Family Guy makes me laugh, but I’m not, like, proud of that. It’s just a machine to make dumb jokes with. American Dad, surprisingly, considering how much I hated it when it started, is actually really interesting. Because it’s not as married to the constant-gag format of Family Guy, they’re actually able to do some interesting narrative explorations with it.

Anyway, after a slow-ish start American Dad has really picked up, it is really good now, and don’t be put off my the seemingly generic characters (that’s sort of an in-joke anyway).

My gf recently got me watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” which I’ve grown to enjoy. As for cartoons there’s a new American one coming out on the FX channel called Archer that I’m interested in seeing, Family Guy reached its peak in seasons 3-4 and the Cleveland show is just too horrible to mention. I’m not a snob when it comes to tv, but I was very strained watching it whereas regular family guy is a pleasant experience to me normally.

With Flight of the Conchords the final episode of season 2 felt a little cobbled together and an unsatisfactory ending, especially now that they’ve announced they won’t be coming back for a 3rd season.

Community I’m not really sold on, after the pilot. I don’t like anyone. Should I like someone?

And keep in mind we’re talking about what I would consider the show’s good character here. A show filled with characters of Stewie’s caliber would be a good show. My issue is with the rest of the completely one-note characters (Brian being the other notable exception), the overbearing “this pop culture reference exists!” gimmick, and the pervasive sense that the show’s creators have run out of ideas.

I wouldn’t call him repressed…

Alternate Joke: Eh, I avoided V. TV adaptations of Thomas Pynchon novels are never good. Except Gravity’s Rainbow Brite.

I will stop stretching this metaphor now.

The Family Guy guy has exhausted all his good ideas. Many times over. And most of his good ideas — i.e. the ones that cannot simply be filed under “Stewie” — were “copy this bit from South Park/early Simpsons.” (The ones that CAN be filed under “Stewie,” by the way, are mostly “copy this bit from Pinky and the Brain.”)

I didn’t talk about Modern Family, because I’ve only seen one or two intercommercial segments, both with the gay couple. I will say, though, that I really liked the gay couple. They actually feel like folks who are matter-of-factly in love and living together. Routines and trust bleed through. Credit to writing and performance.

To Everyone Else
And so can you! I humbly recommend you do.

Dante – I did actually get into Burn Notice after it was recommended in comments here previously. It’s great! I love the improvisational espionage tips, it’s like the how-to video I would have most liked to see in school. Seems I’m behind with it, though, will catch up.

Ditto Entourage, I’m a fan but I seem to have missed the last two. Usually the lives of the rich and famous are insufferably whiny with no cause to be. I like Entourage because most of the time, they’re all really happy and making the most of their good fortune.

I heartily recommend it to anyone. It’s not comedy though, it’s really quite dark grown-up drama.

“Breaking Bad follows a completely average man named Walter White in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Walter teaches High School chemistry, has a pregnant wife and a crippled son; he is also diagnosed with terminal lung cancer despite never smoking a day in his life. Given only three years to live, Walter decides to use his knowledge of chemistry to produce and sell methamphetamine so he can have his family be financially secure after he dies.”

It’s apparently up to Season 3 now, but you can’t even buy the second over here in the UK.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, new Season of the excellent Mad Men coming out soon here (on BBC 4, 21st of January).

Flashforward – Interesting concept, after several bad episodes, its really improved. About the what if situation of everyone in the world seeing the future and blacking out for 2 minutes, all at the same time.

V – Another interesting concept, friendly aliens arrive to help humanity, but are actually EVIL LIZARD MEN. FBI agent and a priest try to organise a resistance against the slick, smooth-talking alien front.

Community – Hilarious comedy about a community college, and a wise-ass lawyer forced to learn spanish. Most episodes follow him trying to cope with his new circumstances and the somewhat crazy people around him.

Also, on the topic of not good TV, is it just me, or has Scrubs been getting succesively worse since series 6?

@Dante: How did I forget House?

I have of course seen some episodes of Castle. My judgment of anything involving Nathan Fillion is unavoidably biased, but I do like it and I do notice that I like people who aren’t Castle. More them than him, actually; Castle’s great, but his daughter and his mom are both completely delightful, the kind of characters and performances that always leave you wanting more time with them. I would single out his detective partner as the only weak point in the show – the actress is doing an excellent job with what she’s given, but the writing often seems to lack the respect accorded to everyone else.

Cleveland is precisely, down to the nth decimal place, More Family Guy, minus Stewie and Brian. Take that as you will.

I’ve seen one episode of Entourage, and it’s like my experience with Bjork only more so: I don’t really remember what happened, but I remember that I generally enjoyed it. What I do remember is that one of the guys’ house had been broken into, leading him to buy a gun and accidentally shoot up the house, and one of the guys got assigned to acquire a guest-starring Bob Saget’s talent contract, in exchange for which Bob Saget demanded the right to have sex in the company president’s office. Summary impression: Callous, overprivileged but weirdly sympathetic people repeatedly establish that they deserve to suffer, then suffer mildly.

Plumberduck, I have to make sure you also know about Andy Barker, PI – another Andy Richter production starring Andy Richter, and from the two episodes I’ve seen so far another excellent but short-lived piece of work. It’s – er – a police procedural starring a non-cop etc., in this case an accountant. There is also a chase scene in golf carts on a golf course.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia had a good season. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically Seinfeld is everyone was Chaotic Evil. There was a point a while ago where the show was sort of in a dilemma over whether the characters were realistic scumbags or cartoonishly monstrous, evil people, but the latest season has really embraced the latter, which is fun.

The Venture Brothers, on Adult Swim in the States, has also been fantastic this last season. It’s amazing the level of humor and emotion you can mine out of the basic premise “Johnny Quest grows up, becomes a failure, has two extremely annoying Boy Adventurer sons”.

It’s a sitcom set at a community college. Stars Joel McHale from “The Soup” as Jeff Winger, an amoral attorney who, as it turns out, did not have a degree. To quote the first episode:

“I thought you said you had a degree from Columbia!”
“And now I need to get one in America.”

In an attempt to get into the pants of a woman in his Spanish class, Winger forms a “study group”. Unfortunately for him, people attend.

And sheer inertia keeps them together.

The whole cast is frequently very amusing, including Chevy Chase as Pierce Hawthorn, the elderly, racist, sexist, arrogant, somewhat insane moist towelette tycoon.

The show is self aware and fairly witty, keeps up a good pace of jokes, and generally nears 30 Rock levels of quality.

Good things I’ve watched recently not mentioned:

Burn Notice – Flashy spy show that keeps on improving, lovely use of voiceover to illustrate clever little bits of spy tradecraft.

Leverage – Kind of like a US version of Hustle, but with a really strong and funny ensemble cast and some really clever cons.

House – I thought House was really starting to get old last season, but the new series (especially the amazing opening episode) have really started to stir things up and tinker with the classic formula.

Also, what is Community? I’ve seen comercials for something that has a similer name on Discovery Channel, but it can’t be that because its a reality show about pretending its the apocolypse or something.

And Community is excellent, if only for Chevy Chase’s character’s barely concealed racism.

“I’m good with my fists, Abed (Asian guy) probably knows martial arts, and Troy (the black guy); you’re probably good with a switchblade.”

If person Y is who I think person Y is, and not the fellow with the unhappy thing happening a bit ago.

But it does not matter. As I seen Better Off Ted. And it is one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a while. Worth a look for sure. Very post-Arrested Development. Very, very awesome.

The rest I’ve not seen.

Bret: yeah, just caught it. WHAT. I wonder if there were any clues to that before now? I can’t even begin to imagine how it’s going to make sense.

And Dollhouse?

Yeah. The guy who plays Victor, Enver Gjokaj, is scary good. I think he’ll go far.

Caught the latest episode, by the way? Twisty.