"Explain it to me in Star Wars." 30 Rock, Office, LOST, and Smallville - Reviewed!

Oh man, what a week. Thank jeebus it's Friday is all I can say.

I'll jump right in though, because man, last night was a ridiculous embarassment of riches in terms of good TV. For the first time in a while, the deck was truly loaded, and you had to have your remote control hand warmed up if you wanted to catch all the good stuff. It didn't help that the Rockets and Jazz had a barn-burner of a good game last night, which was a lot of fun to watch - shades of the great Houston vs. Utah rivalries of days gone by - but the game unfortunately caused me to miss a few snippets from some of the other good TV last night (I think I missed the ifrst 30 seconds or so of both 30 Rock and Lost .... as Liz Lemon might say: blurgh!).

Okay, onto the reviews:

THE OFFICE:

- I know, you were thinking I'd start with LOST, right? Well, the thing is, is that as good as Lost was last night, the big winners for me were NBC's pair of comedy superstars. Both returned to form last night, for me delivering their best and funniest episodes since they came back with new episodes following the writer's strike. The Office last night, as has been the trend the last few weeks, was DARK. But unlike the dinner party episode which was brilliantly twisted to the point of being more uncomfortable than funny, last night's ep was both pretty awkward and at times uncomfotable, but also laugh out loud hilarious. I loved all of the interaction with Michael, Dwight, and Ryan - their trip to NYC was just so well done, playing off some of the funniest aspects of Michael's persona - his longing to turn back the clock and be a swinging young bachelor, his longing for male companionship, his longing for female companionship (of a slightly different kind), and his weird man-crush on Ryan, where last night he was so happy to attach himself to Ryan, who he perceives as young, hip, and exciting, that he was totally blind to the fact that the guy was having a drug-induced meltdown. Like I said - very dark, but like I said, very funny. The fact that Michael ended the episode on Cloud 9 was the perfect capper. Meanwhile, Dwight was great with his strange belief that New York was some kind of alternate universe where hobbits and amazons roamed the streets. "Do you live in a normal-sized house?" Bwahaha ... Then, the stuff at the office was well done i nthat it set up Jim more and more as a guy whose happy-go-lucky demeanour covers up the fact that he isn't necessarilly a great planner, when his idea to stay late on a Friday in order to avoid coming in on a Saturday backfires, as the crew gets locked out of the parking lot. The best moment of this plotline came towards the end, when the slowly-building tension between Toby and Pam came to a sudden head, with Toby blatantly placing his hand on her thigh in full view of Jim ... and everyone else in the office. Jim, Pam, and Toby's reaction was totally awkward and absolutely hilarious, with perpetually morose Toby abruptly announcing his impending move to Costa Rica, running away from the group, jumping the fence, and jogging home. Classic. Also, Meredith getting hit in the face with a football was pretty funny as well. Anyways, this one was up there with the best Office episodes of the season - laughs, pathos, awkwardness - who can ask for more? And by the way, as anyone who works in the digital world can attest to, Ryan's misguided insistence that Dunder Mifflin's website inexplicably become a social networking destination was right on the money.

My Grade: A

30 ROCK:

- I've always said that 30 Rock is at its best when it avoids sitcom-style sappiness and focuses on its patented brand of off-the-wall, absurdist humor. So yeah, I was pretty happy with the comedic chaos that was last night's ep - a perfect storm of laughs, parodies, and great character moments that had me rolling. First off, great to see Will Arnett back on the show. His delivery as always was spot on, and the exchanges between him and Alec Baldwin were on the money, and even contained some unexpected sadness and empathy. Liz Lemon's transition from showrunner to corporate exec was pretty funny, and as someone who's worked on both comedy shows and with programming execs, there was some pretty on-the-money satire in that plotline. I loved how Liz's simple suggestion regarding GE microwaves became an instant hit, and wherever she went Liz was credited for coming up with "Button Classic," when all she did was reject a new design in favor of keeping the old one. Yep, sounds like GE alright ... (Whoops, did I just say that?). But the thing that drove this episode over the top for me was Tracy Morgan. The guy just makes me laugh. plain and simple. The gag of him shouting an exclamation, only for him to actually be saying someone's name, well, I don't know if that will ever get old (last night it was something like "Eureka! She'll know what to do." hahahaha). Tracy's plan to create the ultimate pornographic videogame was just inherently hilarious. "Explain it to me in Star Wars." Hahahaha ... The whole thing just had me in stitches, and a late-episode cameo by Chris Parnell only added to the overall awesomeness of the episode. Now THIS is the 30 Rock we've come to know and love. Eureka, indeed.

My Grade: A

LOST:

- Last night's LOST was a great return for a show that's been THE must-see-TV show of 2008. The show went out a few weeks ago with a couple of so-so episodes following the landmark "The Constant," but last night we got an ep that, if nothing else, kept me on the edge of my seat with a hearty mix of balls-to-the-wall action and breakneck storytelling. I guess where I might differ a little from some Lost fans is that I get kind of annoyed with Ben Linus. Yes, he's a great character, but I feel like the Lost writers at times fall a little too in love with him. In last night's ep, the focus was squarely on Ben, and I think some of my frustration with him is that he's been given SO many layers as a character, yet we still have no real idea what his actual deal is. To compare to another great sci-fi TV villain, look at the Cigarette Smoking Man of X-Files fame. In episodes like "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man," we got a ton of insight into the character that made him much more than simply a cookie cutter badguy ... but still, when push came to shove, he was a villain through and through. With Ben, there seems to be this whole notion that he is in fact on the side of the angels, and the writers on Lost now tend to emphasize this idea that, hey, maybe Ben's been fighting the good fight all along, and it's Whidmore and the others who are the real big bads. The problem with that is: Ben is clearly evil. In this episode, he LETS HIS OWN ADOPTIVE daughter die. So who could argue with Sawyer when he suggests that they just leave Ben to the wolves? I guess my only point is that Ben is long past the point of moral ambiguity, so let's stop pretending that his great master plan is somehow well-intentioned. The dude's stone-cold evil.

Anyways ... all that being said, it was a totally riveting hour of Lost last night. The island invasion by Whidmore's crew was action-packed and intense. Who didn't love the redshirts being knocked off one by one as Sawyer tried to warn them to stay back? The entire siege on Locke's compund was pretty riveting stuff, and it culminated in a nail-biting stand-off between Ben and Badass Whidmore Dude, that went against convention, or "the rules" as Ben stated, if you want to get meta about it, and saw the hostage actually gunned down, Ben's bluff called, and poor Alex a goner. A great, tragic scene, to be sure.

My one question -- the lead Whidmore attacker was the same guy we had seen on the boat with Sayid earlier, right? So, um, how did he get off the boat again? Did I miss something here? Anyone?

Otherwise, the flash-forwards with Ben tracking down Sayid (... and teleporting?!? What's what about?) were interesting. Apparently Ben now has combat skills equal to those of Jack Bauer, but hey I guess that's par for the course when you're an evil mastermind. I'm still a bit confused about the exact nature of time on the island - ie why was Ben confused about what year it was when he got to the mainland? And I also thought Sayid was a bit too hasty in joining with Ben on his quest, especially since Sayid is typically an "I demand answers" type of guy.

Still, any complaints had to have been somewhat negated by the awesomeness of the Smoke Monster devouring all of Whidmore's men at Ben's behest. And then Locke, nonplussed, admonishing Ben for saying that he didn't know what the monster was - nice. Finally, that last flash-forward scene with the bedside chat between Locke and Whidmore - very cool. Sure, it raised a lot of questions, but all of them are pretty darn intriguing. When Widmore said he knows who Ben is - what did he mean? What were "the rules" as Ben and Whidmore had agreed to them? And you have to wonder ... where is Penelope and/or Desmond in the flash-forward timeline? Might both be on the island, setting up a weird symbiosis in Ben and Whidmores' quests (Whidmore's looking for the island, Ben's looking for Penelope).

So yeah, I was at times a bit frustrated with the ep ... but, overall? This was an exciting, action-packed episode with some amazing bits of character, plot, and a lot of steam going into next week. Welcome back, Lost.

My Grade: A -

SMALLVILLE:

- Again, a pretty decent episode of Smallville that was hampered by the show's typical lazy writing. Chloe - is there anything she can't do? After making the point that she would have to up her computer-hacking game in order to make her way into top-secret NSA computer systems ... Chloe promptly breaches US government security and hijacks spy sattelites. Umm ... okay? Overall, this was a fun little episode that pitted Jimmy against Chloe in a kind of Mr. and Mrs. Smith riff. But after last week's grand plotting and epic fall of Lex, it seemed like the reset button was hit a bit this week, and things seemed to revert back to business as usual. This holds especially true with Lex - I was surprised to see the spotlight shift so far away from him after such a bigtime episode last week. So basically, while the focus on Jimmy was fun, it did have the air of being Filler en route to some big stuff that looks to be coming in the next few weeks. But geez, let's get to the good stuff already! They totally had me intrigued at episode's end, with the prospect of Clark visiting Krypton by means of time-travel. Now, next week looks to be yet another "what-if" type scenario, aka more filler. Come on, give us some epic ACTION already!Jimmy Olsen: secret agent is semi-entertaining, but I think Smallville fans are collectively dyin' for business to pick up.

My Grade: B

- Alright, that's it for now ... looking forward to a weekend that will hopefully include some rest, relaxation, and come Sunday night, some BREAD!