so as blatantly and without the emolliating power of laughter. The fact that the show had to cover itself with pop culture references to Buffet and the Xbox 360 represented the first time the show had shed its moral indignation for the manatee jokes it had lambasted Family Guy for. It has been downhill ever since.

It is with great sadness that the show begins its 15^th and final season, both because it represents the end of a seminal era in television and because what the show has become. It is as though we woke up on morning and discovered that the cool uncle’s foibles had degenerated into a sad state of alcoholism. We can only hope that this final season recaptures the glimmer of inspiration that gave us 11 years of great television. We can only hope that this tremendous pop-culture icon recaptures its roots. But if the past three seasons are any indication, such an event would be a pleasant surprise.

The brainchild of Simpson’s creator Matt Groenig, Futurama is the story of the adventures of the crew of the Planet Express Delivery Ship in the 31^st century. The show revolves around Phillip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from our time frozen for a thousand years, his cycloptic love interest, Leela, and his hard drinking, hard smoking robotic roommate Bender. Supported by zany cast of superbly written characters from the crazed Professor Farnsworth to the loveably pathetic lobster Dr. Zoidberg, the world of Futurama represents a rich mosaic for Groenig and his writers to examine modern life and mock it mercilessly.

Indeed, Futurama’s satiric bite remains among the best on television and can stand up against the best episodes of South Park or the Simpsons. In the latest season, our heroes are confronted with a giant battle station that censors entire planets, nefarious plots involving the latest “eyePhone” and a fierce debate over whether humans and robots should be allowed to marry. Despite being timely, the show’s punch lines never feel forced and story and characters are never sacrificed for a cheap laugh. While the show is a work of science fiction and derives much of its humor from classics of that genre, its situations are familiar enough that casual viewers will love it.

It is not often that a television show gets a second chance to shine, and as another adult cartoon recently proved, after being resurrected it can bear little resemblance to the original gem. However, despite being off the air for years save for a series of direct to DVD movies, Groenig’s show continues to be fresh. Any television enthusiast tired of summer reruns will find themselves welcome in the world of tomorrow.

Futurama airs on Comedy Central Thursdays at 10:00PM

Something, Something, Something Dark Side, the newest incarnation of Family Guy’s Star Wars parodies, is a pleasant surprise after a particularly unpleasant season. Seth MacFarlane has done what George Lucas did with Episode III and barely managed to salvage his series.

Put bluntly, Family Guy is no longer funny, nor has it been for some time. The show that was once putting viewers in hysterics with its zany characters and ridiculous gags long ago fell victim to its own success. Its famous cutaway gags are no longer witty, and all too often rely on increasingly obscure 80’s pop culture references or gross-out humor that would make Eric Cartman blush. Its weekly plots seem to be one long running diatribe of MacFarlane’s political views, which lack the clever subtlety of the Simpsons or South Park’s satiric bite. All of this will lead viewers to the regrettable conclusion that MacFarlane and his writers stopped trying sometime around 2005.

Indeed, what makes SSSDS work is that the Family Guy writers don’t have control over the story and can’t rely on cutaways. The result is that they are forced to take what made the show hilarious in its early seasons, its character’s charming stupidity, and work it into the grand narrative of Lucas’ magnum opus. Not only is it fun to watch the Griffins act out their parts as the heroes of the Star Wars saga, but fun to watch how bit players in the Family Guy universe are each incorporated into the saga to give life to the minor characters in surprisingly funny ways.

Although it is entertaining, the piece as a whole continues to suffer from two other Family Guy habits: repeated breaking of the fourth wall and padding. Some jokes are repeated ad nauseum to the point where one must wonder whether they are there to fill time. Moreover, the characters comments on the parody leave us with the feeling like we are watching the episode with someone interrupting the show every few minuets It destroys the flow of the story nearly as effectively as the two nerds in the front row of the theater arguing over the inaccuracies in the Phantom Menace.

Overall, the episode is well done. It gets in an above average number of laughs and will please Star Wars fans with its in depth references and shot for shot recreations of some classic scenes. Much like the film, it will leave viewers eager for a conclusion, both for this series of entertaining Star Wars parodies, and the unfunny filler that MacFarlane airs in between them during the rest of the season.

In the first episode of HBO’s new show, Pilkington begins to talk about how humans should reproduce. He believes that when a woman turns 78 she should die, but that a small baby should be born from her body when she dies, so that it would be a “good-bad situation”. Immediately, Gervais cracks up at the idiotic premise. The worst part about it is that Pilkington believes that this system will be the next stage of evolution. Gervais and Merchant try to convince him of the ridiculousness of the idea, but it does little to persuade him.

The other funny segment was “Monkey News” in which the men discuss a story having to do with monkeys. Pilkington begins to speak about how angry he would be if he was a monkey because humans get all the credit–particularly for space travel. He eloquently points out that a monkey went into space before man. Although it is a somewhat legitimate point, it devolves into babble after he says that the monkeys were taught to fly the spaceships using buttons and a banana dispenser.

With such ridiculous segments, Gervais and Merchant, among comedies brightest talents, are in a great setting. The show itself is done in an animated style reminiscent of the Flintstones (which, oddly enough, they reference in the show) and show their animated persons sitting at a table discussing with occasional cutaways describing certain elements of the story.

The problem is that I can’t really figure out why this needs to be a television show. Yes, the segments become more ludicrous when you actually see what Pilkington is describing, but it isn’t a constant which warrants watching the screen the entire time. The animated style is not impressive and much of the time is just showing the animated men sitting in a studio. Thus, I kept getting the feeling that this show, although funny, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is better than the podcast. It has the feeling of a simple video podcast, but one that you don’t need to be watching constantly in order to enjoy.

Nevertheless, both Gervais and Merchant are funny enough to make the show deserving of a large audience. Although it is very likely that you will find yourself doing other activities while watching it.

Ted hasn’t had a lot of success, but he immediately becomes smitten with reporter Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). On their first date, Ted impresses her but then makes the faux-pas of using the L- word. Reversing traditional gender roles, Robin is the one who doesn’t want to commit to a relationship but chooses to focus on her career. Begrudgingly, Ted accepts that they can just be friends and introduces her to his circle of friends and immediately click.

Opposite Ted is his best friend Marshall who has been in a nine year relationship with Lily and they are completely in love. Ted wants what they have while Barney attempts to do everything in his power to keep him single. Barney doesn’t believe in relationships or in marriage and wants his “best friend” (Ted always says Marshall is his best friend) to understand the “awesomeness” of being single in New York.

Despite Barney’s efforts, the first season of How I Met Your Mother tells a number of stories about Ted and Robin searching for love but consistently coming back to each other. Ted begins to look for love in other places and stops actively pursuing Robin but his belief that Robin is the one never subside. All indications lead the group of friends to believe that Robin is simply not interested in dating Ted, but it begins to change when Ted stops pursuing her.

Marshall would love to help his best friend find a girl but his life is quickly evolving into adulthood. After he proposes to Lily, the two attempt to become more sophisticated with disastrous results. Both realize that wine and cheese parties are nothing compared to the good company of their friends at the local bar, MacFaddens. Barney becomes Ted’s wing-man, introducing him to attractive women by simply saying “Have you met, Ted?” and walking away. While Barney is happy with the constant stream of women, Ted is still intent on meeting the girl of his dreams.

Ted begins to date Victoria (Ashley Williams) and feels like she is the one. Robin becomes jealous and realizes that she has romantic inclinations towards Ted, sentiments she carefully shares with Lily. Victoria’s relationship with Ted weakens when she moves to Germany after being accepted into a culinary school. Robin is secretly happy and decides to invite Ted over late one night. “Nothing good every happens after 2am” future Ted warns his children, but young Ted decides to go to her apartment.

After some more drama, the season ends with Robin and Ted finally becoming a couple. However, their fortune is contrasted with Lily’s decision to move to San Francisco to attend art school–effectively breaking up with Marshall.

The strength of How I Met Your Mother is the writing and the characters. Even the most successful have particular characters that are weakly played or tangentially attached to the story arch, but this is simply not the case in HIMYM. All characters are played with energy and realism, absurd as they may sometimes be. Particularly noteworthy is Neal Patrick Harris as Barney. Most people know Harris as Dougie Howser M.D., but he successfully breaks the fetters of his childhood role and creates an enormously funny character. The oversexed, cool guy Barney is always asking his friends to “suit up” (get dressed up in suits and go out) and frequently describes things as “legen- I hope your not allergic to – dary”. While the character prototype is nothing new, Harris, a gay man, portrays a misogynistic straight man enormously well.

Harris is surrounded by a cast of vibrant, quick and very believable actors. Josh Radnor, Jason Segal, Alison Hannigan and Cobie Smulders all play drastically different people but those with convincing and entertaining interactions. The nicest thing about watching the ensemble is seeing all the smiles. I constantly saw characters smiling ear-to-ear at the edges of the screen showing that the actors have a great time and make the show all the more believable.

Without a doubt, How I Met Your Mother is a winner.

Unfortunately, there are times when you leave drunk messages which really come back to haunt you.  Such was the case in this week’s episode of Community in which Britta makes a drunken call to Jeff.  Playing this message for her completely changes the dynamics of the relationship. Britta initially blocked all of Jeff attempts at romance but recently she has begun to have her own romantic inclinations towards him. The message put all of this in the open.

Jeff has the upper hand in the relationship, but he doesn’t want to destroy the playful banter of their interactions. How to fix it? Abed and Jeff decide to get completely plastered and make a call to Britta so it will re-balance things.  In a montage involving alcohol, dancing and a pizza deliveryman, the two achieve their goals, but they can’t remember what Jeff said in his two conversations with Britta and his girlfriend, Michelle.

The hilarity ensues at the Valentines Day dance where Jeff discovers that he called Michelle but hung up when it wasn’t Britta. Suspicious, Michelle gives him the cold shoulder while Britta arrives at the dance saying that she was so flattered that he had invited her to the dance.

In regular Community fashion, the cast of characters at dance is absurd. Professor Chang dresses up like “Beat It” Michael Jackson and dances with Pierce and Troy who have been forced to wear light fitting ladies pant suits after lying in Spanish class about having girlfriends.  The awkwardness of the love triangle is assuaged by the ridiculousness of the dance.

This episode proves to me once again that Community has hit its stride. The new comedy has established the relationship dynamics that provide for an intoxicating comedy.

This criticism was rebuked with last night’s episode. The meeting between David Wallace (Andy Buckley) and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) signaled a return to workplace-based stories. This is unfortunate for Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) who was driven crazy by not being included in the meeting. He didn’t understand what was happening and being the hypersensitive and paranoid man that he is, tried to figure it out. Michael walked into the meeting, questioned Pam (Jenna Fischer) and even hid under a makeshift cheese cart in order to hear the conversation.

Alas, none of his antics worked. Afraid for his own job, Michael negated all of Jim’s strengths when speaking to David. Disappointed, David tells him that the plan was to promote both of them to higher positions. Michael has screwed himself out of a promotion once again. Jim and Michael speak about the messy situation and convince David to “promote both of them” to co-managers of the Scranton branch.

The episode included a lot of funny moments, most of them coming from the Michael’s attempts to listen-in on the meeting. Andy’s (Ed Helms) speech about the finer points about the processed cheeses taken from the break room was the real highlight:

“Oui oui monsieur. From the Wisconsin region, a nice, firm cheddar. Also from the great state of Wisconsin, an aged Parmesan. Here you will find a cheddar-style spread, which has reacted nicely with the air to form a light rind, which I believe you will find both challenging and delicious. At that point, I would recommend you take a quick trip south of the border to the great state of Illinois where you will find this fine blue cheese dressing. If I may be so bold, it’s a lot of fun to let the goldfish take a little swim in the blue cheese. Bon appetite.” –Andy Bernard

In addition to the main story line there were two other story arcs although they were far less captivating.  Pam began handing out invitations to the wedding that will happen later this season and Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Toby (Paul Lieberstein) attempt to prove that Darryl (Craig Robinson) filed a false work-accident report about a broken ankle. The latter included a comical scene of mistaken identity between Darryl and his sister, but on the whole wasn’t particularly interesting.

Neither came close to the importance or the hilarity surrounding the promotion of Jim to co-manager of the branch. Obviously this means some major changes for the dynamics of the office and some workers are not thrilled, especially Dwight, who finished end the show with a hysterical scream of anguish.  TV viewers will be happy to know that The Office is moving forward with intriguing plot developments while keeping its award-winning comedic elements.

A large reason that this show has a chance to succeed is because of Courtney Cox Arquette. She plays Jules Cobb, a middle-aged single mother who is trying to hold down a job as a real estate agent, manage her teenage son, deal with her idiotic ex-husband and find some new companionship. Yes this premise is not new, but Arquette’s acting really freshens up the formula.

Despite the fact that she is a beautiful woman, the show quickly establishes that Jules is not a super confident Desperate Housewives type. The opening sequence of the show has Jules lifting and pinching skin and flab on her body after she gets out of the shower. She is critical on herself and feels as though she wasted her prime on a husband who can only be described as a “bro”.

She is back on the market partially because she is really horny. All the women on this show are—whether married, single, young or old. This includes Jules friends and colleagues. Two people particularly stand out: Ellie (Christa Miller from Scrubs), a horny married neighbor and Laurie,(Busy Phillips), her assistant who tries to get Jules to have more fun. Both are played well and offer some interesting plot opportunities.

As Jules is a middle-aged divorce she also has a son named Travis (Dan Byrd). He is pretty clichéd teenager who is embarrassed by his parents. It doesn’t help that his mom’s real estate billboards are used as “whack-off material” for the other boys at his high school. Despite the abrasive elements of the relationship Travis is able to cope with his mother’s sexual antics. That being said, he is still scarred when he walks in on Jules giving a much younger man a blowjob. Needless to say, they have some awkward conversations after that.

Some may be turned off by the sexual content in the show. Yet I am willing to overlook the occasional overly sexual scene to watch Courtney Cox Arquette as Jules Cobb. Since Friends went off the air it seems as though she hasn’t really fit into any roles as well. Quite frankly, she is a delight to watch in the Cougar Town. The pilot was entertaining enough to warrant watching future episodes and there is a good chance it will develop into a successful series.

Its major plot points are all things that you will see in other high school, coming-of-age shows. “Preggers” included many character driven plot developments but the main focus was on Kurt’s sexuality.  Kurt (Chris Colfer) is a walking gay stereotype, yet he didn’t have the courage to tell his father. Kurt joins the football team to quell any suspicions and kicks the game winning field goal. Although his father is proud of him and all seems well, he decides to come out to his father. This is a pretty standard high school drama plotline and some people have criticized the show for being a rehash of an old formula.

But what makes Glee great is the addition of fantastic music and teacher’s comical lives. I was surprised at the former’s weakness in the episode. There were quite a few plays of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” but the show didn’t really have any memorable music numbers like in previous episodes.

What made “Preggers” such an entertaining episode was the introduction of new relationship dynamics—particularly those involving teachers. One was the old high school drama truism of teacher-student relationship. Finn (Cory Monteith) goes to Will (Matthew Morrison) in regular teacher-mentor fashion so as to tell him the shocking news that Quinn (Dianna Agron), the head of the celibacy club, is pregnant.

But the more entertaining one was the relationship between Sue (Jane Lynch) and Will.  Sue is intent on destroying glee club and putting all focus back on her award winning cheerleading program.  The confident coach opts for a segment on the local news to spread her advice around the community. Lynch delivered the lines flawlessly and her words of advice were the best part of the episode. Some of the highlights include:

• “Not everyone is gonna have the walnuts to take a pro-littering stance. But I will not rest until every inch of our fair state is covered in garbage.”
• “Caning works! And I think it’s about time we did a little more of it right here… yes, we cane!”
• “I often tell homeless people, ‘Hey, how’s being homeless working out? Maybe you should give not being homeless a try’”

Sue is very passionate about her segment but the show’s producer will cancel it if she fails to win the cheerleading national championships. She has already lost some of her top athletes to glee and creates a new plan to destroy the club.  Sue is becoming one of my favorite characters on the show, even if her plans seemed destined to fail.

Fox extended the show for a full season this week. It’s a fantastic, if obvious, move as they have a popular juggernaut in Glee.